A New Year’s Resolution for the Earth (Erev Rosh Hashanah 5782)

Today, Rosh Hashanah, is known as hayom harat olam, the birthday of the world. Genesis (which many of you have been studying with me in our weekly Jewish Learning classes) famously recounts the birth of a world of which we are but a part. Genesis tells us that just as God needs to rest, so must all of creation. On the final day of creation, God shavat v’yinafash - God stops and takes a breath. 

Resting, slowing down, is the way the world begins. 

The cycle of 6 days of work and one day of rest is an ancient blueprint for our weekend, and the basis for modern labor rights. It gives us a day to remember we are human “beings” not just human “doings.”  Shabbat is a day most of us are familiar with. At least as important as our Sabbath, though lesser known, Torah gives us another blueprint for renewal: a cycle of 6 years of work and one year of rest: a Sabbath for the earth,  called the shmita or Sabbatical Year.  5782, the new year we celebrate tonight and tomorrow, is the beginning of the shmita year.

Just as resting is the way the world begins, endlessly working the land will be the way the world ends. We watch anxiously as droughts and wildfires plague the West Coast and wider world. Extreme weather, hurricanes and floods, predicted to happen once a century now happens every few years. Our society demands we prove our value through doing; but it consistently fails in its capacity to invest in being. Our ancestors knew how dangerous this could be - how easily it could lead us to create vast inequalities between the haves and the have-nots, devalue elders, and cause us to exploit each other and our planet. 

To protect us from these dangers, on the shmita year, debts are to be forgiven, agricultural lands to lie fallow, private land holdings to become open to the common - and staples such as food storage and perennial harvests to be freely redistributed and accessible to all. We read in Exodus: “You may plant your land for six years and gather its crops. But during the seventh year, you must leave it alone and withdraw from it. The needy among you will then be able to eat just as you do” (23:10-11). Millenia before human-caused climate change, Torah held that the only world in which all beings can thrive is one in which we can let the land rest.

Just as the Sabbath gave the world a blueprint for modern labor rights, shmita can be a blueprint for saving our planet from the effects of climate change.

In ancient agricultural societies, shmita was difficult to observe. Many did not have the technology to sustain themselves while letting the earth rest. We now have the technology to do this. The organization Carbon Tracker put out a report at the end of April that unlike previous dire reports, suggests the technology we have available could produce a hundred times as much electricity from solar and wind as current global demand. The land required to produce all this energy would take less than is currently given over to fossil fuels, and the energy itself has never cost less to generate. These technical and economic barriers seemed insurmountable at the end of the last millennium.

As we confront the devastating impact of human caused climate change, Rosh Hashanah and the shmita year remind us resting, slowing down, is the way the world is created - and will, we pray, be renewed. 

The pandemic has shown us we can do this: we drive less, fly less, consume less - and still have more than we need. Author and journalist Rebecca Solnit writes, “Each shift makes more shifts possible. But only if we go actively toward the possibilities rather than passively into the collapse.” On an individual level, even when we are safe to resume our travels and habits of consumption, let’s not forget: our rest allows the earth to rest. And on a collective level, let’s call our politicians, volunteer our time, and donate money to organizations working to change local and national environmental policy. 

We have the technology to save our planet, but it is useless without the political will to invest in and use it.

At his pre-High Holiday call for rabbis, President Joe Biden, said we have a narrow moment to avoid the only existential threat humanity faces, and said the Jewish community is the backbone of staying with what’s right. A good example of this is Dayeinu: A Jewish Call to Climate Action, a wonderful new organization whose mission is: “To secure a just, livable and sustainable world for all people for generations to come by building a multi-generational Jewish movement that confronts the climate crisis with spiritual audacity and bold political action.” Many synagogues across the US have created groups that collaborate with Dayeinu. Perhaps we at Orchard Cove could create our own!

As we enter 5782, may Rosh Hashanah, the birthday of the world, remind us of the larger web of life of which we are but a part. On an individual level may we be intentional about making time to give ourselves and the earth a break. And on a collective level, may we use whatever resources we have to help our politicians and lawmakers prioritize sustainable energy - so our grandchildren and their grandchildren may be free from worry about clean air to breathe and water to drink, and can instead live with the freedom and plenty we all enjoy.

Ken yehi ratzon. May it be so.