Source: Economic Policy Institute, The State of Working America 2011

Three years ago, I traveled with several JRC members and nearly 1,500 others to Postville, Iowa. We went to show our solidarity with 400 immigrant workers of the Agriprocessor kosher meat packing plant who had recently been arrested and imprisoned. It was, at the time, the largest single-site workplace raid in US history.

After participating in an interfaith service, we marched through the streets of Postville. As we reached the downtown area, we met up with angry counter-protestors, many of whom were holding signs condemning the invasion of “illegal immigrants” into their communities. One woman held a large sign that still sticks in my mind – it read: “What Would Jesus Do? Obey the Law.” I distinctly remember pointing out the irony of this sign to a fellow marcher, considering Jesus is actually considered to be one of the earliest practitioners of civil disobedience.

Now, I certainly don’t believe there’s anything inherently wrong when people of faith invoke religion to support their political positions.  From the prophets to Martin Luther King, faith has played a powerful and important role inspiring movements of political transformation.

But on that day in Postville, I was reminded that religion generally works best as a force for social good when it is leveraged on behalf of the the vulnerable and the oppressed.  But when those in power use faith as a justification for their oppression of the weak – frankly, that’s when we tend to witness religion at its worst.

To put it in the most basic terms, I’d say religion and politics mix well when they are used for the purposes of liberation. When they are used on behalf of empire – when they are wielded in what my Christian colleagues might call a “Constantinian” fashion – religion and politics generally tend to make for a pretty fatal mixture.

That’s why I reacted so instinctively when I saw that sign in Postville. “What Would Jesus Do? Obey the Law.” Really?  Even if those laws are oppressive?  Even if those laws are enacted by an all-powerful empire and wielded as a weapon against the weak?  Now I’m not a Christian theologian, but I was always led to believe this was exactly the kind of thing that used to drive Jesus nuts.

However you might choose to read your Bible, this much is fairly clear to me: if our religious tradition teaches us anything useful at all about laws, it’s that we need them to safeguard the well-being of the poor, the stranger, the widow the orphan. For their sake and ours, we are obliged to use the rule of law on behalf of the weakest – to protect those who are most at risk in our community.

I mention this because I strongly believe there has been a growing backlash against these kinds of laws in our country over the past few decades.  Government’s role in creating a stable foundation for the most vulnerable is currently under vicious political attack. And I’m very sad to see this political backlash supported by growing religious rhetoric.

Indeed, politicians, clergy and pundits, are increasingly invoking God when they attack the role of government. They preach that the real evil in our midst is “Big Government,” that higher taxes are immoral. The mere suggestion that society has a responsibility to ensure a more equitable distribution of wealth  – well, this simply represents secular, godless (or God forbid) “socialist” values.

Now that the 2012 campaign is gearing up, this religious rhetoric is entering our political discourse in some pretty surreal ways. Recently, for example, Michelle Bachmann responded to Hurricane Irene by saying it was God’s warning to Washington to rein in taxes and runaway spending.  And not long ago. Texas governor Rick Perry gave an ersatz Dvar Torah in which he compared the government to Pharaoh, claiming that we’ve all “become slaves to the government.”

One of the most popular financial gurus in the country, a Christian fundamentalist named Dave Ramsey, preaches the same sort of gospel.  His signature advice to his followers is to handle money “God’s way.” What would it mean for our country to run its economy “God’s way?” According to Ramsey, God’s ways would not include Social Security, since God would not want to invest for the long-term at such a modest rate of return. God’s ways also don’t include progressive taxation, since God desires us to emulate the habits of the wealthy. And God’s ways certainly do not mean creating government programs to protect the vulnerable, since God commands people to help themselves.

Now I know we’re tempted to chuckle when we hear this kind of stuff. But lest you think these views only reflect the feelings of a radical few, you should know that these kinds of religious ideas are finding traction – and they are growing increasingly popular.  According to a just-released study by Baylor University,  approximately one in five Americans believe that God opposes government regulation and champions the free market.  As one researcher put it, there is a significant demographic that actually believes “the invisible hand of the free market is really God at work.”

There are so many things that trouble me about these kinds of religious ideas – but I think what troubles me the most is their inherent moral insensitivity. For me, saying “God helps those who help themselves” is just a theological version of “the poor and the hungry will just have to fend for themselves.”

So I’ll go out on a limb here and say that big government is not our enemy. On the contrary, I’d say it is our central religious imperative.  In fact, I think that those who bash big government have got it backward.  The real religious issue here is not that our government is oppressing American citizens or that we need to minimize its role in our lives.

No, if there is one critical religious and moral concern facing our national community – the concern that frankly we should be shouting from the rooftops – it’s that the US, the wealthiest nation in the world, has the greatest wealth inequity of any Western industrialized nation.  It’s that the top 1 percent of the households in our country hold 40 percent of our country’s wealth.  It’s that government as enacted laws that enable the rich to get richer while the laws that protect the poor are slowly but surely being dismantled.

Along these lines, I’d add that our religious concern should be aroused by the fact that the number of people currently living below the poverty line is almost 47 million – the highest level ever recorded by the Census Bureau. Or the fact that in the world’s wealthiest nation, one in four children under the age of six live in poverty. That 33 million adults and 17.2 million children live in food insecure households.  And of course,  it’s the fact that these numbers all across the board are significantly higher for people of color.

Now, I know there are many in the religious community who do share these concerns and who work tirelessly to alleviate them.  People of faith make up a large percentage of those in the trenches – and they know better than anyone the real spiritual concerns facing poor and middle class Americans today.

But for too many reasons, these concerns have not been politically mobilized. They are being drowned out by a louder religious voice in our political culture – one that attacks the role of government and insists that the best way we can help the poor and the unemployed is to insist, in essence, that “God will provide.”

And that’s a real shame, because one of the ethical  glories of Biblical tradition – a tradition that is shared by Christians, Jews and Muslims alike – are the myriad of commandments that demand society distribute its wealth equitably – so that the most vulnerable among us may never slip through the cracks.

So, my friends, it’s time for a little Torah study. I’d like to try something that in today’s cultural climate might be considered sacrilegious. I’d like to make the religious case for big government.

Let’s start with Deuteronomy 15:11 – one of the Torah’s most famous teachings on economic justice:

The poor will never cease from the land, which is why I command you: open your hand to the poor and needy kinsman in your land.

At the heart of this commandment is a profound challenge. For whatever reason, the world is a broken place. Economic inequity will forever be a constant for society – and so we are told we must never accommodate it at face value.  We are bidden to take responsibility for the poor in our midst and consistently do what we must to alleviate their burdens because they will always be among us.

It’s also interesting that the commandment “open your hand to the poor” is written in the singular – like most of the laws in Deuteronomy.  As such, it commands each and every one of us, as individuals, to honor the value of tzedakah.

But at the same time, God commands these laws to the nation as a whole. Economic justice is at once an individual and a collective responsibility. In other words, individual charity is desired and important, but it is not enough. At the end of the day, the Bible views the creation of economic equity as a communal obligation as well.

Another famous example of this comes in the book of Leviticus, where the Israelites are subjected to what might be called significant “government regulation.” Indeed, those who use religion to bash big government might be surprised to discover that the Bible contains a commandment that all Israelite farmers must leave the corners of their fields unharvested so the poor and the stranger may glean from them. And they’d probably be appalled to learn that every fiftieth year, on the Jubilee Year, all land reverts back to its original owners and all debts are automatically forgiven.

And when it comes to taxes, the Bible makes no bones about it: “thou shalt pay.” Far from being a necessary evil, paying tax is viewed as a sacred obligation. Examples of taxes abound in the Torah: the Israelites are commanded to pay a 10% tithe for the poor, a tithe for the Levites, offerings for the priests and a flat shekel tax for communal sacrifices.

Neither does this kind of anti-government, anti-tax mentality exist in any meaningful way in Jewish tradition itself.  On the contrary, in a classic line from Pirke Avot (3:2), Rabbi Hanina teaches,

Pray for the well-being of the government; for were it not for fear of it, each person would swallow the other alive.

Jewish law has little specific to say about the government redistribution of wealth, since when halachah developed Jews were living exclusively under the rule of foreign governments.  However, the Rabbis made a point of ruling that Jews are obligated to pay taxes imposed by the governments under which they lived unless they were patently unjust. The ruling stems from the famous Talmudic principle, “Dina d’malkhuta dina.” (Bava Kamma 113a)  Literally, “the law of the land is the law.”

In general, the rabbis created a system in which the rule of law ensured a society of equity and economic justice.  This is not to say they advocate “class warfare” (to use a term being bandied about a lot these days). Equity means ensuring the protection at of the weak, without compromising the welfare of the strong. In her book “There Shall Be No Needy,” my colleague and friend Rabbi Jill Jacobs, sums this idea up well:

(Jewish Law) aims to mitigate inequity so as to prevent one person from exploiting or degrading another. It tends to favor and protect the more vulnerable party, while still looking out for the well-being of the more powerful one. Thus the law prevents selling needed medicines for more than the going rate, while also allowing doctors to accept money for their work; permits workers to leave in the middle of the day, while also limiting this permission when the labor market is tight and the crops are in danger of spoiling; and prevents a landlord from evicting a tenant suddenly, while also allowing the lease to be broken if the landlord loses his or her own home. When the balance tilts too far to one side, the principle of tikkun olam (in its earliest rabbinic manifestation) allows for adjustments to the legal system such that society functions more equitably.

These religious values express a certain essential world view about society and human nature.  At the end of the day, we’re being taught that issues of human poverty and wealth imbalance are too massive – and the stakes simply too high – to be left to individual noblesse oblige.  We are taught to never assume that left to their own devices, those who have will naturally take care of those who don’t.  And it’s downright dangerous to claim that God, working through the divine machinations of the free market, will somehow provide.

This does not mean that markets are bad or that they are immoral. Markets are by nature amoral – sometimes the results of market processes are good and sometime they are bad. That’s why it’s morally dangerous to rely on markets to protect the public good. While markets are incredibly useful and productive institutions, they are only moral insofar as they are structured to act morally. And that’s why we need government as a way to pursue our moral goals – so that we can do the right thing when the market fails to do so.

Past experience has shown us that corporations will not always provide safe working conditions or livable wages, that mortgage brokers will not voluntarily regulate themselves from predatory lending, that private schools cannot ensure that all our children get a decent education, that companies will not clean up their pollution on their own, and that “let the buyer beware” is not going to protect us from dangerous products. No, if we want to real social and economic equity in our country, we must acknowledge – in fact we must champion – the role of government in our national community.

Some might be surprised to know that one of the most eloquent American religious advocates of this point was none other than Dr. Martin Luther King. Most Americans view King primarily as a civil rights leader – but in fact at the end of his life, he was very outspoken against economic injustices in our nation. King wrote and spoke widely against the United States’ economic system for creating a widening gap between the rich and the poor.

To his credit, King understood that racial injustice could not be divorced from the deeper issue of socio-economic justice. To this end he publicly advocated a variety of government programs, including the creation of jobs by government and the institution of a guaranteed annual minimal income.

Of course, today our nation venerates King virtually on the level of a founding father. But as we prepare to unveil the new Martin Luther King memorial in Washington DC, I wonder what King would say about the state of economic justice in our country today. What he would say if he knew that this $120 million monument that was paid for largely through corporate donations – the largest being $10 million from General Motors, which now uses the King memorial in its car commercials?

As our nation celebrates Dr. King’s memory next month, do you think we’ll be prepared to honor his full legacy? To remind ourselves that he spoke passionately about the poor and working men and women, that he urged our government to create new programs and to guarantee a livable income for all American citizens?  And that these values came directly from his Biblically-inspired religious faith?

Now I am not saying that saying we should look to the government to be the answer to all of our problems. Of course a bureaucracy as large as the federal government is bound to be inefficient and wasteful in too many ways. But at the same time, I’d say it’s prejudiced in the extreme to cite inefficiency in order to question an essential function of government itself.

I’m also struck that those who rail against “big government” tend to use this term very, very selectively.  We rarely hear them use this claim, for instance, in reference to hundreds of billions of dollars our government allocates for defense spending – which include the maintenance of hundreds of military garrisons all over the world and the funding of two never-ending wars that a majority Americans believe we should not even be fighting at all.  We rarely hear “big government” directed toward federal laws passed in order to give significant tax breaks to the richest citizens in our country. And we certainly don’t hear conservative politicians and pundits refer to laws that outlaw abortion rights or same sex marriage as “big government.”

No, like everything else in politics, this term is a convenient euphemism. Underneath the slogan, I believe there lies an ideology of radical individualism – a value system that views social safety nets with disdain and believes that wealth will naturally trickle down from the wealthy to the rest of society.

But it’s just not working that way.  The “trickle-downers” tell us that the best way to create jobs and jump start the economy is to get government off the backs of business. For me, the most compelling argument against this theory is to simply take a look around. We’ve had more than three decades of government deregulation and what do we have to show for it? A steadily rising gap between the rich and poor, an increasingly squeezed middle class and ominously rising unemployment.  It’s simply not working.

We’re currently witnessing some encouraging signs that our administration is ready to take on this fight. Last week, Obama unveiled a deficit reduction plan that proposed $1.5 trillion in new taxes on corporations and Americans earning over $250,000 a year. And thanks to the support of Warren Buffet, it also includes a tax on the super-rich.  And sure enough, already the mere suggestion that the rich should pay their fair share is getting slammed by many politicians and pundits as “class warfare.”

Class warfare. It takes some chutzpah to claim that in a nation where the top 1% hold 40% of the wealth, a modest little deficit reduction plan can be called “class warfare.” And anyhow, what’s wrong with a little class warfare?  When the Torah demands that society actively redistribute its wealth, isn’t that class warfare? Don’t we gather around the seder table every year to celebrate what is, after all, class warfare?  When it comes right down to it, isn’t economic justice worth fighting for?

For me, one of the ironies of all this is that while I do believe government has a role to play in ensuring equity, I’m not all that confident that our elected leaders will be the ones to lead the way to this kind of reform. I think one of the hardest lessons of these past two years was that so many of us were inspired by the Obama campaign to believe in the power of the government to effect real social change – only to have these hopes dashed as mere illusions.

To put it bluntly – when it comes to the work of social change, I think we’re placing far too much faith in our political leaders and far too little on ourselves.  I’ll return to what I said at the outset: religion works best as a force for social good when it is invoked on behalf of the the vulnerable and the oppressed – when it speaks truth to power in order to shift power.  Politicians to the left and to the right – no matter how inspiring they may be – are part of the power elite in this country. Who will hold them to account if we do not?

That is what religion at its best has always done – and that is what the faith community desperately needs to do today.  We in the interfaith community share a venerable religious vision that speaks directly to the crises of this country. It’s a religious vision that understands the world is a broken place and that it doesn’t get fixed by itself. A vision that disavows the simplistic faith that “God will provide” and is rooted in the conviction that society can never take the welfare of its weakest citizens for granted.

And we shouldn’t take times such as these for granted.  Alas, we know all too well that these are not merely theoretical issues for any of us.  We all know people who are suffering heartbreaking losses as a result of this horrid economy. There are members of our own congregation – people who are in this sanctuary as I speak to you who have lost their jobs, who have lost their savings, lost their homes.

Many of us are just not used to thinking of ourselves as vulnerable – but as the middle class slowly shrinks in our country, we’re coming to grips with a truly painful reality. That our lives may never really have been on such firm ground after all.  That our children are growing up in a world that is more fragile than we might ever have dreamed.

I know we are all doing what we can to reach out to those in our community who need our support now more than ever. It is times such as these that challenge us to access our highest selves.  But at the same time, I do believe that modern democratic government and its programs are also a reflection of our best selves – our most decent selves.

And if this is truly so, then attempts to drastically cut taxes and shrink the public sector can only serve to diminish our ability to act as responsible moral beings. The more we Americans buy into a vision of government as bad, the more we stand by as this institution is weakened, the more we weaken our ability to redeem our world.

I know you all join me in my prayer that this be a better year – a year of dignity and prosperity for all. For us, for our loved ones, for those we don’t know personally but whose humanity is ours and for whose welfare we are ultimately responsible.

May we do what we can, what we must to create a fair and equitable world in our day – and may we bequeath future of genuine hope to our children.

Amen.

From the NY Times:

Much of the Horn of Africa, which includes Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Djibouti, has been struck this summer by one of the worst droughts in 60 years. But two Shabab-controlled parts of southern Somalia are the only areas where the United Nations has declared a famine, using scientific criteria of death and malnutrition rates.

I commend to you this report from Charity Navigator, which includes essential information about this tragic, urgent crisis along with the highest rated orgs currently doing relief work in the region.

Repair the World, has just released “Volunteering+Values,” a report commissioned  “to understand the full extent of Jewish young adults’ volunteer habits and preferences.”  I’d say its findings/recommendations contain implications that North American Jewish communal institutions would do well to heed.

Conducted by the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies at Brandeis
University and Gerstein|Agne Strategic Communications, V+V surveyed a sample of Jewish young adults between the ages of 18 and 35 and investigated their volunteer commitments and attitudes.

Among the findings I found notable:

Only a small portion of Jewish young adults prefer to or actually do volunteer with Jewish organizations … The minority of Jewish young adults who volunteer through Jewish organizations do so to support their own people and community. By contrast, the vast majority of Jewish young adults say it does not matter if they volunteer with a Jewish or non-Jewish organization.

Hand in hand with this finding, the report noted a growing universalist identity among Jewish young people:

Jewish young adults are primarily drawn to service through universal rather than Jewish-based values or identity … Only a very small portion of Jewish young adults volunteer as a means to represent the Jewish community to the larger society.

Not surprisingly to me, many Jewish young people seem to be turned off by what they perceive as the overly tribal concerns of the organized Jewish community:

Today’s Jewish young adults have grown up amidst and are at home with ethnic and religious diversity … As a result, most are concerned for all victims of poverty or injustice, not just those who are Jewish. It appears that they do not believe that Jewish organizations share this concern for universal causes.

I was particularly struck that Israel ranked consistently at the bottom of the list of priorities of young Jews. According to one graph, only 1% of those surveyed cited Israel/Middle East Peace as an “issue focus of primary volunteer work” (at the top of the list: “Material Assistance to the Needy.”) Another graph charted the geographic focus of primary volunteer work thus: 79%: Local Community, 13%: Domestic Non-Local, 4%: Developing World, 3%: Israel. (This trend is particularly noteworthy since the primary sample used by V+V was the Birthright applicant pool – a data base of 300,000 young Jews who either participated or applied for a Birthright Israel trip between 2001 and 2010.)

Among the many strategic implications identified by the study, this one resonated for me in particular:

Efforts are needed to educate Jewish young adults of the deep connection between Jewish thought and volunteering without implying that it is an exclusively Jewish perspective or only pertains to support of the Jewish community. Jewish young adults, regardless of denomination or level of religious involvement, should be encouraged to “own” a Jewish perspective on service. Widespread efforts are needed that draw attention to and link the universal and Jewish values that Jewish young adults already hold with the causes about which they care most deeply.

As always, I’d love to hear reactions.

If you want to cut through the morass of misinformation being disseminated about the siege of Gaza, you should read Gaza Gateway – a website created by Gisha – Legal Center for Freedom of Movement.

GG presents essential information on Gaza Strip border crossings by carefully monitoring the amount of traffic that Israel allows to pass through.  They also provide critical background information, such as the amount of goods allowed through relative to the needs of the population of Gaza.

I particularly recommend GG’s latest post – an ironic piece they call “How to Market Gaza as an Israeli Success Story: The Complete Guide.” It was apparently inspired by a recent report by the Government of Israel that summarized Israel’s “humanitarian activities” for the Gaza Strip in 2009/2010.

Here’s a taste:

Take things out of context. When you say that, “41 truckloads of equipment for the maintenance of the electricity networks were transferred”, you do not need to mention that those spare parts were waiting for many months for clearance, and that, at the end of 2009, the Gaza Electricity Distribution Company reported that 240 kinds of spare parts were completely out of stock or had dipped below the required minimum stock. Likewise, “There was a significant increase in the number of international organization staff entering the Gaza Strip” does not require explanation that, were the productive sector in Gaza not almost completely paralyzed, so many aid workers would not be needed and the number of aid recipients would not be so high. You also don’t need to explain that the high number of staff you quote might be misleading, since it’s likely you are counting individual entrances and not unique visitors (the same international aid workers enter and exit multiple times per month).

Demonstrate impartiality. Present the transfer of 44,500 doses of swine flu vaccine as having nothing to do with you. There is always a chance people will forget it is a border-transcending epidemic and that the head of the Gaza District Coordination Office himself said an outbreak in Gaza would endanger Israel.

Make it look like you are paying the bill. Use vague language such as “In 2009, Israel continued to supply electricity to the Gaza Strip”. Count on the fact that most people don’t know that Israel charges full payment for the electricity by deducting the amount from the VAT and taxes it collects for the Palestinian Authority via import into its territory.

And here’s a PS on my last post:

The Associated Students of UC Berkeley met Wednesday evening to debate and vote on whether or not to override their Presidents veto of the divestment resolution. After a marathon nine hour session, the vote came up short. As the evening ended, they voted to table a final vote on the bill. So it’s stay tuned…

The Passover 2010 seder supplements are arriving fast and furious. In my last post I shared my JVP supplement – here are a few more you can download and use to spice up your seder meal:

- The “Moral Voices” initiative of Penn Hillel has published “From Chains to Change” – a supplement that connects the lessons of Pesach to the contemporary scourge of human trafficking;

- Workingman’s Circle’s “10 Modern Plagues” demonstrates how our contemporary bounty is diminished by the suffering of others;

- J Street’s supplement asks “Four More Questions” about the prospects for the peace process in the coming year;

- Tikkun Magazine’s supplement, thoughtful as ever, is so verbose that it could be its own haggadah…

- The new supplement created by American Jewish World Service focuses on disaster relief:  “Dayenu: Supporting the Long Journey from Disaster to Recovery;”

- Jewish Funds for Justice highlights immigration reform with “For We Were Strangers;”

- A print-out placemat from Mazon asks a 5th question: “Why On This Night are Millions of People Going Hungry?”

A zissen Pesach – all the best for a sweet and liberating Passover…

Today was the second monthly fast day for Ta’anit Tzedek – Jewish Fast for Gaza. To mark the occasion, a series of public vigils were held around the country (including one at the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia) and as far away as Glasgow, Scotland. Here in the Chicago area, it was my honor to lead a vigil at the Evanston lakefront with my good friend and colleague, Rabbi Rebecca Lillian. Here we are with some of the participants, below:

Our campaign continues to grow. As of this writing we currently have 627 supporters, including 71 rabbis. I encourage you to join us, if you haven’t already – just click on the link above to become a supporter. We are continuously uploading important articles and resources, so be sure to check in regularly.

Speaking of important resources on the Gaza crisis, I commend to you the new report from Gisha – Legal Center for Freedom of Movement entitled “Red Lines Crossed: Destruction of Gaza’s Infrastructure.” See below for the full report. Click above to watch “Lift the Closure – Give Life a Chance” – a new online film recently released by eight Israeli human rights organizations to mark the two years of closure that Israel has imposed on the Gaza Strip.

I’ve always felt that one of the most valuable things about the New Year is the way it effectively shifts us into a different spiritual gear. Our lives and our world rush forward sometimes at warp speed, and then Rosh Hashanah comes to offer us a chance to slow down, take stock, and hopefully to recapture a sense of order and purpose before we begin again.

That’s not to say it’s easy to do.  Especially in a year such as this. It has been, needless to say, a profoundly eventful year for our country and for the world. It’s been a powerfully eventful year for JRC. And I will confess there have been times these past few weeks when I’ve done my share of time just gazing into my computer screen, unsure of just how or where to start.

Still. as difficult as this can sometimes be, I receive this opportunity as a gift.  I wanted so much tonight to talk about our pretty remarkable year at JRC – and yes, there was just so much to say. But in the end I appreciated the chance to sit back and think about how far we’ve come since we last gathered here together. And as I gave myself more time to put the year into context, little by little, I found myself inevitably returning to certain common denominators, certain common themes.  One word in particular seemed to present itself more than any other.  And that word is sustainability.

Now I know this word is bandied about a great deal these days, in a variety of different contexts. Some might even consider it to be something of a buzzword. But the thing about buzzwords?  Sometimes it’s true, they do reflect temporary fads or the concept du jour if you will. But in some instances the popularity of a particular word might just indicate an idea whose time has come.

So what does it mean when we say that something is “sustainable?” In the most basic formulation it simply means that something has the ability to live and thrive with permanence and continuity without exhausting limited resources. This is a fairly straightforward concept, but in the 21st century it appears to be increasingly difficult for us to grasp.  In the Western world we tend to take our sustainability for granted.  In our country in particular, I believe our power and privilege creates the illusion of permanence – we take for granted that our resources are somehow inexhaustible; that everything upon which we’ve come to depend will somehow be magically sustained on its own accord.

But of course it isn’t so. The earth’s natural resources are not inexhaustible. Nor are the human resources of our communities. Nor are the economic resources of our nation. And if we continue to plunder or exploit any of these impermanent commodities, our wells will eventually run dry. This may seem patently obvious, but if it is, we certainly don’t seem to be getting it. The only way we will sustain the precious but limited resources of our world is if we ourselves take responsibility for their sustenance.  If we understand that their care and maintenance are up to us and only us. If we live mindful disciplined lives, taking care at every turn not to squander our blessings. Indeed, only when we see ourselves as primary agents of sustainability will we truly ensure the future viability of our lives and our world.

This is, in fact, a primary teaching of Jewish tradition.  It’s actually the very first teaching in the Torah. In the first chapter of Genesis, we read that God creates an ordered and orderly world – and along with it, God creates the means for its ongoing sustenance. The earth, in turn brings forth “seed-bearing plants…each true to its type, with its seed in it.” (1:2) God also creates the various species of the animal world each with the power to procreate and commands them to be fruitful and multiply. When God creates man and woman, God also commands them to be fruitful and multiply but then God goes one step further. God puts the ongoing care and sustenance of the earth in their hands.

For whatever reason, God doesn’t just take care of the world alone, nor does God create a world that will simply take care of itself. This sacred job is given to humanity just as creation is barely out of the starting gate. A famous Midrash – one I know I’ve shared with you before – makes this point radically clear for us:

When God created the first human beings, God showed them around the Garden of Eden and said to them, ‘Look at my handiwork, my creation, how beautiful and balanced it is. Be careful not to ruin or destroy my world, for if you do, there will be no one to repair it after you.

The point here, I think, is clear. The world was designed to be sustained, but it is not self-sustaining. The future of the world, quite simply, is up to us.

We are now all too familiar with the environmental implications of this teaching. And I am immensely proud that as a religious community, JRC is not just talking the talk. By now you all should know the recent happy news: JRC has officially attained LEED certification at the Platinum Level by the US Green Building Council, which makes our synagogue building the highest-rated green house of worship in the world.

By all means, we should take profound pride in what we have accomplished.   But for me at least, my pride comes not from the certification itself, but largely from how we managed to accomplish this.  People are often surprised to learn that before we began our building process, JRC was not particularly known as a leader in the environmental movement. When we considered building green, most of our members were not all that knowledgeable about sustainable technology or energy efficiency or the science of carbon footprints. But what did excite us and eventually commit us to this project were the spiritual values underlying it. Once we grasped the religious imperative of living sustainably, we quickly found folks became invested in this project in a much deeper way.

Now that we’ve become ambassadors of this issue in the religious community, this is my primary message: it’s not as difficult as it looks.  You don’t have to a scientist or an engineer or a lifelong environmental activist. Like anything else, all you need to be is someone who cares about the future of our world, who is willing to learn what you need to know and who is ready to live a more mindful way of life.

In the end, as wonderful as it is to be honored in this way, I think the biggest honor will be when we see other houses of worship seeing what we’ve done and following suit.  Then we can take real pride in the fact that what we did truly made a difference. That we, in our way, helped to contribute to a new movement of spiritual sustainability in the religious community.   And by the same token, I hope what we’ve accomplished will continue to be a source of inspiration to us – to compel each and every one of us to take stock and to think more deeply how we can live sustainable lives.  In our homes and as advocates in our communities, our nation and the world. So yes, Mazel Tov to us all. We send out our heartfelt thanks and appreciation to all of the members who contributed to this amazing, humbling accomplishment. And now the real work truly begins for us.

By the way, while we are talking about our new building, we also shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that it is facilitating sustainability in another way: it is enabling our JRC community itself to be sustained into its future. After all, before we ever heard of LEED certification, we decided to build a new home for JRC to ensure its viability for future generations of Jews. It was a leap of faith for many reasons, but in the end it was a leap we felt we needed to take. In an age in which many synagogues are shrinking or merging or disappearing completely, we believed in what JRC stood for and felt it was a religious vision worth preserving. That we were able to accomplish this – and in such a way that further invested our members in JRC’s future – should be an important and hopeful sign for us all.

Now I’d like to share with you yet another example of how JRC learned important first-hand lessons about sustainability in the past year. It occurred this past July, when twenty-five of us participated in JRC’s second service delegation to Africa.  We traveled first to Rwanda, where we were hosted by WE-ACTx, an NGO that seeks to serves Rwandan women and children affected by HIV. A primary focus of WE-ACTx is serving the numerous women who were infected with HIV through rape during the 1994 genocide. During our stay, we also toured genocide sites, spoke with citizens and witnessed Rwanda’s courageous attempts to sustain the soul of their nation in the wake of that terrible trauma.

In Uganda we visited our old friends in the Foundation for the Development of Needy Communities, the NGO who hosted us during our first service delegation three years ago. As many of you know, FDNC promotes grassroots sustainable development in Eastern Uganda through a number of wonderful initiatives, including community health projects, a vocational school, music education, capacity building, among many more examples.

We also spent a great deal of time with the members of the Mirembe Kawomera Fair Trade coffee cooperative.  JRC has long been a supporter of this project and I know many of you have bought Mirembe Coffee at JRC over the years. For those of you who are not familiar, Mirembe Kawomera is an interfaith effort of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim coffee farmers who have founded a coop to get a fairer price for their product, to create better future for their communities, and to make a provide a real, living example of inter-religious cooperation. During our visit, we got to meet with the leadership of the coop, attend Muslim, Jewish and Christian services, and even had the opportunity to participate in the coffee harvest.

There is a great deal to say about our experiences in Rwanda and Uganda.  I think there are easily at least two dozen sermons that could come out of this one trip alone. For now, however, I want to return to my theme of sustainability. For primary among the lessons we learned was this eternal, sacred truth: communities can only be sustained when individuals take responsibility for their sustenance.   The developing world provides us with the most powerful examples of this fact.  Indeed, every day of our trip we came face to face with this reality: over and over we met with individuals who didn’t take the future of their lives or their communities for granted for one second.

As it turns out, the Torah also has a great deal to say about socio-economic sustainability. Over and over again God tells the Israelites they are about to enter a land flowing with milk and honey – a land that contains all they will ever need. But God also says it will all be lost to them in a second if they do not uphold the covenant and create the kind of holy community they have pledged to create.

God commands the Israelites repeatedly that they will have a future on the land only if they ensure the sustenance of all their citizens. And even though there is bounty in the land, they’re told that they cannot merely assume the equitable distribution of resources. In Deuteronomy we find this famous passage: “For there will never cease to be needy ones in your land, which is why I command you: open your hand to the poor and the needy kinsman in your land.” (Deuteronomy 15:11)

Jewish tradition has expanded considerably upon these laws from Torah.  While we must never shirk our responsibility to sustain the needy among us, the ideal form of tzedakah, as Moses Maimonidies famously taught, is to enable others to become self-sustaining. In Jewish tradition, we are commanded to sustain others, but ensuring their future sustainability is among our most sacrosanct commandments. Why? Because on a purely human level, it breaks down the unequal power dynamic between giver and recipient. It views human dignity and self-sufficiency as our highest aspiration – in a sense even higher than charity itself.

I believe what Maimonidies suggested so long ago is still powerfully relevant to the work of global sustainable development: the highest and most effect form of global action is the kind that will help a community to sustain itself. This is why I am so proud that JRC has forged such deep relationships with NGOs such as WE-ACTx and FDNC and a cooperative like Mirembe Kawomera. Because these organizations represent real members of real communities on the ground who are working every day to create sustainable development for themselves and their communities. Here again, I am so proud to be part of a congregation that gets it. That nurturing sustainability is an important part of the congregational work we do.

I mentioned earlier that those with power and privilege – those blessed with abundant resources – tend to take their sustainability for granted. Our country in particular has been particularly adept at living under an illusion of self-sustainability and invulnerability. But those days, it seems, are fast coming to an end. Our nation’s financial meltdown hasn’t occurred in a vacuum. It’s not a current event. We might well put it this way: our country has been living in a decidedly unsustainable way for far too long and now we’re finally seeing our chickens are coming home to roost. This, however, is a sermon for another day – tomorrow, as a matter of fact – so if you want to hear that one, you’ll have to come back in the morning.

I’d actually like to conclude by addressing a different form of sustenance – one that is particularly relevant to our season. After all, why do we gather here year after year? Why do we come back here if not our desire for sustenance? To give thanks for the blessings of the past year, to mourn its losses, and to pray that we and those we love will be sustained for just one more.

I do believe with all my heart that everything I’ve been talking about: environmental sustainability, social sustainability, economic sustainability, it all applies to the human condition as well. There is such a thing as spiritual sustenance. That is to say, our inner lives – our souls, if you will – are also designed to be sustainable, but again, they are not self-sustaining. At the end of the day, each and every one of us must take responsibility for our own spiritual sustenance.

Again, this sounds like an obvious claim, but if it is, then why do we have such a difficult time doing it? Too often we treat our emotional resources, our spiritual resource,s as endless springs that have power of eternal self-renewal. The truth is, our inner resources more accurately resemble a well. We need to be actively involved in replenishing the water in the wells of our souls or else we will surely run dry.

On this I speak from personal experience, trust me. Like most of you, I have come to learn that it’s all well and good to preach and promote the sustenance of our world – but if we cannot commit to sustaining our own lives, our own souls, then in the end, we will not really be any good to ourselves or to anyone else.

So how do we do this? How do we find the kind of spiritual sustenance that lasts; that truly makes a difference for us? This may sound like a cop-out for a spiritual leader, but in the end I’m afraid each of us needs to answer this question for ourselves. Each of us needs to ask ourselves seriously: What are the things that cause my spiritual well to run dry?  Then in turn, what are the things that truly sustain my soul?  What are the things I need to do to fill my well back up? And finally, what am I going to do about it? How am I going to change the way I live so that I can indeed live a sustainable life?

As I say, each of us must to answer these questions ourselves. Believe me, I’m asking myself these questions and I struggle with these issues just like everyone else. But I would be doing this for a living if I thought that the spiritual traditions of Judaism didn’t have a great deal to offer us by way of spiritual sustenance.

And I will say this: although I might not believe in God in the traditional manner, I fervently believe that our searches for sustenance do bear fruit. That beyond all the exhaustible resources of our lives and our world, there is a Source of Permanence. Of Eternity. Where wells never run dry and blessings flow freely and in abundance. And however we choose to believe, whatever our theologies, I hope we can all find, connect with and hold on to this place of permanence, because I don’t think we’ll ultimately be able to sustain ourselves any other way.

Rosh Hashanah comes to remind us of this every New Year. Traditionally speaking, this is the time in which we acknowledge Malchuyot – we enthrone God’s rule over the world. I choose to understand this as the sacred recognition of a power ultimately beyond our own; and acknowledgment of that which truly lasts. During the course of the year too many of us we enthrone impermanence, we ascribe ultimate meaning to that which is only temporary, to that which will ultimately pass away. On Rosh Hashanah, however, we affirm something else: we celebrate staying power, we open ourselves up to a source of endless sustenance.

Tomorrow, before the shofar is sounded, we will proclaim, “adonai, melech, adonai malach, adonai yimloch, l’olam va’ed!” “God reigns, God has reigned, God will reign forever and ever!” Yes, these are heady and difficult words to say out loud – especially for us ornery Reconstructionists. But maybe we might view this statement as our way of affirming permanence and sustenance in a world that too often feels unsustainable. This Rosh Hashanah it’s my hope and prayer that we will find the strength to connect to this place. May it renew our thirsting spirits, may sustain our world, may it give us life as we enter this new year.

And as we are truly blessed to have been sustained long enough to reach this place once more, let’s say the blessing together:

Holy One of Blessing, your presence fills creation. You have given us life, you have sustained us, and you have brought us all to this sacred season together.

Amen.

The central experience of our Saturday was a visit to CHABHA (Children Affected By HIV/AIDS) – an NGO that supports youth-led initiatives serving children left vulnerable by HIV/AIDS. A myriad of local children turned out for our visit. CHABHA’s Rwanda director, Richard Mutabazi greeted us and welcomed us on behalf of the organization, and helped us to converse with the children. As has been the case everywhere we went, our presence in the town caused a great sensation: children sprinted up to us as their shouts of “Muzungu!” (“white people”) filled the air.

These particular children were part of a local youth-led initiative called Amahoro (“Peace” in Kiryawanda). Amahoro presents a remarkable model of young Rwandan leaders who support and educate children orphaned by AIDS. The AMAHORO Association now counts more than 2500 orphaned children, many of whom live with one parent or other family members.

By far the highlight of our visit was a dance performance by the children of AMAHORO. As we watched, transfixed, the girls went up to our group and invited us to join them. As I danced with one particularly gifted dancer, huge shouts of laughter went up from the crowd (and I don’t think they were responding to my dancing prowess…)

We had a similar experience in JRC’s last trip to Africa – I remember all too well how dancing can be the “great equalizer” for peoples from vastly different social contexts. I guess that is my fancy way of saying it was so wonderful to connect with these children in this joyous way, even for this brief moment in time.

PS: Another member of our group, Hannah Gelder (above), is blogging about our experiences as well. I encourage you to read her very eloquent personal impressions of JRC’s journey…

If you are reading the news about recent global crises and you’re feeling overwhelmed and impotent, I’ve always found that actually doing something seems to help allay my feelings of helplessness.

To help aid victims of Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar, I’m encouraging donations through the International Development Enterprises. IDE Myanmar opened in 2004 and is one of the few organizations that is doing both relief and development work in all of the affected areas and also has government permission to go into them. Donations to IDE Myanmar will be used for relief aid to survivors of the cyclone in the Irrawaddy Delta region, many of whom have no shelter, food or fuel. Most critically, IDE will initially focus on providing immediate relief but will also plan for rebuilding communities to be self sufficient in the long-term.

On a wider front, Avaaz.org is organizing a campaign to deliver the following petition to G8, UN and EU leaders to respond to the growing world food crisis::

We call on you to take immediate action to address the world food crisis by mobilizing emergency funding to prevent starvation, removing perverse incentives to turn food into biofuels and managing financial speculation, and to tackle the underlying causes by ending harmful trade policies and investing massively in sustainable agricultural productivity in developing nations.

(For important background on the food crisis, I recommend this excellent NY Times editorial.)

Apparently, FreeRice.com is a sister site of Poverty.com - a private website dedicated to raising awareness about world poverty. (According to their tally, Free Rice has donated 9,868,446,910 grains of rice to date.)

Having played this game several times, I can safely attest two things: it is seriously addictive, and my vocabulary isn’t nearly as stellar as I’d like to admit. But what more noble reason to bust out the thesarus?