Author Archive | Nigel Savage

Dear All, As the week goes on, and despite events in Israel and so many other things, I remain profoundly aware of the death of Reb Zalman, may his memory be for a blessing. A sense of him and the memory of him is never far away. He had such a beautiful voice, his beautiful accent, and those twinkly eyes. He was irrepressible, joyous, and a font of ideas and connections. It was a pleasure and a challenge to try to keep up with him and his richly associative mind. His presence continues to echo. I will miss him very much. He was intimately involved with Hazon and our programs over many years. The staff at Isabella Freedman loved him; he made it a habit always to meet with the behind-the-scenes staff, not just front-of-house folk. He taught at Shavuot, was a central figure at Elat Chayyim since its earliest days, was a very special presence at our benefit last year, and came to England with us for a climate change conference a few years back. He was deeply interested in, and supportive of, our work on shmita. And he and Eve have been incredibly kind and generous to me personally. […]

It is a cacophonous and intense time to be here in Israel. The three kidnapped boys. War in Iraq. My niece’s bat mitzvah. Syria. Netanyahu and Abbas. The World Cup. Seeing old friends. Waze. Shopping malls, Israeli hospitals, Mahane Yehuda, the (superb) Rabin Museum. The Presbyterian vote to divest. Masechet Ta’anit. Everything higgledy-piggledy, one experience jarring upon the next. Against this background, I have no great wisdom to offer – certainly succinctly . But I note that many of us living in comfort and peace have afforded ourselves for a great while – without being fully aware of it – the gifts of irresponsibility and unseriousness. I include within this a whole raft of things: not reading serious newspapers (including, especially, those with which we disagree); allowing our attention spans to shorten; polluting our inboxes and thus indirectly our souls with nonsense and vapidity. Stepping back from civic engagement. Being in Israel is a good antidote to this. The multiple lessons of the Torah and of Jewish history are that subtle and fragile artifacts of human creation – culture, community, education, law – accrete over time, but fracture, relatively speaking, in moments. Aleppo, Baghdad, Damascus – these have been thriving […]

In March of 1944 the Nazis invaded Hungary. There were by then almost 800,000 Jews here. In a period of eight weeks, starting in May that year, the Nazis rounded them up, deported them, and took them to Auschwitz to be murdered. About 437,000 people were killed. That’s a bit more than every man, woman, and child in Minneapolis today. It’s like killing every single Jew in London, Montreal, Detroit, and Cleveland, combined. That’s what was going on here, this June day, seventy years ago. Seventy years on I’ve been here for a retreat, funded by the Schusterman Foundation, produced by Connection Points, and led brilliantly by Tomi Buchler and Limor Friedman, titled “From Me To We: Between Tribal and Global” – a gathering of young environmental and social justice leaders from three networks: Minyanim (a project backed by UJA-Federation of New York and the Jewish Agency For Israel), ROI (Schusterman), and Siach (itself a partnership led by Hazon and Heschel and supported by UJA). It has been an indescribably rich experience. I find myself with thoughts that are disparate and contradictory: The Shoah is over. Those most obsessed by the Shoah should let it go. Read something else. History […]

Dear All, I had the great honor last weekend to be at the B’nai Jeshurun shul retreat at Isabella Freedman. It was a fascinating and thought-provoking experience. In the last two decades a remarkable number of rabbis, rabbinical students and Jewish tourists have attended services at BJ, which has had a profound influence on non-orthodox shuls in this country (not to mention quite a few orthodox ones, too, and a growing number of kehillot in Israel.) But what struck me last weekend was an unseen aspect of BJ’s success. A shul can have great services and yet not be a community; to be a strong community one needs to put enormous thought and effort into thickening relationships. BJ does this in two ways. First, through a web of weekly and daily interaction – learning and davening, committees, social justice, a hevra kadisha, a range of ways for someone to find a smaller space within the larger whole; a context in which to be seen, to connect and to make a difference. All the good shuls, in my experience, have this. BJ has something in addition which I think is critical in this 24/7 world, and which is slightly rarer: an […]

Dear All, I wanted to write this week about Teva. There is so much going on at Hazon, right now, that is exciting and impactful; and yet Teva is almost in a class of its own. It is the longest-standing continuous program of those surveyed in the JOFEE Study. It’s been around long enough that some of our Teva staff first encountered it as middle-school participants. Its alumni are staffing – in many cases founding and leading – initiatives around the country. The content and the approach that it pioneered are being adapted and applied in day-schools, camps, and synagogues. So I’m writing to you to update you on Teva and to invite you – variously – to send your kids to Shomrei Adamah; to come and teach at or work for Teva; to participate in this year’s Teva Seminar; to speak to us about bringing Teva to your school; and to consider supporting Teva financially, including especially providing scholarships to support attendance at Teva programs. The Teva Seminar You’re warmly invited to join us at the Teva Seminar! It’s an amazing opportunity to gain skills in wilderness exploration, Jewish gardening, eco-activism, pedagogy, textual exploration, and culinary arts, here at […]