Hazon Blog

Special Recent Posts

Trees Are Good For You

February 3rd, 2023

"For as the days of a tree shall be the days of my people." (Isaiah 65:22) Dear Friends, Tu BiShvat, the New Year for Trees, arrives this Sunday-Monday, February 5-6. The Tu BiShvat seder is a very special opportunity to find a few[...]

Celebrate Tu BiShvat with us! One night only events popping up in a town near you.

January 26th, 2023

JYCM New York Tu BiShvat Climate Justice Seder Sunday, February 5 | 2:00pm - 4:00pm ET Calling all New York area teens! Join us for a Climate Justice Seder, full of climate teachings, Jewish connections, and plenty of fruit. Location: Central Synagogue, 652[...]

Hakhel Newsletter: December 2022

December 21st, 2022

Dear Hakhel Communities, Happy Chanukah! We hope you are enjoying this Festival of Lights with your loved ones, in community, and that you are finding ways to grow and spread the light. What are some of the traditions your community has[...]

Questions For Our Future

December 20th, 2022

Dear Friends, What a year! In less than two weeks our merger will be legally official, so I’m reflecting these days on our past, present, and future. A real highlight of this year for me was traveling to COP27 in Egypt with[...]

Hold the Center

December 14th, 2022

"I have often said that a vote is a kind of prayer for the world we desire for ourselves and for our children. It is faith put in action. It is the sober recognition that we pray not only with[...]

COP27, Mount Sinai, and Flora of Vanuatu

November 22nd, 2022

Friends, This year, thanks to support from the Jewish Agency for Israel and several supporting foundations, our first-ever Jewish Youth Climate Movement delegation traveled to COP27: ten Jewish climate activists from campuses across North America, and ten Israelis from the educational[...]

Hakhel Newsletter: November 2022

November 21st, 2022

Dear Hakhel Communities, In this week’s parsha, we read the famous story of two brothers, Jacob and the elder Esau, sons of Isaac. Jacob convinces Esau to sell him his birthright in exchange for a pot of lentil stew, and under[...]

Hazon Detroit: November 2022

November 10th, 2022

The Hebrew month of Cheshvan marks the beginning of the cycle of praying for rain, highlighting the ancient Jewish wisdom that we are dependent on the natural world around us. In Detroit, the remaining few leaves are joining a colorful[...]

Israel & the Diaspora: The View From a Bike

November 8th, 2022

Friends, The last few weeks of travel have been intense and amazing. Over the next few weeks I’ll share stories and learnings from my journey. I began in Chicago at the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America. Living and working[...]

Raising Up Our Voices in the Midterm Elections

October 26th, 2022

Friends, At Hazon-Pearlstone, we are dedicated to making the planet and the Jewish people more healthy and whole. Foundational to these efforts in the United States is a thriving democracy that responds to the people it represents. We are stronger as[...]

Hakhel Newsletter: October 2022

October 26th, 2022

Dear Hakhel Communities, I hope you had a wonderful chagim season filled with beautiful community, spiritual moments, and important new beginnings on a personal and collective level. Speaking of new beginnings, Simchat Torah marks the start of reading the Torah anew, and[...]

V'Zot Habracha & Hakhel: How The Torah Ends The Shmita Year by Rabbi Yonah Berman

October 13th, 2022

"Joining together with our People, and remembering a place and time before we had our own land, we are being called to maintain the sanctity of humanity and creation." The final parsha in the Torah, V’Zot Habracha, is unique in that[...]

Hazon Detroit: October 2022 Newsletter

October 12th, 2022

Shana Tova! How sweet and hopeful to have arrived into this new year with you. We hope that you are nourished and inspired from these last weeks of reflection, joy, togetherness, and intention-setting. We look forward to showing up for[...]

Ha'azinu: The Idolatry Of The Denier, by Rabbi Haggai Resnikoff

October 6th, 2022

"We are growing closer to our last chance to turn our attention back to the earth and its needs, for our beliefs to become re-rooted in reality." What is sacred to a climate denier? What do they worship? They privilege pseudo-science[...]

Vayelech: Is This The End Of Shmita? by Rabbi Petakya Lichtenstein

September 28th, 2022

"What is being born when something is ending and what is ending when something is being born?" This week is the last week of the 7 year sabbatical cycle called Shmita. The portion of Torah read this week, as the year[...]

Nitzavim: Keep It Real - Don’t Overthink It! by Rabbi Benjamin Shalva

September 21st, 2022

"The shmita year is nearly ended, but not quite. There is still time. Time to pause. Time to pray." "And in the night My father came to me And held me to his chest He said there's not much more that you can do Go[...]

Ki Tavo: Property, Shmita And Learning To Fly, by Aharon Ariel Lavi

September 13th, 2022

"You can only give what is yours." Parshat Ki Tavo opens with the commandment of bikkurim. It continues with related agricultural commandments and a commandment to inscribe the Torah on large stones. The sages add that this was made in 70[...]

Hakhel Newsletter: September 2022

September 8th, 2022

Dear Hakhel Communities, We have now entered the month of Elul – a time of introspection, where we review our deeds and our spiritual state this year and prepare for the upcoming “Days of Awe” of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. What[...]

Ki Tetze: Mitzvot To Combat Bad Habits And Destructive Behaviors, by Rabbi Yedidya Sinclair

September 7th, 2022

"Shmita too can loosen the sway of addictive patterns of consumption." Parshat Ki Tetze begins with two mitzvot that the rabbis characterize as countering addiction. The first, of these, the laws of the female captive, challenges and attempts to moderate the[...]

Elul, Shmita, & Culture Change

September 7th, 2022

Friends, We find ourselves in the month of Elul, a time for introspection and checking in with ourselves, a time to confront all the ways in which we missed the mark this past year, and a time to reflect upon who[...]

Shoftim: On the Spiritual Tension of Shmita, By Dr. Tamar R. Marvin

August 31st, 2022

“For is the tree of the field like a human?” Shmita is riven with tension. On the one hand, it is introduced to us in Parashat Behar as a Shabbat of the land: ve-shavta ha-aretz Shabbat la-Shem—“the land shall abstain in[...]

Re’eh, Rosh Hodesh Elul: The Expansiveness of Freedom by Rabbi Dr. Bradley Shavit Artson

August 24th, 2022

"In releasing the land, our finances, and our fellows to freedom, we free ourselves as well, and this freedom ripples out in expansiveness and life." The new month of Elul famously opens us to a time of renewed intimacy. As we[...]

Ekev: It Is A Land Which Hashem Your God Looks After, by Rabbanit Michal Kohane

August 19th, 2022

"In dealing with the land – working it, taking care of it, making it bloom - we have to be constantly connected to the Divine." The Torah portion of Ekev, the 3rd in the last book of the Torah, stretches from[...]

We Rise

August 18th, 2022

"We Rise. Humbly Hearted, Rise. Won’t Be Divided, Rise. With Spirit to Guide Us, Rise. In Hope, In Prayer, We Find Ourselves Here. In Hope, In Prayer, We’re Right Here. We Rise." –Batya Levine Friends, Two days ago, President Biden signed into law the Inflation Reduction Act,[...]

Va-Etḥanan, Shabbat Naḥamu, and Tu Be-Av: With Heaven And Earth As Our Witness, By Rabbi Louis Polisson

August 10th, 2022

"If you know you have harmed the earth, know that you can heal it." On Shabbat Naḥamu, the Sabbath of Comfort the week after Tish’ah B’Av, we read Parashat Va-Etḥanan. Though Shabbat Naḥamu is about consolation and healing after lamenting Jewish[...]

Hope in the Dark

August 9th, 2022

The Jews gave to the world this idea of time as a narrative of hope, which meant that what is lost can be regained, what is destroyed can be rebuilt, and what disappears may one day return. – Rabbi Jonathan[...]

Devarim/Hazon, Erev Tisha B'Av: Rooting Ourselves In Space And Time by Rabbi Jesse Paikin

August 3rd, 2022

On the confluence of the beginning of Deuteronomy, Tisha b’Av, and the shmita year North Americans often suffer from the affliction of being uprooted from space and time. Out of a historical or philosophical perspective, some of us call ourselves “post-modern,”[...]

Matot-Masei: What We Can Learn from Regret, by Rabba Dr. Carmella Abraham

July 28th, 2022

"Through the lens of regret, we learn the importance of appreciating the land and its fundamental purpose of sustaining humankind." In a surprising twist, the midrash recounts the regret expressed by the tribes of Reuben and Gad for choosing to stay[...]

Hakhel Newsletter: July 2022

July 27th, 2022

Dear Hakhel Communities, While it may be extremely hot in your part of the world, or extremely cold if you’re in a different part, Hakhel has remained in motion this past month. Some recent highlights include OLAM’s release of a report[...]

Hakhel Newsletter: June 2022

July 26th, 2022

Dear Hakhel Communities, It’s hard to believe that it was a month ago that Hakhel community leaders gathered together in Israel for our Trip & Summit! We toured Israeli intentional communities for in-depth learning; and gathered at the Summit to learn[...]

Hazon Farm Bill Campaign: for Justice and Climate Resilience

July 26th, 2022

The once-every-five-years Farm Bill authorization process is in full swing! This presents an historic opportunity to lower the nearly one third of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions spewed by the food system and reshape food production and distribution toward justice and[...]

Pinchas: Loving the Land, by Talia Weisberg

July 20th, 2022

"If we lived our love for land - whether in Israel or elsewhere in the world - how different would our world look?" Parshat Pinchas is, at its core, about loving the Land of Israel. The first major event of the[...]

Balak: Getting The Best of Both Worlds, by Aharon Ariel Lavi

July 13th, 2022

"Where is the sweet spot between conserving and respecting the past (cycles), and progressing towards a new reality (linearly)?" Parashat Balak is one of the two weekly portions in the Torah named after a significant non-Jewish protagonist. The first one is[...]

Chukat: What Happens When You Keep Hitting The Rock by Gillian Steinberg

July 6th, 2022

"We must hear both God and the rock crying out: the punishment is upon us." In Chukat, after Bnei Yisrael complain about missing the comforts of home, Moses strikes a rock to elicit water. God is angry at Moses for striking[...]

A Prayer for our Country

June 30th, 2022

Friends, Today, the Supreme Court of the United States, in their ruling on the West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) case, stripped the EPA’s authority to limit carbon pollution from power plants, drastically reducing our ability to fight climate change.[...]

Korach: When Is The Desire For Equality Sincere? by Avraham Norin

June 29th, 2022

"Capable leadership can use authority wisely to contribute to solidarity and equality." A memorable line from the movie The Incredibles is said as Syndrome captures the Incredible family and explains his grandiose plan to the captured heroes "I'll sell my inventions[...]

Shlach: Honoring The Bounty by Rachel Siegal

June 23rd, 2022

"A person who is deeply connected to the land around her is a person who can honor its uniqueness, celebrate its bounty, and respect its need to rest." This week’s parsha, Shlach, contains the well-known scene of the scouts sent to[...]

B’haalot’cha: Of Fertility And Infertility In Land And People by Anna Burke

June 15th, 2022

"Action and prayer work hand-in-hand; we cannot rely solely on God for our well-being, but we can derive meaning and support from walking our journeys with God in our hearts and minds." Parashat B’haalot’cha marks the beginning of the Israelites’ journey[...]

Naso: Lift Up Their Heads - And Notice Them, by Rabbi Carol Glass

June 8th, 2022

"Moving towards equity, inclusion, and diversity by truly seeing others and sharing our bounty with them." By mandating a 7th year cessation of all agricultural production and the release of intra-Jewish debts, shmita is a highly ‘disruptive’ ancient Jewish practice with[...]

BaMidbar: Being Sustained, In Eden and the Wilderness, by Rabbi Eli Herb

May 31st, 2022

"To create a society balanced between the curse of civilization and the wildness of being nourished by the Creator." “When the Holy Blessed One gave the Torah, no bird chirped, no fowl fluttered, no ox lowed … the sea did not[...]