Author Archive | Hazon

Hazon Detroit: Tragic Hope & Meaningful Action

By Hazon on December 3, 2020 in Activism, Detroit, Education, Institutional Food Values, Jewish Texts, Newsletters, Reflections, Tzedek/Justice, Weekly Parsha

by Rebecca Levy Dear Friends, Since the summer, we have had the incredible fortune of having six wonderful interns supporting and enriching our work. Much gratitude to Repair the World Serve the Moment, the Applebaum Internship Program, JOIN, and the Hornstein Program For Jewish Professional Leadership at Brandeis University. One of these interns, Rebecca Levy, has written the piece below and we are thrilled to be able to share her words with you. In loving community, Wren, Rabbi Nate, Marla, and Hannah When sitting in shul, my favorite part of most sermons is the speaker’s call to action, which typically comes towards the end. Yes, it is important to learn and the lessons that we draw from the Torah and from life are beneficial, but as one of my English-teachers always said, “so what – who cares?” – English-teacher code for “why is this important and what can we take away from it?” Especially in days like these, when the feeling of loss and uncertainty can be overwhelming, I like to know what I can do moving forward. Do not get me wrong, I love to learn and learning is necessary if you want to act meaningfully, but […]

Vayetze: The Meaning of Seven by Aharon Ariel Lavi

By Hazon on November 24, 2020 in Shmita

Shmita is the seventh year, following six regular years — and numbers in the Torah are not incidental, but rather a channel for meaningful ideas. The first, and most renowned, appearance of the number seven is obviously the seven days of creation. Later, Noah invites seven couples of the pure animals to come to the ark, exactly seven days before the flood (Genesis 7:2-4); the ark rests on the seventeenth day of the seventh month (Genesis 8:4); Avraham forges an alliance with Avimelech by giving him seven female lambs and calling his well “Be’er Sheva” (literally: “well of seven”, Genesis 21:28-32); his son Yitzhak reaffirms the alliance in Be’er Sheva as well. “I will work for you seven years for Rachel” says Ya’akov to Lavan, his uncle, in our parsha (Genesis 29:18). He is then deceived into marrying Leah, Rachel’s sister, and only gets to marry Rachel in exchange for an additional seven years of labor. Later, Rachel appears to be infertile, while her sister Leah gives birth to no less than six sons in a row, followed by a seventh — and final — daughter (Genesis 30:21). Only then does her younger sister become fertile. In both cases — […]

Food Rescue Hero: Minister Antonio

By Hazon on November 19, 2020 in Activism, Detroit, Food, Food Justice, Institutional Food Values, Reflections

Over the next few months, Tania and myself, Lily, will be highlighting our local food rescue heroes. In doing this work only briefly, we have been struck with the profound recognition of our own privilege, of our ability to go to the market and get as much food as we not only need, but want. Yet so many do not have the means to do so by no fault of their own. Through working with Hazon and other partner organizations, we have met those who have turned their lives into helping others, ensuring as many families can be fed as possible. For food insecurity is not a problem with lack of food per se, but with food distribution. These are people who have welcomed strangers into their home, put food on their plates, and in doing so have created a community that stands up for one another and helps with no questions asked. It is truly an honor to work alongside these heroes. When thinking about a food rescue hero to write about, we immediately knew the top candidate, a man we’ve known only briefly but whose words and spirit have begun to fuel us in our everyday work. Minister […]

Toldot: What Will We Eat in the Seventh Year? Shmita, Lack, and Abundance by Justin Goldstein

By Hazon on November 17, 2020 in Shmita

While the language may be a product of recent decades, the dichotomy between an “abundance mentality” and a “lack mentality” is a core human experience. The basic principles of these two concepts reflect a question of perspective; one who embodies an “abundance mentality” sees opportunities even in life’s challenges, whereas one who embodies a “lack mentality” concentrates on the fear of not having. Even as these ideas have gained traction in recent years, we see this tension reflected in the Torah. The Torah preempts the human fear of a lack of food – “What will we eat in the seventh year?” (Lev. 25:20) and the Torah sets out a reassurance that God will provide a three-fold crop in the sixth year. Is this a miracle, or something more nuanced? In Parashat Toldot, near the conclusion of the well-known vignette wherein Isaac, in his blindness, gives a blessing intended for his eldest son, Esau, to Jacob, his younger son in disguise. Isaac blesses his son (Gen. 27:28): “May God give you from the dew of the heavens and from the fats of the earth; and an abundance of grain and fresh wine.” In his commentary on this verse, Ramban (Rabbi Moshe […]

Hakhel Spotlight: D I S T A N C E – A 9th Street Project

By Hazon on November 17, 2020 in Activism, Hakhel Blog, Hakhel Blog, Jewish Intentional Communities

WHO? 9th Street is a community of Jewish multidisciplinary artists and creatives based in Johannesburg. Recently and together with seed money from Hakhel and a grant from the South African Cities Network, we embarked on a project to bridge the distances between people of difference. The project, entitled D I S T A N C E, asked four 9th Street artists to invite other artists who were different to them, be it in gender, race, age, sexual orientation, place of origin and/or religion. The artists then all gathered on Heritage Day here to create performative work in a public park. WHY? 26 years after apartheid ended, inequalities left over from this old regime abound. The poor black majority are still mainly poor while the white minority are still disproportionately wealthy. D I S T A N C E attempted to address these inequalities. Also, as young Jewish artists in Johannesburg, we have come to realise that our Jewish community is not integrated into wider South African society. D I S T A N C E aimed to question our white privilege, our Jewish silo and attempted to insert us as Jews into wider society. WHERE? We chose to work in […]

Chayei Sarah: What does it mean to “own” land – and why is it important? by Nigel Savage

By Hazon on November 10, 2020 in Shmita

In my twenties I bought my first apartment in London. My parents lent me £5,000 for the deposit, and I got a mortgage for the rest. It was a 2-bedroomed apartment in Golders Green. I do no disservice to my apartment if I say that it was…. a pretty ordinary apartment. Yet I clearly remember closing my front door, after my parents left to return to Manchester, and sitting down on a box – surrounded by boxes on all sides – and just being so happy. Why was that? Well, the answer is, it was mine. But why did this make a difference? And – a different kind of question – should it have made a difference? The obverse of my feeling that day, of course, is the line attributed to Larry Summers, the former Treasury Secretary: “in all of human history, no-one ever washed a rental car…” Both vignettes tell the same story: ownership matters. It makes a difference. We treat things differently if we feel that they are “ours” in some sense. And that is why, in this week’s parsha, Avraham goes out of his way – repeatedly – to buy the cave of Machepela, which is to […]

Lech-Lecha: Environmental Refugees by Rabbi Nina Beth Cardin

By Hazon on October 29, 2020 in Shmita

This week’s parashah, Lekh Lekha (Genesis 12:1-17:27) heralds the emergence of the Jewish people. The story is inaugurated by a call from God directing Abra[ha]m to uproot himself and his family, leave his homeland, his memories, his childhood, all he has known, to begin again in a place unknown. Abram amazingly, faithfully, does so. With the divine promise of prosperity, Abram becomes a pilgrim to a new homeland. But the lines between pilgrim, wanderer and refugee quickly become blurred. Once Abraham reaches his destination, he has a difficult time finding a place to settle. He stops at Elon Moreh, but the Canaanites were there. He then moves to the east of Beth El. But he doesn’t stay there. He ups and wanders again, moving incessantly throughout the desert. Why? With God at his side, guiding his journey, why was Abram so unsettled? Because he is a refugee. Like all those displaced by war, plague, drought, floods; those who seek a safe harbor from the trauma that forced them to leave and healing from the losses they have endured, Abram has trouble settling into a foreign land. Abram’s story is a reminder of how hard it is for the refugee, even […]

Noah: In Search of Balance by Hannah Henza

By Hazon on October 22, 2020 in Shmita

The story of Noah is a tale that shows up in many ancient forms. But the lessons we learn from the various deluge narratives are more applicable today than perhaps ever before. As the story opens, we are told that Noah remains singularly righteous as the rest of humanity falters. How is this possible? Just a short while ago we were being given the Garden “to tend and guard.” We were just beginning to explore the ways that humanity could spread across the land with divine blessing. So what should be done when human corruption rears its destructive head again? In this case, God provides clear instructions: Build an ark and take in the animals. This is similar to the instructions we are provided for Shmita: Prepare and gather extra produce ahead of time. As the Earth is subject to the largest reset ever imagined, Noah, his family, and God’s creation will be protected with the promise of a new world; a more righteous humanity. And yet, once they finally step out of the ark and make their new life we are immediately presented with more human failure – the Tower of Babel, an attempt by humans to build a […]

Bereishit: The Sabbatical Paradigm by Jeremy Benstein

By Hazon on October 14, 2020 in Shmita, Weekly Parsha

“And there was evening, and there was morning” (Gen. 1). Nature has rhythms. “Seedtime and harvest, Cold and heat, Summer and winter, Day and night… ” (Gen. 8). Human society too has rhythms. Or at least it did, once. Traditional societies, whether nomadic or agrarian, had their rhythms, tied to the natural ones. They depended on them, were sustained by them. Genesis 1 tells of another rhythm: the 7-day ‘beat;’ what we call a week. In Hebrew, shavu’a, related to sheva’ – “seven.” Or better: 6+1. Six units of work, one of rest. It must be a pretty good ratio, since it has lasted for thousands of years. That, however, makes the “1” seem like an afterthought, a utilitarian pause to catch our breath before plunging back into the main attraction, work. But that “1” is anything but an afterthought. It is Shabbat, the pinnacle of the week in Genesis 1. It is the cessation of creative intervention in the world in order to celebrate creation’s abundance, revel in it, share it, build our families and communities around it. We don’t rest in order to work; we work in order to be able to be worthy of Shabbat. In order […]

Hazon Detroit: Shake Local

By Hazon on October 7, 2020 in Climate Change, Detroit, Education, Holidays, Reflections, Sukkot

Dear Friends, Our rabbis say (Tosafot, Suk. 37b) that when we shake the lulav and etrog on Sukkot, “the trees of the forest sing with joy.” So that got us to wondering, what are the conditions that might allow the trees around us to sing with the greatest amount of joy during this holiday season that just passed? Every year on Sukkot, the US imports upwards of 500,000 lulavim from Israel and Egypt so that we can construct our traditional lulavim bundles using the familiar palm fronds, willow, myrtle, and citron. This combination of species has become so definitional that most of us probably don’t even consider that a lulav could be constructed any other way. But the original text is not so clear. In Torah (Lev 23.40), where we’re first told about the four species, the text simply says: לְקַחְתֶּ֨ם לָכֶ֜ם בַּיּ֣וֹם הָרִאשׁ֗וֹן פְּרִ֨י עֵ֤ץ הָדָר֙ כַּפֹּ֣ת תְּמָרִ֔ים וַעֲנַ֥ף עֵץ־עָבֹ֖ת וְעַרְבֵי־נָ֑חַל וּשְׂמַחְתֶּ֗ם לִפְנֵ֛י יְהוָ֥ה אֱלֹהֵיכֶ֖ם שִׁבְעַ֥ת יָמִֽים׃ On the first day you shall take the fruit of beautiful trees, fronds of palm-shaped trees, branches of woven trees, and valley-willows, and you shall rejoice before YHVH your God for seven days. Nowhere does it determine, at its linguistic core, the […]

Join Hazon in Getting Out The Vote!

By Hazon on September 22, 2020 in Activism, Climate Change, Education, Opportunities, Tzedek/Justice

By Becky O’Brien and Janna Siller “The opposite of good is not evil; the opposite of good is indifference. In a free society where terrible wrongs exist, some are guilty, but all are responsible.” These words are from the same sage, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel Z”L, who taught us to wake up in the morning and feel the radical amazement of being alive, to seek happiness through wonder. It is hard to know which is more elusive: wonder or a means for taking action against terrible wrongs this high holiday season. If we peek around the thick weeds that obscure, both are available to us, even now. Perhaps we can even combine the two, as Heschel described when he spoke of his march from Selma to Montgomery with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “It felt like my legs were praying.” So, what can you do? VOTE! Go to the National Association of Secretaries of State’s “Can I Vote?” page, or do an internet search for “[your county] voter registration,” to ensure that your voter status is what you think it is and what you want it to be. Update if needed. Ballot and election options and details vary across […]

Hazon Detroit: I Am To My Beloved

By Hazon on August 27, 2020 in Activism, Climate Change, Detroit, Education, Elul, Food Festival, Jewish Texts, Reflections

Dear Friends, When this pandemic began it was winter. You may remember it snowing while we were Safer At Home. Winter eventually gave way to spring, as it does, and life bloomed bright while we remained in quarantine. As the months rolled by, the heat quickly picked up and summer kicked into high gear. And now, with Coronavirus still present as ever, fall is here. Our days are getting shorter while the golden hued sunlight mimics the bashful change of leaves. On the Jewish calendar, these subtle changes in light and leaf mean that the High Holidays are just around the corner. Today we find ourselves squarely in the Jewish month of Elul, a month of introspection and penitence that leads up to Rosh HaShanah. We know that this period is one of intensity and spiritual work. We’re reminded of that each day of Elul, when the shofar (ram’s horn) is blown. We know it’s a time of teshuvah (return) and selichot (repentance), illustrated by the cheshbon ha’nefesh (soul accounting) that we’re instructed to do all month. And many of us attend religious services (virtually, of course, this year) more in the weeks ahead than we do the rest of […]

Food, then and now

By Hazon on August 6, 2020 in Adamah, Climate Change, Detroit, Elul, Farming, Food, Food Justice, Nigel, Tzedek/Justice

Thursday, August 6, 2020 | 16 Av 5780 Dear All, This week’s sidra, Eikev, is the week that introduced into English (via the King James version) “man does not live by bread alone” and “a land flowing with milk and honey.” It’s the week that lists the seven species – shivat haminim – that are indigenous to the land of Israel, which Bill Slott points out to me every few years as we ride from Jerusalem to Ashkelon on the first day of the Arava Institute Hazon Israel Ride. And it includes the second paragraph of the shm’a, linking our behavior to the climate of the world. Food is a recurring motif. Perhaps that was why Ruby Rivlin, President of Israel, chose this week to spend the day helping Leket pack food for people in need. As Joe Gitler subsequently wrote, President Rivlin wasn’t just doing a photo-op. He’s seriously engaged by the topic and thinking hard – and striving to put the weight of his office – behind new ways to help get food to people who are food insecure. But you don’t have to be President of Israel to make a difference. “Pivot” and “swivel” are words-of-this-year, and they encapsulate […]

Mourning Eternity in the Cedars of Lebanon

By Hazon on July 29, 2020 in Climate Change, Holidays, Spirituality

By Jessica Haller Revised July 2021 There is one place in the world today where you can still touch the grandchildren or perhaps even the sibling trees of the actual trees King Solomon ordered to build the First Temple. The Cedars of Lebanon still stand in Barouk forest, Shouf Biosphere Reserve South of Beirut – a UNESCO World Heritage site. The last 17 square miles remain of the Cedars of Lebanon. They are ancient, tall, wide, amazing specimens. Scientists report that the stand will be extinct by the end of this century. In 2021 political and economic upheaval in the country further jeopardizes the reserve. Cutting those trees was Solomon’s first command when he began instruction to build the Temple. King Solomon knew the trees – as the wisest man in the world, the text of the book in Kings 1 says he “discoursed” on the trees – and knew their powers. Cedars of Lebanon live for thousands of years. Their wood does not rot, it resists fire, smells wonderful, conducts sound in wonderful ways, and is extremely strong. The Phoenicians used the Cedars of Lebanon to build their ships, and the Egyptians used it for paper. Solomon knew the […]

Out of the Crash

By Hazon on July 21, 2020 in Detroit, Holidays, Reflections, Spirituality, Tzedek/Justice

Dear Friends, R’ Benay Lappe, who runs SVARA queer yeshiva in Chicago, teaches what she calls her “crash theory.” Every person and every group has a narrative that defines us and our beliefs, she says. This is called a “master story.” At some point, however, ultimately and inevitably, every master story will one day come crumbling down. On a personal level, this might be a job loss, a divorce, or a tragedy of some sort. On a Jewish communal level, the prototypical “crash moment” was the destruction of the Second Temple, which we will mourn as a community nine days from tonight, on Tisha B’Av. You see, when the Second Temple crashed in 70 CE, the Israelites’ entire way of life crashed with it. For our ancient ancestors, the Temple was their center of peoplehood and practice. It was where they made pilgrimage three times a year, where they spiritually and physically oriented, and where God’s presence – they believed – dwelt most close and most high. When the Temple was destroyed, their entire system was in shambles and the future of Israelite religion was unclear at best. So what does one do when their master story is in peril? […]

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