Monthly Archives: November 2007

JRC Construction Diary #26

Posted on November 16, 2007 | Leave a comment

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We can safely say construction has entered the “home stretch” phase (not a technical term). As you can see from the pic above, the south side exterior is almost complete. The glass on the curtainwall should be installed in the next week or two. The pic below offers a close up view of the gabion fences which run along the south and east side of the building. The fence on the front of the building is approximately four feet tall and filled with pieces of brick, stone and other material from other buildings that were recently demolished. This material would typically go into a landfill and has been reclaimed to be used in our fences. (In the original building plan, gabion was to be used for the entire exterior shell. In the end, we opted for reclaimed cypress instead.)

The next two pix down show our building’s white reflective roof. Most homes and buildings in America, in fact, are built with dark roofs that absorb heat, forcing air conditioners to work up to 20% longer and use a fifth more power. JRC’s reflective roof will help our air conditioning system to work more efficiently, especially during peak usage hours. The small domed items on the second pic down are Solartube skylights that will let natural light into our kitchen.

The second pic from the bottom shows the interior of one classroom and the final shot shows the new sidewalk across the street from our building. We will be working on the remaining sidewalks around the property over the next couple of weeks.

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Posted in Energy Efficiency, Environmentalism, JRC Construction Diaries, Religion

Stones and Dreams

Posted on November 16, 2007 | 1 Comment

stones.jpgFrom this week’s Torah portion, Parashat Vayetzei:

Jacob left Be’ersheva and set out for Haran. He came upon a certain place and stopped there for the night, for the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of that place, he placed it under his head and lay down in that place. He had a dream… (Genesis 28:10)

“Temporary Poem of My Time” by Yehuda Amichai (translated from Hebrew by Barbara and Benjamin Harshav):

Hebrew writing and Arabic writing go from east to west,
Latin writing, from west to east.
Languages are like cats:
You must not stroke their hair the wrong way.
The clouds come from the sea, the hot wind from the desert,
the trees bend in the wind,
and stones fly from all four winds,
into all four winds. They throw stones,
throw this land, one at the other,
but the land always falls back to the land.
They throw the land, but you can’t get rid of it.
Its stones, its soil, but you can’t get rid of it.

They throw stones, throw stones at me
in 1936, 1938, 1948, 1988,
Semites throw stones at Semites and ant-Semites at anti-Semites,
evil men throw and just men throw,
sinners throw and tempters throw,
geologists throw and theologists throw,
archaeologists throw and archhooligans throw,
kidneys throw stones and gall bladders throw,
head stones and forehead stones and the heart of a stone,
stones shaped like a screaming mouth
and stones fitting your eyes
like a pair of glasses,
the past throws stones at the future,
and all of them fall on the present.
Weeping stones and laughing gravel stones,
even God in the Bible threw stones,
even the Urim and Tumim were thrown
and got stuck in the breastplate of justice,
and Herod threw stones and what came out was a Temple.

Oh the poem of stone sadness
Oh the poem thrown on the stones
Oh the poem of thrown stones.
Is there in this land
a stone that was never thrown
and never built and never overturned
and never uncovered and never discovered
and never screamed from a wall and never discarded by the builders
and never closed on top of a grave and never lay under lovers
and never turned into a cornerstone?

Please do not throw any more stones,
you are moving the land,
the holy, whole. open land,
you are moving it to the sea
and the sea doesn’t want it
the sea says, not in me.

Please throw little stones,
throw snail fossils, throw gravel,
justice or injustice from the quarries of Migdal Tzedek,
throw soft stones, throw sweet clods,
throw limestone, throw clay,
throw sand of the seashore,
throw dust of the desert, throw rust,
throw soil, throw wind,
throw air, throw nothing
until your hands are weary
and the war is weary
and even peace will be weary and will be.

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Posted in Israel, Judaism, Palestine, Peace, Poetry, Religion, Torah Commentary

Emergency in Tabasco

Posted on November 13, 2007 | 1 Comment

An enormous humanitarian crisis continues to unfold south of the border. Since the beginning of November, the state of Tabasco, Mexico has been hit by widespread flooding due to steady rains – currently, more than 80% of the state is completely flooded, leaving thousands homeless.

Recent reports from the Red Cross indicate:

- The evacuation phase of the operation has ceased

- Over 1 million people have been affected in Tasbsco and neighboring state, Chiapas

- Mexican officials estimate it will be another two to three weeks before water levels recede

- An estimated 70 percent of Tabasco’s capital city, Villahermosa, remains under water

- An estimated 80,000 people remain in 365 official and unofficial shelters

- The flood has resulted in widespread destruction of homes, building, infrastructure, agricultural crops and livestock.

True to form, the mainstream media briefly glanced in the direction of Tabasco before resuming their coverage of Britney, Paris and OJ. Meanwhile the crisis has been growing to tragic truly proportions. (The immense scale of this disaster can be clearly viewed in the clip above.)

For in-depth information, check out this post from the blog, Global Voices. To contribute to ongoing relief efforts, click here.

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Posted in Current Events, Global Activism, International Aid

Interfaith Peace Initiative

Posted on November 11, 2007 | 1 Comment

250px-religionsymbolabr.pngHeartening news from last week: high ranking religious leaders from Israel and Palestine have created a Middle East peace initiative to “prevent religion from being used as a source of conflict” and to promote “just and comprehensive peace and reconciliation.”

Members of the Council of Religious Institutions of the Holy Land released a joint statement that lists six concrete steps they plan to take, including establishment of a hot line to connect its members and efforts to foster mutual respect between religions.

Jewish members of this initiative included the chief Sephardic and Ashkenazic Rabbis of Israel. Among the Christian participants were Patriarchs of the Greek Orthodox and Latin patriarchates and the Bishop of the Anglican Church in Jerusalem. Muslim participants included the supreme judge of the Palestinian Shariah Courts and the deputy minister of Waqf and religious affairs for the Palestinian Authority.

For a full news report, click here.

Here’s the full text of their statement:

All of us believe in one Creator and Guide of the Universe. We believe that the essence of religion is to worship Him and respect the life and dignity of all human beings, regardless of religion, nationality and gender.

We accordingly commit ourselves to using our positions of leadership, and the influence of our good offices, to advance these sacred values, to prevent religion from being used as a source of conflict, and instead serve the goals of just and comprehensive peace and reconciliation.

Our respective Holy Places have become a major element in our conflict. We lament that this is the case, as our respective attachments to our holy places should not be a cause of bloodshed, let alone be sites of violence or other expressions of hatred. Holy places must remain dedicated to prayer and worship only, places where believers have free access and put themselves in the presence of the Creator. Holy places are there for believers to draw inspiration to strengthen their acceptance and love of Almighty and all His creatures, from all religions and all nationalities.

Accordingly each religious community should treat the Holy Sites of the other faiths in a manner that respects their integrity and independence and avoids any act of desecration, aggression or harm.

We, believers from three religions, have been placed in this land, Jews, Christians and Muslims. It is our responsibility to find the right way to live together in peace rather than to fight and kill one other. Palestinians yearn for the end to occupation and for what they see as their inalienable rights. Israelis long for the day when they can live in personal and national security. Together we must find ways of reaching these goals.

Towards these ends we are actively working to:

1. Establish “hot line” procedures of rapid communication among ourselves in order to address and advise government officials regarding issues of protection of and access to Holy Sites before such issues become cause for conflict.

2. Establish mechanisms to monitor media for derogatory representations of any religion, and issue statements in response to such representations.

3. Together reflect on the future of Jerusalem, support the designation of the Old City of Jerusalem as a World Heritage Site, work to secure open access to the Old City for all communities, and seek a common vision for this city which all of us regard as holy.

4. Promote education for mutual respect and acceptance in schools and in the media. We will sponsor a conference for Israeli and Palestinian educators, academics and Ministers of Education on “The Role of Religion in Educating for Peace: Principles and Practices.”

5. Demonstrate through our relations that difference can and should be addressed through dialogue rather than through violence, and strive to bring this message to our respective communities and political leaders that they may embrace this approach accordingly.

6. Provide ongoing consultation to our government leaders, and through the example of our work together remind them that the interests of one community can only be served by also respecting and valuing the humanity and interests of all other communities.

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Posted in Interfaith, Israel, Nonviolence, Palestine, Peace, Religion

Digging Deep

Posted on November 9, 2007 | 3 Comments

well.jpgFrom this week’s Torah portion, Toldot:

Isaac dug anew the wells which had been dug in the days of his father Abraham and which the Philistines had stopped up after Abraham’s death; and he gave them the same names that his father had given them.

But when Isaac’s servants, digging in the wadi, found there a well of spring water, the herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with Isaac’s herdsmen, saying, “The water is ours.” He named that well Esek, because they contended with him. And when they dug another well, they disputed over that one also; so he named it Sitnah.

He moved from there and dug yet another well, and they did not quarrel over it; so he called it Rehovot, saying “Now at last the Lord has granted us ample space to increase in the land.” (Genesis 26:18-22)

Isaac, who for so much of Genesis exists largely in the shadow of his father, Abraham, finally comes into his own in this week’s Torah portion. Witness his re-digging of his father’s wells (which Abraham had dug in Genesis 21:25-30). The text makes a point of telling us that Isaac assigns them the same names his father had given them. But when the time comes for Isaac to establish his own wells, the text pointedly tells us that he names them himself.

Peter Pitzele, in his book “Our Father’s Wells, points to the mythic power of Isaac’s act; it is only after Isaac re-digs his father’s wells is he is finally able to create a legacy of his own:

This enterprise of redigging his father’s wells is the sum total of the work of Isaac’s maturity; yet there is something important enough in it to earn him the place as the second patriarch. In his sonship some myth is being constructed that hallows and sanctifies his labor. (p. 149)

Wells and water, of course, are richly symbolic images; in many spiritual traditions the act of digging wells represents the active inner search for the divine. In this regard, they might be viewed as internal rather than (the more customary) external spiritual metaphors. According to Rabbi Art Green:

Let us think of the journey to God as a journey inward, where the goal is an ultimately deep level within the self rather than the top of the mountain or a ride in the clouds. The Torah tells us that our earliest ancestors were diggers of wells. Let us try to reach for the understanding that flowed as water from the depths of Abraham’s well, rather, for the moment than the one that came down in stone from the top of Moses’ mountain. This journey inward would be one that peels off layer after layer of externals, striving ever for the inward truth, rather than one that consists of climbing rung after rung, reaching ever and ever higher. Spiritual growth, in this metaphor, is a matter of uncovering new depths rather than attaining new heights. Perhaps we could even try to think of Torah itself as having been given at the deepest level of inner encounter, rather than from the top of the highest mountain, the mountain serving as a vertical metaphor for an inward event. (From “Seek My Face, Speak my Name,” p. 12)

Post Script: These verses also impart an undeniable lesson about the difficult, often painful work of conflict resolution. Note that Isaac when Isaac is faced with conflict over the digging of one well, he refuses to”dig in” – he moves on repeatedly to another site until he finds a well that gives his servants and the herdsmen of Gerar “ample space in the land.”

In other words, when one attempt at a solution does not succeed, we must ever be open to alternative and creative approaches. When faced with conflict, we must never cease in our efforts to seek out new places to “dig our wells.”

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Posted in Coexistence, Judaism, Peace, Religion, Spirituality, Torah Commentary

Offering Reconciliation

Posted on November 5, 2007 | Leave a comment

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I had the very good fortune yesterday to attend the final day of “Offering Reconciliation,”an art exhibit sponsored by The Parent’s Circle/Bereaved Families Forum – an important Israeli-Palestinian coexistence organization of which I have written before on this blog.

This exhibit, which has traveled extensively around the US and has been been shown at the World Bank and the UN, consists of 135 works of art created by prominent Palestinian and Israeli painters, sculptors, photographers and poets, offering their interpretations of reconciliation and hope for peace in the region. Starting from an initial model, a clay bowl called the “Bowl of Reconciliation,” these artists have created their own unique versions. The pieces represent the ideas of reconciliation, coexistence, pain, loss, fracture and fusion in amazingly different ways.

33498368.jpgThe bowls have gradually been auctioned off during the course of the exhibit and only a few remained on this final day. Inevitably, I fell in love with one and snapped it up for JRC. That’s it in the picture above, an exquisite piece entitled “Free-Dam” by Israeli photographer Tami Porat.

JRC members joined others who were walked through the exhibit by two members of the Parent’s Circle: Israeli Robi Damelin and Palestinian Ali Abu Awwad, both of whom have lost loved ones to Mideast violence. Robi and Ali (at right) now tour extensively with the Parent’s Circle to spread the message of non-violence and reconciliation. By the way, both of them are featured prominently the incredible documentary “Encounter Point” (a film I recommend you see right away…)

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Posted in Art, Coexistence, Israel, Palestine, Peace

Zeek on JRC

Posted on November 4, 2007 | 4 Comments

img_3810.jpgThere have now been several articles written about JRC’s new green synagogue facility, but none as eloquent or profound as this new piece in the November 07 issue of Zeek entitled “Sacred Spaces: Reimagining the Tabernacle in the Context of America’s First Green Synagogue.”

Written by Maya Schenwar, a young journalist who grew up at JRC, her article is a thorough exploration of the meaning of Jewish sacred space, using our current construction effort as a model:

The green synagogue, imbued with the values of conservation, simplicity, and faith, not only accomplishes a very practical, physical mitzvah—doing as little harm to the environment as possible—but it also points to a reconceptualization of sacred space.

How gratifying that someone truly understands the deeper meaning of this work! In the end, it’s not really about reclaimed cypress and LEED points – it’s ultimately about living mindfully and connecting with the sacred…

(By the way, if you haven’t added Zeek to your bookmark list, you should consider doing so. I’ve long been an devoted reader of this “Jewish Journal of Thought and Culture,” which I’d say is among the best of the new Jewish journalism.)

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Posted in Energy Efficiency, Environmentalism, Green Buildings, Judaism, Religion, Spirituality

Love and Death

Posted on November 2, 2007 | 1 Comment

stones_on_gravestone.jpgMany commentators have noted the irony that this week’s Torah Portion, Hayyei Sarah, literally means “The Life of Sarah,” when in fact it opens with a depiction of her passing. Indeed, Hayyei Sarah – perhaps more than any other portion – is indelibly informed by the theme of life and death. In particular, our portion is particularly poignant in its description of the profound duty of the living to the dead – and the ways in which life inevitably continues in the wake of ultimate loss.

How do we live after the death of someone we love?

By acting with honor and loyalty…

Then Abraham rose from beside his dead, and spoke to the Hittites, saying, “I am a resident alien among you: sell me a burial site among you, that I may remove my dead for burial.” (Genesis 23:3-4)

By providing for our future:

Abraham answered him…”The Lord of heaven, who took me from my father’s house and from my native land, who promised me an oath, saying, ‘I will assign this land to your offspring’ – He will send His angel before you and you will get a wife for my son.” (Genesis 24:6-7)

Through the eternal possibility of love:

Isaac then brought her into the tent of his mother Sarah, and he took Rebecca as his wife. Isaac loved her, and thus found comfort after his mother’s death. (Genesis 24:67)

Through reconciliation, forgiveness and peace:

And Abraham breathed his last, dying at a good ripe age, old and contented; and he was gathered to his kin. His sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah… (Genesis 25:8-9)

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Posted in Judaism, Religion, Spirituality, Torah Commentary