Radical Torah

Shalom and welcome to Tikkun Tips, a monthly nugget of eco-Jewish thought from your friends at the Teva Learning Center. Nearly three weeks ago we celebrated the holiday of Passover by gathering around the table and retelling the story of the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt. The path from slavery to liberation. Many of us also spent the weeks leading up to Passover in a frenzy, thoroughly cleaning our homes and looking for any last remnants of chametz, or the bread products from which we are commanded to abstain for the weeklong celebration.

Many Hasidic Rabbis have drawn metaphorical lessons from the Passover story and the rituals associated with it. One commonly taught idea is that the Hebrew name for Egypt, Mitzraim, comes from the root tzar, or narrow. Egypt was a place of narrowness for our people; slavery was more than a physical reality, it was a state of mind as well. The exodus from Egypt was a move from a place of narrowness to the expansiveness of the desert, the freedom of openness.

The Rabbis also teach that the physical chametz is a manifestation of our personal places of narrowness. The leavened bread represents those parts of ourselves which are inflated, full of air, or arrogance. So just as we go through the process of physically cleaning our homes, we should examine ourselves and determine what our internal chametz is.

Then, on the morning before Passover begins, we participate in the cathartic ritual of taking the last remnants of our chametz and burning it. And for the next week, we are forbidden from owning, deriving benefit from, or even thinking too much about it. So what does this ritual mean for the metaphorical chametz?

Well, this brings us to the present. We are now in the heart of the Omer, the 49 days that fall between the beginning of Passover and Shavuot, the holiday that commemorates both us receiving the Torah as well as the wheat harvest. The celebration of the wonderful leavened bread that is Challah.

So what exactly is this process we undertake? First we explore every nook and cranny and find those things in our lives we wish to improve on. Then we burn them, sell them, and hide them from our bodies and minds for the next week. But then we begin, maybe carefully at first, to reintroduce those things back into our lives. The entire time we are monitoring ourselves. We are forced every day to count, to make note of our existence. And through this process we somehow become worthy of not only eating the bread, but rejoicing in it.

This past Sunday was Earth Day, the day on which the natural world becomes a priority for millions of people. Environmentalists embrace this day as an opportunity to spread awareness, but most are in agreement that our concern for the planet cannot be limited to one day out of the year. Much of the conservationist movement is based on the idea that we, especially those living in the United States, consume far too much, and that a huge part of overcoming our environmental problems is learning that we can get by with less. Environmentalism is sometimes seen as an effort to abstain from certain behaviors, products and lifestyle choices that simply are not sustainable.

But efforts to save the planet that only focus on removing certain things from our lives will fall short. As individuals, we can choose not to use disposable dishes, or to carefully recycle or compost our waste. And while these small steps have their place both environmentally and, some would say, spiritually, they alone will not save the world. We also need to look at our societal chametz, those elements of our culture that reflect the hubris inherent in exploiting the world’s resources without regard for future generations. The preparation for Passover offers a wonderful opportunity to do so, and the Omer is the time when, after breaking away from these problems for the duration of the holiday, we slowly reintroduce ourselves to them in an effort to embrace the challenges, not run away from them.

And that is exactly what the story of the exodus is. It is not only a tale of individuals freed from slavery. It is the narrative of a nation overcoming the oppression and tyranny of narrow-minded thinking. These 49 days that comprise the Omer, these seven cycles of seven days, are a time of earning the opportunity to rejoice in the wheat harvest, to accept the Torah, the divine wisdom that will guide us for the millennia to come. And it is crucial that each spring we go through this national cleansing process. It ensures that our bread be fresh, never stale; that we do not simply rest on our laurels from previous years, but rather that the opportunity to celebrate is a result of the work of the previous 49 days.

With this in mind I want to point your attention to two websites that do a wonderful job of offering sustainable solutions to our global problems. www.treehugger.com ” target=”newbrowser”>Treehugger.com is an environmental blog that regularly demonstrates that innovative and sensible design will go a long way in reducing our footprint. www.worldchanging.com ” target=”newbrowser”> WoldChanging.com encourages us to change our thinking about the possibilities for a bright, green future. In particular, read WorldChanging’s challenging article, www.worldchanging.com/archives/006520.html ” target=”newbrowser”> Make This Earth Day Your Last .