Category Archives: Talmud

If you ask Reuben Sinclair what the key is to a long and rewarding life, the 110-year old won't shy away from sharing some words of wisdom.

"Never worry," he said to a crowd of fellow servicemen and reporters moments before he was honoured at a Remembrance Day ceremony inside a Vancouver elementary schoolon Wednesday.

"If you have a problem, fix it. And that goes a long way," he said.

Sinclair is the oldest living veteran in Canada, having served during the Second World War for three years in the Royal Canadian Air Force. His age also makes him one of the oldest living men in the country.

"I always found time to help people who were less fortunate, and Ithink that's one of the reasons the good Lord keeps me around," he said, laughing.

After laying a wreath at Talmud Torah Elementary school, Sinclair was awarded service medals by the Royal Canadian Legion the latest in a long list of accolades he's received over his lifetime.

His daughter, Nadine Lipetz, said she was proud the children "have a chance to meet a veteran who has a story to tell, and hopefully they can learn from it."

Sinclair was born on a farm in Lipton, Sask.His birth certificate reads that he was born on Dec. 5, 1911 but his family says he was actually born months earlier.

"His older brothers told him he was born in the summer of 1911," said Lipetz. "We think it was the registration date that we've used as his birthday, but in effect he's really 110."

Sinclair worked a number of different jobs during the Great Depressionbefore enrolling in an accounting course. He was hired by the Treasury Department, where he worked until the Second World War.

Lipetz says her father said hecouldn't stand by and do nothing while people were dying in Europe.

He joined the Royal Canadian Air Force at 31, but he was diagnosed with flat feet which kept him from serving overseas, Lipetz said.

Instead, he served as a wireless operator mechanic in Montreal, Vancouver, and North Battleford, Sask.,running transmitters that were used to train pilots to take off and land on blacked-out runways. The program prepared pilots to fly in the night skies of Europe.

When the war ended, he settled in Metro Vancouver, where he opened a garage and wrecking yard with his brother.

In the '60s, he moved to California with his wife Ida. The pair returned to B.C. in 1994, before she passed away just a couple of years later.

Sinclair still lives inside his Richmond condo, where he receivessupport from caregivers.

He spends much of his time reminiscing about years past, including his time in the war. Lipetz sayshe's happy to see more of his family members after being separatedfrom many of them during the pandemic.

"Visits from the family and friends are very big for him," she said. "He's happy and enjoys every day."

Over the years, Sinclair's family has grown to include sixgrandchildren, 16 great-grandchildren and a great-great-grandchild.

Asecond great-great-grandchild is on the way.

"We feel blessed that every day is a gift," she said.

Read more:

Oldest living veteran in Canada honoured at 110 years old - CBC.ca

INDIANAPOLIS Priests, imams, rabbis and reverends gathered together at the Indiana Statehouse on Friday to deliver a message to Gov. Eric Holcomb on combating climate change and prioritizing a just transition to cleaner energy.

The delivery of the petition, signed by nearly 800 Hoosiers, coincided with the final day of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Scotland.

Our call to address this issue cannot be delayed as governments across the globe have spent the past few days announcing their pledges and commitment to climate change, said the Rev. Dr. Carlos W. Perkins, pastor of Indianapolis Bethel Cathedral African Methodist Episcopal Church. It is time we make our own pledge.

According to Purdue University, climate change directly impacts Indianas corn production with hot weather and drought stress potentially reducing corn yields by 12% or more in the coming decades.

Human activities in Indiana emitted 192 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2018, the schools Agriculture News reported. Indiana had the eighth-highest emissions of carbon dioxide of any state that year despite being ranked only 17th in population.

Indianas coal and gas plants used for generating electricity contribute the most to Indianas carbon dioxide emissions followed by transportation.

Rabbi Brian Besser, leading the Congregation Beth Shalom in Bloomington, described a story in the Talmud, a Jewish religious text, which details passengers on a boat. One passenger begins drilling under his seat, alarming fellow passengers who fear sinking and demonstrating how the actions of one can affect many.

I sign this petition because my faith tradition teaches that we are all in the same boat together, Besser said. Each one of us is responsible for the home we share.

Interfaith leaders promoted proposed legislation to create a climate change task force and urged elected officials to signify their recognition of the crisis through a resolution. Sen. Ron Alting, R-Lafayette, announced in September that he would sponsor both pieces of legislation written by youth activists with Confront the Climate Crisis.

We are calling on our governor and legislators to finally address decisively the climate crisis in the coming legislative session, said T. Wyatt Watkins, a pastor at Cumberland First Baptist Church.

We ask the legislature to declare climate change not only a looming threat but a present and current reality and appoint a task force to develop a climate plan, a mitigation plan, a resilience plan and an energy plan that will allow us to transition to a sustainable energy future here in Indiana.

Originally posted here:

Indiana interfaith leaders petition governor for 'just transition' to cleaner energy - Evening News and Tribune

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Maybe Rebecca was not deviously plotting a coup to help one son over the other, but strategically trying to show her husband that both their boys had strengths to celebrate. Maybe Isaacs fathering flaws are rooted in the fact that his own father almost sacrificed him at the altar. Maybe I shouldnt view biblical characters through a 21st century lens of privilege and hyper-parenting.

These were among a flood of insights that readers shared in response to last weeks newsletter, titled The Torah is not a parenting manual. It was all about the struggle Ive been having with Toldot, the Torah portion in which Rebecca helps Jacob steal the birthright and then the blessing of his twin, Esau, tricking their father, Isaac, in the process.

It was the first time Ive written a full column about a Torah portion and more of you read it than read any other one since I started this weekly thing 18 months ago. Im not quitting journalism to go to rabbi school or anything, but I thought Id embrace the Talmudic tradition of give-and-take and devote this weeks newsletter to your thoughts on this classic story of family dysfunction.

The Jewish way is to question, Rabbi Hillel Adler of the Consortium for Jewish Day Schools wrote me in an email. Indeed. Thank you for your questions and answers.

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One of the first, and most thoughtful, emails I got last Friday was from Marsha Mirkin, who literally wrote the book or at least a book on how we might relate to Rebeccas parenting choices: The Women Who Danced by the Sea: Finding Ourselves in the Stories of our Biblical Foremothers, published in 2004.

I saw the story as dealing with favoritism and limitations that get in the way of growth and connection, Mirkin said. She noted that the word love is rare in the Torah but present in this chapter, and argued that Rebecca is not so much tricking Isaac into picking her favorite, Jacob, but lovingly nudging Isaac to not totally ignore Jacob.

As a mother of twins, I had argued that Rebeccas overt favoritism of Jacob without regard to the impact on Esau was impossible to imagine. But I found Mirkins take totally relatable. Of course a loving mother would be concerned if her husband seemed to seriously favor one twin; of course she would try to show him the others merits in hopes of giving both their best shot at good lives.

My understanding: Your father took you and was going to sacrifice you when you were young. Dont make that mistake with your son Jacob, explained Mirkin, a psychologist who specializes in families and was a resident scholar at Brandeis University.

Throughout, she shows Isaac something about this ignored son, she added. Twins have different personalities as you experienced and Rebecca was wise, and she and Isaac had a special, close relationship. I think Esau and Jacob both were blessed in ways that fit who they could become based on their individual personalities.

Courtesy of Wikipedia Commons

A Flemish tapestry depicting Toldot, in which Esau sells his birthright to Jacob.

Mirkin was one of several people to raise the Binding of Isaac as important context for the Toldot story, something our rabbi, Marc Katz, also talked a lot about as he helped our twins study the portion for their bnei mitzvah last year. Dont you think Isaac behaves as he does because his psyche was damaged by his father, who, to prove his love for God, agreed to sacrifice him? asked a reader named Randi Hacker. That is some deep trauma to have to live with.

For sure. Who am I to imagine how the untreated PTSD from that episode plays out?

Roberta Gold, who has taught literature for more than 30 years, compared our endless re-reading of the Torah to the study of Shakespearean classics even students who know how Romeo & Juliet ends, she said, are on the edge of their seats and hope the lovers wont die. Every reading brings a new revelation about how and why the tragedy plays out.

The stories in Torah, like all classics of literature, remain classic because they reveal universal truths of human nature that do not change over time, Gold reminded me. You wanted Rebecca to be a role-model mother of twins because you want to be a role model. But you missed the point. Rebeccas flaw of unequal love and favoritism is all too human.

Rebecca is a legitimate matriarch because the Torah does not expect perfection, she continued. The characters seem larger than life, but though there are miracles, they are largely people of this (highly flawed) world.

Nina Mogilnik also found me totally unfair to Rebecca. She particularly chastised me for suggesting that if Rebecca were a normal mom who loved both her twins she might have tried to challenge and change the rules. Mogilnick found this breathtaking, kind of condescending and reflecting some kind of cockeyed chutzpah, and said I was inappropriately viewing the tale through a contemporary lens of suburban-mom privilege.

What on earth do you even mean by normal mom? demanded Mogilnik, who has written for The Jewish Week, the Times of Israel and the Forward, among other places. Is it normal to strive to push your kids to achieve certain kinds of success? Is it normal to prize academic achievement? Is it normal to brag about children? Is it normal to struggle with post-partum depression and still get up off the floor to feed and clothe your kids? Is it normal sometimes to hate your children? To regret having them? Your definition of normal seems to proscribe all kinds of attitudes and behaviors that are endemic to the human condition.

Point taken. I hate the word normal and should never have used it. After getting Mogilnicks note, I rewrote the sentence in the website version of the column to say if she was a mom who wanted the best for both her twins. But Mogilnick also had more to say about Rebecca as both a role model and a realistically flawed character like all of us.

One could argue that Rebecca showed extraordinary courage in essentially demanding of God that God answer why she was made to suffer with quarreling fetuses, and to demand to know if having this strife between her children was her purpose, she wrote.

I am not excusing the discomfort of reading of a mother who clearly favors one child over another, and a father who offers a stingy blessing to the disliked son, Mogilnick continued. At least I have the humility to know that parenting is brutally hard work, that my kids havent lived long enough yet to know everything they think they know, and that the best I can do as their mother is love them to the best of my ability, and equip them to go out into the world and be better than I am.

Actually, that sums up my parenting philosophy almost exactly.

And there was yet more wisdom in my inbox:

From Michael Klayman: I feel Rebeccas pain, because what she did she did for the nation, and not for her family specifically. It must have been excruciatingly difficult for her.

From Susanna Levin: I know a rabbi who says that Genesis (which he calls the book of communications) teaches by showing examples of how not to parent.

David Rubin: Jacob gets his comeuppance big time. He has to spend years running for his life. Laban tricks him just as he was tricked. Then, his sons lied to him (tricked him) when they lied about Joseph. But, in every instance of dishonest and deceptive dealing, the tricky person pays for it in the end.

trobador@aol.com: These books contain archetypal legends, and perhaps a bit of ancestral memory, but the frequently savage ethics of the protagonists are nothing for us modern-day Jews to boast about.

Harriett Epstein: This is real human behavior we are reading not Father or Mother Knows Best.

Rabbi Adler, who I quoted above saying the Jewish way is to question a phrase I particularly love given my chosen career responded to Rabbi Katzs quote about the Torah not being a parenting manual with, of course, a series of questions: Is the Torah a guide on morals? Is the Torah a manual for marriage and relationships? Is the Torah a history book? Is the Torah a book on theology?

Maybe the Torah is just trying to teach us stuff, he concluded.

Sounds right to me. Thanks for helping make that real.

Maybe the Torah is just trying to teach us stuff: Readers respond to tirade about Toldot

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Maybe the Torah is just trying to teach us stuff: Readers respond to tirade about Toldot - Forward

Congregation Beth Yeshuruns Rabbi Steve Morgen and his wife, Cantor Diane Dorf, will be this years Jewish representatives at the 36th-annual Houston Interfaith Thanksgiving Service, Nov. 18 at 7 p.m., at St. Philip Presbyterian Church, 4807 San Felipe St.

Religious leaders from nine faiths will share texts related to giving thanks from their own traditions. The event is sponsored by the Ecumenism Commission of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston.

The theme this year is The Gift of Life.

While G-d manifests in different ways for different people, all religions give thanks, organizer Garland Pohl told the JHV. I hope in the future that we come together around common experiences like this Thanksgiving Service to make friends who we can rely upon each others support during challenging times.

Rabbi Morgen and Cantor Dorf are collaborating on their joint presentation. Cantor Dorf will chant three traditional morning blessings, thanking G-d for waking our souls and our bodies, and Rabbi Morgen will explain and interpret these blessings.

Rabbi Morgen has been involved with interfaith dialogue groups for many years, including as a board member of Interfaith Ministries, a contributor for programs at the Muslim Turquoise Center, and as a participant in several other groups of faith leaders who are committed to building a better understanding between peoples of all faiths.

Rabbi Morgen strongly believes in the power of dialogue as a way to heal the world.

Our society today is very polarized, Rabbi Morgen told the JHV. People are isolated into homogenous groups. When we dont interact with people of other faiths, there is a tendency for us to wonder what they think about us and fear the worst. And they, in turn, may wonder and fear what we think, believe and do. Fear can then lead to hostility.

By interacting with each other, we can break down barriers and realize that we are all human beings with much in common. We all want to improve our world, to be fair, honest and just.

Social media can enable this isolation and hinder us from having real interaction with people not like ourselves. Interfaith events broaden our own perspective and allow us to think more clearly about our own faith and be more accepting of people of other faiths.

Cantor Dorf emphasized that, in addition to giving thanks in prayer, Judaism commands us to give thanks through tzedakah.

At Thanksgiving, we can share our food and volunteer in ways that help those in need, Cantor Dorf told the JHV.

Rabbi Morgen emphasized the point. Judaism is about not just saying words but also taking action, he said. The Talmud teaches us to honor parents, do deeds of loving kindness, visit the sick, study, make peace between each other and many more acts of loving kindness.

One of my favorite quotes by [Rabbi] Abraham Joshua Heshel is A Jew is asked to take a leap of action rather than a leap of faith. And it is so much better if we can take that leap of action with people of other faiths. That has a multiplying effect that is more than the sum of its parts.

To register for the event or watch a live-stream, go to saintphilip.net/Interfaith.html, COVID protocols for wearing masks and social distancing will be observed.

See original here:

Community invited to Houston Interfaith Thanksgiving Service - Jewish Herald-Voice

By ohtadmin | on November 10, 2021

Weve all heard the story of why Hanukkah is celebrated for eight days. The Maccabees reclaimed the Temple but discovered that all of the oil to light the Temples menorah had been defiled except for one cruse. That cruse, we learned, was just enough oil to light the Menorah for one day, but a miracle ensued and the lights remained lit for eight days. What we dont all learn, however, is that this story is a late story appearing in the Talmud, and it is only one explanation for why Hanukkah is celebrated for eight days. Now, my goal is not to ruin Hanukkah for you, so if finding out that this story might not be the reason Hanukkah is celebrated for eight days would ruin the entire holiday, I encourage you to stop reading now. That said, in looking at another explanation we may find new meaning to a holiday weve been celebrating our entire lives.

In the Second Book of Maccabees (not included in the canon of the Tanakh) we read that upon reclaiming the Temple an eight-day celebration followed in the manner of the Feast of Booths (Sukkot) remembering how not long before, during [Sukkot], they had been wandering like wild beasts in the mountains and the caves (10:6-8). The text goes on to talk about their lifting up palm fronds (the lulav). While it could be a coincidence that Sukkot (an eight-day festival including Shmini Atzeret) is mentioned in connection to another eight-day celebration taking place two months later, it most likely is not. It seems as though the Maccabees and their followers missed the Festival of Sukkot because they were fighting, and upon the end of their battle, they celebrated the neglected festival.

While quite different from the miracle of the oil, this does not have to change our Hanukkah celebrations. It can, however, leave us with a new value in this season. Too often we think of missed opportunities as permanent. In celebrating a second Sukkot a month and a half after the festival ended, the Maccabees and their followers teach us that its never too late for a second chance. As we prepare to enter our Hanukkah celebration at the end of this month, think about that conversation you meant to have but never did. As you light your Hanukkah lights, think about that joyous occasion you meant to celebrate but let slip by. As you eat your latkes, think about any other moments in life that slipped by, and embrace this lesson of the Maccabees. Take advantage of the opportunity to have a second chance.

Neis gadol haya sham A great miracle happened there. Whether or not one day of oil lasted eight days, the Maccabees victory was truly a miracle, and rather than mourning a missed festival, their combination of nostalgia and optimism led them to celebrate that missed opportunity with more passion than they would have the first time around. We can learn from both of these miracles by making the most of every opportunity and creating a second chance for those times in which we cant.

Rabbinically Speaking is published as a public service by the Jewish Press in cooperation with the Tampa Rabbinical Association which assigns the column on a rotating basis. The views expressed in the column are those of the rabbi and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Jewish Press or the TRA.

See the original post here:

The eight days of Hanukkah: The miracle of oil or a second Sukkot? - jewishpresstampa

I do not burn sage, said Zo Jacobi, who runs Jewitches, a popular blog and podcast that deep dives into ancient Jewish myths and folkloric practices. The sage-related ritual of smudging, an Indigenous ceremony popular among modern witches for cleansing a person or place of negative energy, is not a Jewish practice, she said. But Jews had crystals. Actually, they were called gems.

Jacobi and her peers are revitalizing ancient Jewish practices of witchcraft, which have been seeing something of a revival as of late. Far from having an uneasy relationship with magic practitioners, Judaism or at least Kabbalistic strands of it has long embraced them.

Jacobi, based in Los Angeles, studies those gems role in Jewish ritual, along with the connections between assorted other magical artifacts and Judaica. Eight shelves in her home are filled with books on Judaism as well as Jewish magic, witchcraft and folklore.

Her studies have revealed the historical ways that items like gems have been used in Jewish magical correspondences. Like healing crystals, gems are meant to protect and heal based on their properties, according to Midrash (Numbers Rabbah 2:7). For example, sapphire was thought to strengthen eyesight.

Its in a medieval text called the Sefer Ha-Gematriaot, Jacobi said. But even if we go to the Torah, we see crystals on the breastplates of the kohanim (high priests of Israel).

Many Jewish rituals today have their roots in warding off demons, ghosts and other mythological creatures. When we break glass at a wedding, scholars say, were not just remembering the destruction of the Temple; were also scaring off evil spirits that may want to hurt the bride and groom. Likewise, ancient Jews believed that the mezuzah protected them from messengers of evil a function parallel to that of an amulet, or good-luck charm.

The mezuzah is absolutely an amulet, said Rebekah Erev, a Jewish feminist artist, activist and kohenet (Hebrew priestexx, a gender-neutral term for priest or priestess) who uses the pronouns they/them and teaches online courses on Jewish magic. I consider it to be a reminder of the presence of spirit, of goddess, of shechinah [the dwelling or settling of the divine presence of God]. Much of magic is about reminding ourselves that were all connected and that everything is alive and animate.

The moniker Jewitch itself can be seen as controversial within the group. Erev first heard the term while attending a 2014 Jewitch Collective retreat in the Bay Area.

I feel that any word that identifies someone as a witch is controversial in nature because of how society, including Jewish society, has demonized witches leading to violence and ostracizing, Erev said. To be a Jew and to be a witch has had serious repercussions throughout time. I hope the recent popularity of the term Jewitch will bring more acceptance and understanding of both identities and help to make our practices more widely accessible.

Priestexx Rebekah Erev calls the mezuzah an amulet. (Vito Valera)

I feel that any word that identifies someone as a witch is controversial in nature because of how society, including Jewish society, has demonized witches leading to violence and ostracizing, they said, even though they do consider both witchcraft and Judaism to be major tenets of their life.

Cooper Kaminsky, a Denver-based intuitive artist and healer, concurred that the portmanteau was revisionist to some, but added, Many, including myself, are empowered by identifying as a Jewitch.

Historically, as Judaic practices grew more patriarchal, women were exempt from studying the Talmud and Torah. They knew little Hebrew, so they created their own prayers in Yiddish, used herbal remedies and centered their religious practices around the earth.

Erev mirrors these customs by creating magical rituals, like meditating on cinnamon sticks during the month of Shvat, hearkening back to how cinnamon trees in Jerusalem scented the land during the harvest.

Theres a Kabbalistic idea of making oneself smaller for creation to emerge. Connecting with a cinnamon stick is a simple ritual. The cinnamon folds in, and the bark contracts in on itself, Erev said. Sometimes contracting inward can give us space to emerge and create.

They also do spellwork, creating spells for new love, pregnancy protection and social justice; on their blog, they shared an incantation designed to bring more awareness to Indigenous Land Back movements.

The goal of many Jewitch educators and practitioners, they say, is to shine a light on rituals that have been forgotten or buried for self-preservation. Jacobi believes that many folkloric practices died out following the 13th-18th centuries because, at the time, Jews were viewed as demonic witches.

Jewish communities did what they thought would protect them from literal certain death. Some of that came at the expense of some of these practices, Jacobi said. Instead of the supernatural reasons, they tried to give rational reasons for what they were doing. Ashkenazi Jews routinely tried to debate with their oppressors in the hopes that they could out-logic antisemitism.

This traumatic history, the Jewitches say, is often papered over or dismissed as myths and superstitions. Saying superstition is a way that we downplay our magic, Kaminsky said. We protect ourselves because, historically, a huge part of our oppression has been because were magical.

Almost all of our Jewish spells are for the sake of healing, says Cooper Kaminsky. (Colin Lloyd)

Kaminsky, who uses the pronouns they/them, does spiritual readings for clients that draw upon Kabbalah, Tarot and the Akashic records a reference library of everything that has ever happened, which spiritual mediums believe resides in another dimension. Kaminskyincorporates Jewish prayers into their spellwork, like reciting the Psalms of David when doing candle spells and the Bsheim Hashem as a magical invocation.

Kaminsky, who uses the pronouns they/them, grew up in a Conservative Jewish household and learned the basic concepts of Kabbalah in Jewish day school.

Kabbalah looks at Judaism through a cosmic, mystical lens that clicked for me a lot more than looking at a story from the Torah, Kaminsky said. As I read more Kabbalah, I started feeling more connected to my Judaism.

Various scholars and rabbis have linked Kabbalah to Tarot, a deck of cards originally used in the mid-15th century to play games that evolved to divinatory practices in the 18thcentury (though Jacobi, for one, refutes this idea, claiming the connection has never been proven). The Tarots Major Arcana the trump cards of the deck, which detail the evolution of ones soul usually make up 22 cards in any given pack, a meaningful Jewish number: the same as the number of letters in the aleph-bet, and the number of pathways on the Kabbalistic Tree of Life.

For their energy work, Kaminsky draws parallels between the chakras, energy points in the body discussed in Hinduism, and the Kabbalistic Tree of Life.

The Tree of Life is an energy network, they said. Theres the meridians of energy, and the chakras are like the middle pillar.

Mystical practices were a part of Jacobis upbringing. Her parents practiced Kabbalah, metaphysics, folklore and folk mythology. They have attended the same local Chabad since Jacobi was three years old.

Thanks to these experiences, Jacobi is comfortable living out of the (broom) closet a tongue-in-cheek term that some modern witches use to refer to openly practicing witchcraft. She grew up with astrology, used tarot cards on Shabbat and played with her mothers rose quartz crystal ball while her father led Havdalah prayers. The Jewitches blog and podcast are filled with mythological creatures with origins in Jewish beliefs, like dybbuks, werewolves, dragons and vampires.

Some creatures are unique to Jewish lore:the vampiric Alukah, a blood-sucking witch referred to in Proverbs 30, turned out to be Liliths daughter, while a Broxa originated as a bird from medieval Portugal that drank goats milk and sometimes human blood during the night.

Whenever there have been dire times throughout history, people have turned to mysticism; thats how Kabbalah emerged, Erev said. We need to look to our ancestors for guidance. There are a lot of tools in our human community for healing and re-dreaming and creating a world that is safe and generative for all beings.

Kaminsky thinks magic has the power to repair the world: Almost all of our Jewish spells are for the sake of healing. Tikkun olam, using our magic to repair the world, is beautiful.

Continue reading here:

Season of the Jewitch: The Occultists who Blend Witchcraft and Jewish Folklore - Jewish Journal

31 October 2021 GIL ZOHAR

Qiryat Luza, West BankReligion Unplugged

For Israeli Jews, the month of Cheshvan is sometimes called Mar Cheshvan - meaning the bitter Cheshvan - since it is the only month in the Hebrew lunar calendar that does not include a holy day, or at least a holiday.

But those feeling the need to celebrate Gods graciousness can visit the village of Qiryat Luza atop Mount Gerizim - to the south of the Palestinian city of Nablus - to join in the seven-day Biblical harvest festival ofSukkot,which Samaritans observed from 20th to 26th October - one month after Jews.

Mount Gerizim. PICTURE: Gil Zohar.

The ranks of the once mighty Samaritan people reached three million in Biblical times but were reduced by persecution and apostasy to 146 by 1918. Today they number 814,half of whom live here on this picturesque mountaintop in the West Bank. The other half live in Holon, a city on the coastal plain adjoining Tel Aviv to the south 75 kilometres to the west.

In this special week just passed, they observed the Sukkot holiday, a harvest festival that celebrates the protection God provided to the children of Israel when they left behind slavery in Egypt and wandered in the desert.

Speaking in a mixture of Arabic, Hebrew and English, community spokesman Hosni Wasef explained that some 90 sukkot - a term that also refers to temporary tabernacle huts made for the holiday - had been erected in Kiryat Luza and slightly fewer in Holon.

Sitting barefoot, he recently welcomed a group of journalists in the parlor of his spacious, elegant apartment that doubles as his office. The modern stone-clad, three-floor, concrete building erected in 1994 adjoins the traditional site of the Paschal lamb sacrifice ceremony held in April. The trenches were filled with garbage thrown there by children, his daughter Selwa noted with some embarrassment.

Wasef, the director of the Samaritan Museum here and the younger brother of High PriestAbdallah Wasef, proudly noted he haswritten 20 books about his people and their faith. He calls himself a leading figure globally in the study of the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt - which, like for Jews, marks the beginning of their peoplehood. His brother, 85, has served as high priest for the last seven years, and will continue do so until his death, when he will be replaced by the eldest member of his priestly family.

The Samaritans celebrateSukkotevery year, beginning on the full moon of Tishrei 15, just as the worlds Jews do. But since the sect - which traces its origins to the Northern Kingdom of Israel and the tribes of Ephraim, Menasseh and Levi - doesn't accept the rabbinic calendar reforms from the Talmudic period in the sixth century, their Bible-based holy days sometimes fall one month later. While Judaism fixes the order of the seven leap years in a 19-year cycle, the high priest decides when the extra months will occur. Hence the disparity in the calendars.

Unlike Jews, who build their sukkot outside, the Samaritans construct their elaboratesukkotindoors, suspended from a frame attached to the living room ceiling. They have been doing so for the last 1,500 years. In the Byzantine period, the Samaritans were persecuted, and their outdoorsukkotwere often vandalised by their Christian neighbours.

Like Jews, they utiliseskhahk - greenery such as palm fronds - to cover theirsukkot, but only the top layer. Beneath the palm leaves, the Samaritan sukkot is decorated with fruit and vegetables arranged in decorative geometric patterns and hung like a chandelier from a permanent ceiling mount.

The colourful display in remembrance of the Garden of Eden can often involve 100 kilograms of seasonal fruit, such as pomegranates, apples, guavas, oranges, peppers and, of course,etrogim-citrons, the Biblical citrus fruit that is akin to a lemon. The display is rounded out with colored lights and foil decorations that might be used for Christmas or Ramadan.

Samaritan High Priest Abdallah Wasef. PICTURE: Gil Zohar.

Symbolising the Samaritans confusing status in the middle of Israelis and Palestinians, Selwa pointed out that water is provided by Israel while electricity comes from the Palestinian Authority grid. At that moment, a PA garbage truck rolled by with a sign noting it was from Turkey. Some Samaritans hold Israeli, Palestinian and Jordanian passports, her father said.

Interviewed in his home - one floor below his brothers apartment - Abdallah Wasef wore a traditional robe made from golden silk imported from Damascus and a red turban on his head, wrapped with a white cloth.

We are seekers of peace, he explained in Arabic. We are living between the Jews and the Palestinians. Both are supporting us. Peace is better than war.

And what of the future?

Without hesitation, the elderly high priest replied that the ruins of the temple in the national park atop Mount Gerizim, marking the spot Samaritans believe Abraham was ready to offer up his son Isaac as a sacrifice, will be rebuilt when God wants, when the time comes.

The religion and history of the SamaritansAfter the death of King Solomon in about 920 BC, his northern subjects gathered at Shechem - modern-day Nablus - to secede, rejecting his arrogant heir Rehoboam (I Kings 12:1-20). The breakaway kingdom bolstered its political independence from Judah by theologically challenging the beliefs of the old kingdom.

The Samaritans maintained that Gods chosen site for his sanctuary was Mount Gerizim, an 881-metre peak looming over Shechem from the south, rather than Mount Moriah in Jerusalem 63 kilometres to the south.

The Samaritan religion became fossilised in the centuries following the split between Israel and Judah. Very little innovation in thought, literature or social organisation has arisen over the millennia, affording a telescopic glimpse of the pristine Judaism of pre-Rabbinic times. Even the Hebrew font they use is ancient, preceding alphabet reforms made by Jews some two-and-a-half millennia ago.

The Samaritans call themselvesShamerim, meaning guardians of the truth. They hold as sacred the five books of Moses but have never accepted as canon the Prophets or Writings, or the Talmud - the compendium of Jewish oral law.

Their Torah, written on parchment in the ancient Hebrew alphabet, contains some 6,000 variants from the Masoretic Hebrew Bible. Most of these are discrepancies over spelling or pronunciation. Some, however, reflect the bitter historical and religious struggle waged in antiquity between the Samaritans and the Jews.

A Samarian Torah scroll. PICTURE: Gil Zohar.

For example, the Ten Commandments as they are known to Jews and Christian alike have been compressed into nine in the Samaritan version. A tenth commandment drawn up from passages in Deuteronomy 11 and 27 proclaims the sanctity of Mount Gerizim, the Mount of Blessing. The Samaritans observe only the biblical Holy Days: the New Year, Day of Atonement, Tabernacles (Sukkot), Pentecost (Shavuot) and Passover, the latter being their most important festival.

The communitys high priesttraces his genealogy back to the Biblical figure Uziel, son of Kohath, son of Levi. It was the Levites who assisted the Kohanim in their priestly duties in Solomons temple.

Until 1624, there had existed a chain of high priests descended from Eleazar, the son of Aaron and the nephew of Moses.

In addition to his official duties as final arbiter in matters of religion and as leader of religious ceremonies, Abdallah Wasef has encouraged the young to learn their historical and literary traditions from the communitys sages and has endeavoured to find matches for the unwed. More than half of Samaritans are under the age of 30.

In 722 BC, 200 years after the split between Solomons sons Jeroboam and Rehoboam, the Kingdom of Israel was destroyed by the Assyrians. Many of the vanquished population were deported as slaves to Mesopotamia, or present-day Iraq. Vassal people living in what is now Syria at the border between Iran and Iraq were brought in their stead to settle the barren land.

Jewish tradition maintains that the Samaritans are the descendants of these colonisers who adopted some Israelite rituals (II Kings 17:24-29), a charge adamantly denied by the Samaritans.

The enmity between the Jews and Samaritans continued for centuries. The Hebrew prophets continually upbraided the northerners for their sins. Isaiah delivered a tongue-lashing against the drunkards of Ephraim (Isaiah 28:1), and the name Jezebel, the wife of King Ahab, has become a synonym for impudence and licentiousness.

The parable of the good Samaritan in the Gospels (Luke 10:2-37) obliquely refers to the acrimonious relations between the rival faiths. Jesus uses Samaritans as a metaphor for despised yet helping people, like the good Christian.

In the Talmud, Samaritans are disparagingly called Cutheans after the Babylonian city of Kuthah, one of the places from which the Assyrians relocated settlers.

At the beginning of the Christian era, upwards of a million Samaritans were living in the hill country and plains of central Palestine, and Nablus had developed into a major city. The first-century Jewish historian Josephus recounted the ancient love story that led to the construction of the Samaritan temple on Mount Gerizim in 332 BC.

According to Josephus, a Jerusalem high priest named Menashe flouted Jewish law by marrying a Samaritan woman named Nikaso. Menashe was given the choice of leaving his wife or the temple cult. Nikasos father Sanballat, leader of the Samaritans, promised to build him an exact replica of the Jerusalem temple and make him high priest there.

In 170 BC, the Seleucid ruler Antiochus I converted the temple into a shrine to Zeus. Both the pagan sanctuary and the city below were razed by John Hyrcanus in 113 BC. The zealous Hasmonean king also conquered Idumea to the south, the homeland of the biblical Edomites, whom he forcibly converted to Judaism.

This tradition of persecution was continued by the Christian Byzantines, who built the Church of Mary Theotokos atop the ruins starting in AD 484. Throughout the centuries, the Samaritan population gradually dwindled, decimated by the crushed revolts against Byzantine rule in 444 and 555 and forced conversions.

With the conquest of the Holy Land by Muslims in 637, the Samaritans became a pariah people restricted to their ghettos and compelled to wear distinctive dress.

By the time of the Crusades, they were reduced from a great nation to a scattered and broken sect - one segment in their ancient homeland, another in Damascus and a third spread thinly along the coastal towns between Jaffa and Egypt.

By the middle of the 19th century, all settlements other than Nablus had been abandoned and their remaining members concentrated in the enclave at the foot of Mount Gerizim.

In 1918, when the British armys advance precipitated the collapse of the tottering Ottoman Empire toward the end of the World War I, the Samaritan population had been reduced to 146 souls. The ancient culture was on the brink of extinction.

In addition, the custom of endogamous marriage had led to dangerous inbreeding, resulting in a high percentage of genetic defects - including colour blindness, congenital respiratory deficiency and deafness. Moreover, male births outnumbered females two-to-one, resulting in an acute shortage of potential spouses.

The Samaritans were rescued from ultimate oblivion by Zionism and the beginning of large-scale Jewish immigration to Palestine in the early 1920s. At that time, some 54 Samaritans left the primitive conditions of the Nablus ghetto to live in Holon, a new Jewish settlement near the port city of Jaffa - predominantly Arab at the time - and the newly founded Jewish town of Tel Aviv.

Most of the settlers were members of two clans: the Tsedakah and Marhib. In 1924, one of these settlers, Yefet Tsedakah, met and married ahalutza - a Zionist pioneer - who had recently immigrated from Russia.

Their union was the first between the lines of Israel and Judah since the time of King Solomon. A number of such marriages have taken place in the ensuing decades, all between Samaritan men and female Jews. There is no male conversion procedure.

Throughout the years of British rule, the enclave in Holon remained static, numbering between 40 and 50. Following the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, Israels War of Independence and Jordans annexation of Judea and Samaria - renamed the West Bank - the Samaritans were divided in two. Families left Nablus to join their kin in Holon, making the two communities roughly equal in number.

Samaritans'Passoverpilgrimage onMount Gerizim,West Bank. PICTURE:Edkaprov (Edward Kaprov)(licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0)

How Samaritans became divided, then unitedThe Samaritans of Holon were recognised as children of Israel under the Law of Return, Israels repatriation act, and became full-fledged citizens of the nascent Jewish state.

Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, Israels second President, took a personal interest in their integration. Due to his efforts, a self-contained neighbourhood, Shikun ha-Shomronim, was built in Holon in 1954. Nine years later, akinshah,or synagogue and community centre, were added.

The Samaritans of Holon gradually adjusted to the ethos of a modern Westernised society. The younger generation has become progressively acculturated, though resistive to religious assimilation so far. In external appearance, Holon Samaritans are indistinguishable from their Jewish neighbours and serve together with them in Tzahal, the Israel Defense Forces.

The 1949 truce secured in Rhodes, which ending hostilities between Israel and its Arab neighbours, contained a provision guaranteeing Israeli Samaritans the right to visit their relatives in Nablus and to participate in the Passover pilgrimage to Mount Gerizim. However, the Jordanians honored this agreement mainly in the breach, claiming it would infringe on security.

For the next 18 years, the Passover celebration was the sole occasion when most of the community was united. The Paschal lamb sacrifice became an annual assembly for matchmaking. In consultation with the high priest, prospective couples decided which partner would join the other to live in Israel or Jordan.

During this period, the Holon community became progressively more established and prosperous, and the Nablus community more impoverished and persecuted.

With the Israeli victory in the 1967 Six-Day War, the two communities were free to meet all year long. A feeling of national renaissance took hold. Never faltering in their belief that they are Gods chosen people and that the day will come when providence will again favour them, the Samaritans interpreted the reunion of their divided community as a divine omen.

Israels Civil Administration has indeed proven to be a blessing. The Samaritan presence in Nablus dovetails with right-wing Israeli desires to settle the Biblical heartland of Judea and Samaria, notwithstanding Israels 1996 withdrawal from the city of 130,000. That year, Nablus Samaritans were granted Israeli citizenship.

The settlement of Qiryat Luza was built on Mount Gerizim, strategically overlooking Nablus, an-Najah University and the Balata refugee camp - all hotbeds of Palestinian nationalism and scenes of rioting during the uprising.

Archaeological excavations were carried out for 18 years, beginning in 1982, and led by Yitzhak Magen - the Israeli Civil Administrations chief archaeologist for the West Bank - as if to further strengthen the connection between past and present. In 2000, the Israel Antiquities Authority dedicated a 100-acre archaeological park comprising the Samaritan temple and other remains.

The 3,000-year-old rift between Jews and Samaritans has been healed. The Samaritans today may be seen as the pitiful remnant of a once-sovereign nation whose system of religious beliefs has been seemingly arrested in time, but they are also an illustration of how ethnic and religious conservatism can safeguard a minority group that would otherwise have vanished - almost without a trace.

Gil Zohar was born in Toronto, Canada, and moved to Jerusalem, Israel, in 1982. He is a journalist writing for The Jerusalem Post, Segula magazine, Religion Unplugged and other publications. Hes also a professional tour guide who likes to weave together the Holy Lands multiple narratives.

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The Long Read: Samaritans number less than 1,000. Here's how their tradition survives in Israel - Sight Magazine

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26 Oct, 2021 09:03 PM3 minutes to read

A rare ancient toilet in Jerusalem dating back more than 2,700 years, when private bathrooms were a luxury in the holy city. Photo / Yoli Schwartz, Israel Antiquities Authority via AP

Archaeological excavations in Jerusalem have revealed a 2,700-year-old toilet in an ancient, royal mansion.

The private toilet cubicle dated back to the end of the 7th century BCE and was unearthed in a building that overlooks the City of David archaeological site and the Temple Mount according to a press release from the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA).

The bathroom itself was a rectangular shape, carved from stone and around one by two meters wide. Meanwhile, the loo itself, made from limestone, sat over a deep septic tank and was designed for the best sitting experience possible.

Considered a bare essential in any home today, IAA's excavation director Yaakov Billig said back in the day, only the wealthiest could afford to splash out with a private toilet cubicle.

"A private toilet cubicle was very rare in antiquity, and to date, only a few have been found, mostly in the City of David," said Billig in a statement.

"Only the rich could afford toilets. In fact, a thousand years later, the Mishnah and the Talmud discuss the various criteria that define a rich person, and Rabbi Yossi [suggests that] to be rich is [to have] a toilet near his table.'"

IAA director Eli Eskisiod said it was fascinating to consider how something so common today would be considered a luxury to people during the reign of the kings of Judah.

Leaving no stone unturned, the team also dug into the septic tank and found several animal bones and pottery.

The study of such objects and materials could help shed light on the diet, lifestyle and diseases of people living during this period.

Further afield from the toilet, archaeologists also found evidence of a garden that had ornamental trees, fruit trees ad aquatic plants. These findings supposedly add to the impression that a well-off family had resided at the estate.

26 Oct, 2021 07:52 PMQuick Read

26 Oct, 2021 12:17 AMQuick Read

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According to Billig, the estate may have been a residence of a king of Judah,

In March, dozens of pieces of a Dead Sea Scroll containing biblical text were discovered in the Judean Desert by archaeologists.

It had been around 60 years since the last fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls had been found, in a cave where Jewish rebels had hidden from the Roman Empire around 1,900 years earlier.

The team from IAA plan to present their findings at the conference taking place in Jerusalem this week called "Innovations in the Archaeology of Jerusalem and its Surroundings."

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2,700-year-old private toilet discovered in Jerusalem - New Zealand Herald

(JTA) Occult practices and totems are a mainstay of Halloween season, and sage bundles, altars and crystals are an increasingly trendy way to dabble in divination and witchcraft. But the spooky supernatural world also has a long history in Judaism, and modern Jewitches are encouraging the connection though their practices often slightly differ from their non-Jewish contemporaries.

I do not burn sage, said Zo Jacobi, who runs Jewitches, a popular blog and podcast that deep dives into ancient Jewish myths and folkloric practices. The sage-related ritual of smudging, an Indigenous ceremony popular among modern witches for cleansing a person or place of negative energy, is not a Jewish practice, she said. But Jews had crystals. Actually, they were called gems.

Jacobi and her peers are revitalizing ancient Jewish practices of witchcraft, which have been seeing something of a revival as of late. Far from having an uneasy relationship with magic practitioners, Judaism or at least Kabbalistic strands of it has long embraced them.

Jacobi, based in Los Angeles, studies those gems role in Jewish ritual, along with the connections between assorted other magical artifacts and Judaica. Eight shelves in her home are filled with books on Judaism as well as Jewish magic, witchcraft and folklore.

Her studies have revealed the historical ways that items like gems have been used in Jewish magical correspondences. Like healing crystals, gems are meant to protect and heal based on their properties, according to Midrash (Numbers Rabbah 2:7). For example, sapphire was thought to strengthen eyesight.

Its in a medieval text called the Sefer Ha-Gematriaot, Jacobi said. But even if we go to the Torah, we see crystals on the breastplates of the kohanim (high priests of Israel).

Many Jewish rituals today have their roots in warding off demons, ghosts and other mythological creatures. When we break glass at a wedding, scholars say, were not just remembering the destruction of the Temple; were also scaring off evil spirits that may want to hurt the bride and groom. Likewise, ancient Jews believed that the mezuzah protected them from messengers of evil a function parallel to that of an amulet, or good-luck charm.

The mezuzah is absolutely an amulet, said Rebekah Erev, a Jewish feminist artist, activist and kohenet (Hebrew priestexx, a gender-neutral term for priest or priestess) who uses the pronouns they/them and teaches online courses on Jewish magic. I consider it to be a reminder of the presence of spirit, of goddess, of shechinah [the dwelling or settling of the divine presence of God]. Much of magic is about reminding ourselves that were all connected and that everything is alive and animate.

The moniker Jewitch itself can be seen as controversial within the group. Erev first heard the term while attending a 2014 Jewitch Collective retreat in the Bay Area.

I feel that any word that identifies someone as a witch is controversial in nature because of how society, including Jewish society, has demonized witches leading to violence and ostracizing, Erev said. To be a Jew and to be a witch has had serious repercussions throughout time. I hope the recent popularity of the term Jewitch will bring more acceptance and understanding of both identities and help to make our practices more widely accessible.

Priestexx Rebekah Erev calls the mezuzah an amulet. (Vito Valera)

I feel that any word that identifies someone as a witch is controversial in nature because of how society, including Jewish society, has demonized witches leading to violence and ostracizing, they said, even though they do consider both witchcraft and Judaism to be major tenets of their life.

Cooper Kaminsky, a Denver-based intuitive artist and healer, concurred that the portmanteau was revisionist to some, but added, Many, including myself, are empowered by identifying as a Jewitch.

Historically, as Judaic practices grew more patriarchal, women were exempt from studying the Talmud and Torah. They knew little Hebrew, so they created their own prayers in Yiddish, used herbal remedies and centered their religious practices around the earth.

Erev mirrors these customs by creating magical rituals, like meditating on cinnamon sticks during the month of Shvat, hearkening back to how cinnamon trees in Jerusalem scented the land during the harvest.

Theres a Kabbalistic idea of making oneself smaller for creation to emerge. Connecting with a cinnamon stick is a simple ritual. The cinnamon folds in, and the bark contracts in on itself, Erev said. Sometimes contracting inward can give us space to emerge and create.

They also do spellwork, creating spells for new love, pregnancy protection and social justice; on their blog, they shared an incantation designed to bring more awareness to Indigenous Land Back movements.

The goal of many Jewitch educators and practitioners, they say, is to shine a light on rituals that have been forgotten or buried for self-preservation. Jacobi believes that many folkloric practices died out following the 13th-18th centuries because, at the time, Jews were viewed as demonic witches.

Jewish communities did what they thought would protect them from literal certain death. Some of that came at the expense of some of these practices, Jacobi said. Instead of the supernatural reasons, they tried to give rational reasons for what they were doing. Ashkenazi Jews routinely tried to debate with their oppressors in the hopes that they could out-logic antisemitism.

This traumatic history, the Jewitches say, is often papered over or dismissed as myths and superstitions. Saying superstition is a way that we downplay our magic, Kaminsky said. We protect ourselves because, historically, a huge part of our oppression has been because were magical.

Almost all of our Jewish spells are for the sake of healing, says Cooper Kaminsky. (Colin Lloyd)

Kaminsky, who uses the pronouns they/them, does spiritual readings for clients that draw upon Kabbalah, Tarot and the Akashic records a reference library of everything that has ever happened, which spiritual mediums believe resides in another dimension. Kaminsky incorporates Jewish prayers into their spellwork, like reciting the Psalms of David when doing candle spells and the Bsheim Hashem as a magical invocation.

Kaminsky, who uses the pronouns they/them, grew up in a Conservative Jewish household and learned the basic concepts of Kabbalah in Jewish day school.

Kabbalah looks at Judaism through a cosmic, mystical lens that clicked for me a lot more than looking at a story from the Torah, Kaminsky said. As I read more Kabbalah, I started feeling more connected to my Judaism.

Various scholars and rabbis have linked Kabbalah to Tarot, a deck of cards originally used in the mid-15th century to play games that evolved to divinatory practices in the 18th century (though Jacobi, for one, refutes this idea, claiming the connection has never been proven). The Tarots Major Arcana the trump cards of the deck, which detail the evolution of ones soul usually make up 22 cards in any given pack, a meaningful Jewish number: the same as the number of letters in the aleph-bet, and the number of pathways on the Kabbalistic Tree of Life.

For their energy work, Kaminsky draws parallels between the chakras, energy points in the body discussed in Hinduism, and the Kabbalistic Tree of Life.

The Tree of Life is an energy network, they said. Theres the meridians of energy, and the chakras are like the middle pillar.

Mystical practices were a part of Jacobis upbringing. Her parents practiced Kabbalah, metaphysics, folklore and folk mythology. They have attended the same local Chabad since Jacobi was three years old.

Thanks to these experiences, Jacobi is comfortable living out of the (broom) closet a tongue-in-cheek term that some modern witches use to refer to openly practicing witchcraft. She grew up with astrology, used tarot cards on Shabbat and played with her mothers rose quartz crystal ball while her father led Havdalah prayers. The Jewitches blog and podcast are filled with mythological creatures with origins in Jewish beliefs, like dybbuks, werewolves, dragons and vampires.

Some creatures are unique to Jewish lore:the vampiric Alukah, a blood-sucking witch referred to in Proverbs 30, turned out to be Liliths daughter, while a Broxa originated as a bird from medieval Portugal that drank goats milk and sometimes human blood during the night.

Whenever there have been dire times throughout history, people have turned to mysticism; thats how Kabbalah emerged, Erev said. We need to look to our ancestors for guidance. There are a lot of tools in our human community for healing and re-dreaming and creating a world that is safe and generative for all beings.

Kaminsky thinks magic has the power to repair the world: Almost all of our Jewish spells are for the sake of healing. Tikkun olam, using our magic to repair the world, is beautiful.

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The season of the Jewitch: Meet the occultists who blend witchcraft and Jewish folklore - JTA News - Jewish Telegraphic Agency

From across the globe Jewish leaders from all parts of the religious spectrum will participate in COP, or Conference of the Parties, meaning states that have signed on to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

From pupils in school, through youth movements, to members of XR Jews and the increasing number of congregations signed up to EcoSynagogue, we are passionately concerned about the future of our world. We care as Jews, as human beings, and as part of the vast interdependent community of all living beings.

Before the covenant at Sinai, we were a part of the ancient, universal bond between God, humanity and all life on earth. It was established with Noah after the first great destruction. Only mindfulness of it now can preventa new environmental disaster.

Ever since God instructed Adam and Eve to work the land with respect while protecting the earth and the rich biodiversity it supports, Judaism has taught that we are not owners but trustees and caretakers because the world and its fullness belong to God. We are not entitled simply to commodify, monetise and exploit nature. For, as we are reminded in this sabbatical year, the land and all creatures matter to God.

The authors of the Bible, like the rabbis of the Mishnah and Talmud, lived in close relationship with the soil; they knew in their bones our interdependence with nature.

They experienced droughts and floods. They understood the truth taught by Ecclesiastes, that even the king or prime minister is subject to the field. If they were alive today, they would uphold the demand for climate justice for the worlds poorest populations. For justice is a central value of Torah.

The Torahs commandment, bal tashchit(do not destroy), forbids wanton destruction. We should interpret this now to include our participation, directly or through investments, in patterns of consumption, extraction and waste, which cause devastation anywhere on earth. We cannot pursue in good consciencea way of life in one part of the world that causes destitution in another.

The Torah forbids cruelty, not just to people but to animals. There can be few greater forms of cruelty than causing their extinction.

Over and above these reasons, I feel passionate concern for the future of the planet because the world is full of wonder and Gods spirit flows through all creation. Im a lover of forests, streams and mountains; they restore the soul, and our physical and mental health as well. Therefore, I fear for the future of nature.

We owe the worlds children and grandchildren a planet as rich, beautiful and sustaining as it once was and can again become. How can we live with ourselves unless we try to do our best for them and for this earth?

Religions have a crucial role in the climate crisis. With their ethos of collective responsibility, they have the capacity to mobilise whole communities to work for a better world. People of all faiths will be campaigning together at COP and working together afterwards.

We need to engage collectively in environmental teshuvah (repentance). Maimonides describes teshuvah as a process beginning with acknowledgement, followed by reparation and lasting change.

We have to rethink habits of wastefulness, unnecessary consumption and inattentiveness to our impact on the biosphere. We must fall back in love with the natural world and deepen our awareness of the peoples, animals and plants with whom we share our planet. We can join remarkable organisations supporting nature, here, in Israel and globally. We can plant trees and make gardens into miniature biodiverse reserves.

We can pursue environmental justice while filling our lives with wonder.

Jonathan Wittenberg is Rabbi at New North Masorti London Synagogue

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Faiths are uniting to support planet but we must repent - Jewish News