Author Archive | Nigel Savage

A remarkable gift from the tradition, starting tonight

By Nigel Savage on March 21, 2019 in Newsletters, Nigel

Let me begin at the end. Tonight – start to clear things out. Start to clear out your attic, your basement, your garage. The pantry in your kitchen, and any opened bottle or jar in the fridge or the cupboard that’s been open for a few months or more and which you never use. Clear out old clothes, and books, and give them to Goodwill or chuck them out. Then, when you’ve gotten started on all that – start journaling. Now the question is – what is the mental gunk I need to get rid of? What stops me being free? What stops me being who I truly am? What am I needlessly afraid of? What are the things I waste my time on? (I’m talking to you, iPhone, and you, Facebook.) The reason for this is that it’s Purim today, and we so don’t really understand Purim. For sure Purim is not a kids’ holiday, even though we clean it up to be one. It’s a bacchanal, a pre-modern Mardi Gras, full of excess and debauchery and booze and sex. And there’s a reason for this, a hidden order. Today is the start of an 11-week journey that ends at Shavuot. The fulcrum of these 11 weeks […]

Not our hazon, and not in our name – Hazon statement

By Nigel Savage on March 7, 2019 in In the News, Newsletters, Nigel, Press Release

Thursday, March 7, 2019 | Rosh Chodesh Adar II, 5779 A new organization called “hazon” has suddenly appeared in Israel. They are using our name – and they have very different values from us. We want to make clear not only that we have no relationship with them but also that we have issued a cease-and-desist letter to them in relation to our name. For more on this, read on… The word “hazon” means “vision.” There are many things that need fixing in the world and thus many different visions of what could be or should be. Recently a new organization called “hazon” put up billboards around Israel. Were these to protest against poverty or inequality? Against climate change, or species loss, or our human mistreatment of animals? Against discrimination towards minorities? Oh, no, none of those. It spent money to attack people who are lesbian or gay or transgender or queer. A number of people pointed out to us a recent story about them in The Jerusalem Post. Then yesterday, for good measure, the group, now described as a “hardline national-religious organization” called for demonstrations against Women of the Wall at the Kotel tomorrow morning. Then Arutz Sheva published an op-ed critiquing this […]

The Acute and the Chronic

By Nigel Savage on February 21, 2019 in Newsletters, Nigel

Thursday, February 21, 2019 | 16th Adar I, 5779 by Nigel Savage We’ve been hearing about a “national emergency.”It makes sense for governments to have provisions for such things. Every now and then – in human life, in organizational life, and in national life – there are indeed emergencies, and thus something must be done, and quickly. In human life, emergencies are often acute health challenges. Heart attacks, traffic accidents, going into labor early – these things are emergencies. We phone 911. We call on strangers for help. I had an appendicectomy over Labor Day weekend. One minute I was fine. The next minute I was in pain. Three hours later I was in a hospital. Less than 24 hours later I was being wheeled out of the operating theater, an appendix lighter. It was a classic emergency – happened quickly, needed (and thankfully received) a quick response.Chronic issues, of course, we must respond to differently. Diabetes, or MS. Asthma (unless you can’t breathe from asthma – then it’s an emergency.) Certain cancers. Celiac disease, and arthritis.Chronic issues are far harder to deal with. We have a lesser sense of urgency. We must live with them for far longer. Sometimes there are […]

Strategy Update

By Nigel Savage on February 7, 2019 in Food, New York Ride, Newsletters, Nigel

Thursday, February 7th, 2019 | 2nd Adar I, 5779 We’re in the middle of our strategic planning process. I want to give you a sense of where we are and perhaps where we’re heading. First of all: a huge thank you to the significant number of people who have participated in this process. Nine people – five lay, four staff – are on the Advisory Committee that is leading this process, ably chaired by Jessica Haller. We’re working with Wellspring consultants, and the key staffers there now feel like old friends. 298 people filled out an online survey (thank you!). 31 people did one-on-one interviews with our consultants. There have been three significant focus groups, and two weeks ago a six-hour meeting with 28 of our staff and the Wellspring folk. I believed before we began that this was going to be necessary and important. Now, though we haven’t yet landed, we have a much clearer sense of this – including one hugely significant consequence we hadn’t previously focused on. We’re not changing our mission and vision. We’re about “healthier and more sustainable.” We strengthen Jewish life – and help create a more sustainable world for all. We’re the Jewish […]

Significant News in Relation to the 2019 New York Ride

By Nigel Savage on January 18, 2019 in New York Ride, Rides

Hazon as a whole is in the middle of a strategic planning process. We began it in the late summer of last year and intend to land it by late spring. It relates to all of our programs. The goal is to narrow our focus, increase our impact, and strengthen our business model. As I write it’s too soon to know exactly how the process will close, but there is a general sense amongst key stakeholders that we are making good progress. In recent years we’ve been absolutely thrilled at the human impact of the New York Ride, which has continued to be a joyous and impactful event. For those who were there in ’17, for instance, I still recall the extraordinary way that people rose to the challenge of extreme and unexpected weather. It literally brought out the best in everyone. But even as the human impact of the Ride has continued to be strong, we’ve struggled somewhat in recruitment and fundraising. Given this, we have decided not to produce the New York Ride this year. Instead we’ll go into a planning process for the Ride itself, and to some extent for “the Rides” overall. What are our overarching […]

Kaddish for my father

By Nigel Savage on January 17, 2019 in Newsletters, Nigel, Reflections, Tu B’Shvat

Last year Tu B’Shvat fell on a Tuesday evening. We’d arrived that morning in Johannesburg, and just a few days before I’d Googled and found a Tu B’Shvat seder. It was in a place called Huddle Park. We didn’t know anyone there, but it was my 33rd consecutive Tu B’Shvat seder, and it was absolutely one of the most beautiful. This very lush park, an urban wetland, full of long grasses and exotic trees. There was a long long silent meditation walk that went on for almost an hour. I walked in the gathering darkness, and the huge full moon of Shvat came up and brought moonlight to this unfamiliar landscape. I was thinking about my Dad as I was walking. I’d been in Manchester the week before, and he was weakening very significantly. It was a strange and intense and beautiful experience, essentially alone in Africa, in this unfamiliar place, celebrating a holiday that I love, walking, thinking about my dad. And we got back to the hotel, tired and jetlagged, sorting stuff to go on safari the next morning, and the phone rang. It was my mother, to tell us that my Dad had died. He’d died about […]

Tu B’Shvat: Bonna Haberman, MLK, Jim Joseph and my Dad…

By Nigel Savage on January 10, 2019 in Holidays, Newsletters, Nigel, Tu B’Shvat

My first Tu B’Shvat seder was with Bonna and Shmuel Haberman Browns, in London, in 1986. Bonna z”l was an amazing woman, who died too young. (This was my tribute to her that The Forward published at the time of her death.) It was memorable and beautiful enough that I hosted or attended a seder every year from then until last year. And then last year, half an hour after we got back from my 33rd annual Tu B’Shvat seder, my mother phoned to say that my father had died. So Tu B’Shvat has always been important to me, and its implicit themes about cycles of life have now been reinforced for me by the inextricable ways that its memory is bound up for me in memories of my Dad and of Bonna. Eight years ago Devora Joseph Davey gave us funding, through the foundation created in her father’s name, to create a Tu B’Shvat haggadah, and we’ve republished that every year since. This year, both in honor of my father, and because Tu B’Shvat in 2019 falls on MLK weekend, we’ve substantially revised our haggadah. Lisa Kaplan, Elan Margulies, David Rendsburg, and Rabbi Isaiah Rothstein led the charge, and my great thanks go […]

What is Tu B’Shvat and Why Do We Celebrate It?

By Nigel Savage on January 9, 2019 in Holidays, Newsletters, Nigel, Tu B’Shvat

by Nigel Savage Introduction to the new Hazon Tu B’Shvat Haggadah You can trace the recent history of Tu B’Shvat seders like branches on a tree. The first one I went to, in London in 1986, was hosted by Bonna Haberman z”l and Shmuel Browns, mentors to me and many others in the renewal of Jewish ritual. I made my own seder the following Tu B’Shvat, and I’ve made or attended one every year since. Seders, like trees, grow branches, and the branches sprout fruit in all directions. Historical Roots The roots of Tu B’Shvat stretch back to the beginnings of organized Jewish life. We learn from the Mishnah (Tractate Rosh Hashanah) that “the New Year of the Trees” divided the tithing of one year’s crop from the next – the end and start of the tax year, so to speak. After the expulsion from the Land of Israel, Tu B’Shvat went underground, like a seed, ungerminated, lying beneath the soil of Jewish thought and life. The expulsion from Spain in 1492 scattered Jews in many directions, and some landed in Tzfat. Like a forest fire that cracks open seeds dormant for decades, Tzfat’s kabbalists rediscovered Tu B’Shvat and began […]

Big News: Extending the Adamah Farm & Increasing Capacity at Isabella Freedman

By Nigel Savage on December 14, 2018 in Adamah, Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center, Newsletters, Nigel

By Nigel Savage Thursday, December 13, 2018 | 5 Tevet 5779 Dear All, With strong active staff and lay involvement, and support from Project Accelerate, Hazon’s board earlier this year signed off on a new master plan for Isabella Freedman. Isabella Freedman is a place that touches people’s lives individually and strengthens and thickens Jewish institutions. Through Adamah, Teva, the Hazon Food Conference, and our other national retreats it has had a profound impact across the American Jewish community. As Jessica Haller, one of our senior board members, says, “there are some places that do some of the things that this place does, but there are no other places that do all of the things that this place does.” So the master plan is critical not only to Isabella Freedman and Hazon but also, in fact, to the future of the American Jewish community. Isabella Freedman is a place where magic happens – but we need to increase capacity; we need to improve the quality and range of our accommodation and meeting space; and we also need more land to be able to grow our flagship Adamah program, and to enable us to use the land itself more lightly and more carefully. Happily, we believe that […]

What is our theory of Jewish journeys?

By Nigel Savage on December 9, 2018 in Nigel

Commencement speech by Nigel Savage Spertus Commencement, Sunday, December 9th 2018, 7th day of Chanukah, 5779 Watch the full video here. Nigel starts speaking at 00:36. Download a pdf transcript here. Dean, Keren, Hal, Tal, Elana, Rabbi Bauman, graduates, family members and friends, A huge mazal tov to all of today’s new graduates, and to your family members and teachers and everyone here today. Want to say a special word of thanks to Tal Rosen – you and your wife and your father have each been dear friends to me and partners to Hazon over many years. Thank you so much for who you are and all that you do. Now, first: some of you may have assumed that today is the first day in 25 years that I’ve worn a cap and gown. Not so: Liz and I dress like this every Sunday to watch Downton Abbey and then the Queen. But thank you so much for inviting me. These are unique programs, in a unique institution, and a unique city. I’m delighted and honored to be here, and especially since I’m from Manchester, the Midwest of England. It’s so important that Jewish leadership doesn’t just come from New […]

Big Questions

By Nigel Savage on November 29, 2018 in Climate Change, Newsletters, Nigel

By Nigel Savage Thursday, November 29, 2018 | 21 Kislev 5779 Dear All, In 2000, a small group of people believed (a) that we had to try to address environmental sustainability in the world, including some big big – BIG – challenges; (b) that the Jewish community needed to be part of this process, and by the way (c) if we do it right it will strengthen Jewish life as well. We’re called Hazon (Hebrew for “vision”) because it seemed apparent, even then, that if we were going to put our attention on big, intractable, and depressing challenges, we would need to do it with a sense of positive vision. The good news, 18 years on, is that those beliefs are still good beliefs (in a moral sense) and true, practically speaking. The impact of Hazon has grown very dramatically these last 18 years. We’re delivering 35,000 person-days a year of immersive experiences. We’re supporting the Israeli environmental movement in significant ways. In Boulder and Denver and the Detroit area, we’ve started to create and connect the synapses of Jewish sustainability, so that a wide range of initiatives around food and sustainability are integrating into Jewish life in profound ways. […]

Hazon. Important.

By Nigel Savage on November 15, 2018 in Newsletters, Nigel

by Nigel Savage November 15, 2018 | 8 Kislev 5779 Dear all, In the last two weeks we’ve had the shivahs for the people who were murdered in Pittsburgh, the post-Pittsburgh Shabbat, and then the midterms. As I write, California is on fire and a record number of lives have been lost. The Gaza/Israel border is tense and there too lives have been lost. And for historical context we’ve commemorated a century since the end of the Great War and 80 years since Kristallnacht, essentially the start of the next one. So it feels like everything is accelerating and many things are deteriorating. A fine time to enter the month of Kislev, this time of light in the darkness. I want to write especially today about Hazon itself – our failures and challenges, our vitality and our necessity, against this tumultuous backdrop. In a factual sense there is, as ever, much going on. We delivered our largest-ever Israel Ride (registration is now open for 2019, and remarkably 120 people have already registered. We sold out in the spring last year, so if you’re thinking about joining us, sign up soon!), plus a separate tour of Israel’s intentional communities for our […]

Pittsburgh/Israel

By Nigel Savage on October 28, 2018 in In the News, Israel Ride, Nigel

I’m in Israel with our largest ever Israel Ride – 219 participants, plus more than 60 crew and staff members. Six of our riders live in Pittsburgh, two are members of the shul that was attacked, and many more grew up in Pittsburgh or have spent much of their lives there. One person lost one of his closest friends. Two of our riders were married by someone who was shot and had an operation yesterday and is in hospital right now. So – we are a long way away, and it feels very very close. I and all of us send love and condolences to everyone in Pittsburgh and to everyone who is mourning. And, in a different sense, to everyone in the Jewish community and everyone in America who is appalled and shocked that we have reached this point. This morning we stood together overlooking Machtesh Ramon and we sang Eitz Chayim Hi – the words that we read before returning the Torah to the ark on Shabbat morning, the tune that is so beautiful and well-loved. Shuls will be packed next Shabbat morning, across America – shuls should be packed, next Shabbat morning, across America – and I suspect the most intense moment will be […]

From then to now. And where next?

By Nigel Savage on October 18, 2018 in Climate Change, Newsletters, Nigel

by Nigel Savage Thursday, October 18, 2018 | 9 Cheshvan 5779 Dear All, This is a blunter email than usual. For 18 years Hazon’s impact in the world has been partly predicated on not ‘banging people over the head,’ as I sometimes put it. We’re not here to make you feel bad. And not least because many of us aren’t feeling so great about the world right now, and thus don’t need anyone to make us feel worse. Pedagogically, personal or institutional change is not best effected by telling people what to do. And yet, that said, this is a moment in which I don’t have to tell you what to do. I just want to direct your gaze. I note that a significant number of Americans across the Florida panhandle are now homeless, or have wrecked houses, or are mourning the random deaths of loved ones. They could be you or me. They had the misfortune to find themselves in the way of a storm whose impact was greater than previous ones because of aggregate human behavior these last decades. And it happened just after the publication of the IPCC report, which makes absolutely clear that things are on track […]

From Teshuva to Joy to Strategic Planning

By Nigel Savage on October 4, 2018 in Newsletters, Nigel

Thursday, October 4, 2018 | 25 Tishrei 5779 Dear All, The holidays are over and it’s the start of the rest of our lives. I’ve been thinking about the end of the Jewish holidays, how the pieces fit together, what they mean and imply. I was very struck this year by the teaching implicit in going from Yom Kippur into Sukkot. In the ten days of teshuva we reflect and we feel bad about ourselves and we strive to atone and commit to do better. We work on ourselves. And hopefully, by the end of Yom Kippur, as the gates close, we think Yes! I am going to be better! I am going to do this and do that! And then we go into the openness and vulnerability of the sukkah, and the joy of the festival known as zman simchteynu, the time of our (shared) joy. I think I understood at a slightly deeper level, this year, that the tradition is teaching that these things are necessarily connected. The heaviness on Yom Kippur, the joy of Sukkot, and the quite different vulnerabilities (one emotional, one physical) that we experience in succession. And so as we come out of the chagim this week: it’s easy right now to […]

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