Category: Ecology
Dispatch from the Lifejacket Graveyard near Eftalou Beach in Lesvos Greece
There is a “lifejacket graveyard” on the island of Lesvos in Greece, where Syrian and Afghani refugees flee from wars, departing from the Turkish shores 4 kilometers away. This is where ad... Read More
The Power of Prayer and the Promise of Seven Generations
When you hear the terms ‘peaceful protest’ or ‘non-violent opposition’, if you know anything of our history, your mind thinks of two powerful leaders: Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi. Wh... Read More
In Search of Kailash
For the past several years I have been working with a team of scholars, writers, artists and educators preparing for a month-long religious pilgrimage to Mount Kailash and Lake Manasarovar in western ... Read More
The Life of a Gorilla
By all accounts Harambe was a likeable fellow getting ready to start an exciting phase of his life in a new home. Born on May 27, 1999 in Brownsville, Texas, he had just celebrated his 17th birthday w... Read More
Stop Sympathizing and Start Supporting: A Close Look at What Moves Us to Advocate, Part 1
We drive down a dusty, overgrown mountain road, and I wonder how the low clearance between my four-cylinder rental’s undercarriage and the uneven mounds of earth have not scraped the oil pan from my... Read More
The Earth is the Lord’s
For the first week of 2016, I had the pleasure to join a rabbinic mission to Israel, sponsored by AIPAC’s American Israel Education Foundation and the Michael and Lisa Leffell Foundation. On the... Read More
Dangerous Division – Torah and Nature in Pirqei Avot
There’s a famous mishna in the ethical tractate called Pirqei Avot (Chapters on Fundamentals), which says the following: Rabbi Ya’aqov said: One who is reviewing their Torah study while w... Read More
The 2015 Parliament of The World’s Religions: The Tower of Babel in Reverse
The story of the Tower of Babel has always confused me. In it, humans are punished for working collaboratively together. But what kind of god causes confusion and separation, rather than illumination ... Read More