Wilderness Torah is taking this Shmita year to take stock, clarify our purpose, and plan for building the Center for Earth-Based Judaism. Wilderness Torah will let go of our 5782 community programs, including Tu B’shvat in the Redwoods, Passover in the Desert, and Shavuot holiday programming.
Shmita Stories Categories Archives: Organizational/Institutional
Shmita Stories from organizations and institutions
Organize Multi-Sacred April Climate Action
For in this coming April there is an unusual confluence of holydays — Jewish (Passover, starting April 15), Christian (Holy Week, starting April 10) , and Muslim (Ramadan, starting April 2). And in the hearts if not the formal religious calendars of many people of faith are two other April dates: April 4 – the death-anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King and the date of his “Beyond Vietnam” speech a year earlier, in which he named racism, militarism, and materialism the dangerous triplets afflicting America –- and April 22, Earth Day. In April, here in the United States we will be in the thick of primary elections.
Faith communities in nonviolent action can lift the need to save Earth and Humanity beyond partisan politics not with “moderation” but with prophetic boldness. We can do it not just in Washington DC but everywhere there is a church, synagogue, mosque, temple, meeting-house.
Some climate—concerned organizations are preaching that it’s “Right now or never ever.” In trying to mobilize the US government to take a bold step before the Glasgow world-wide climate conference, they run the risk of turning frustration into despair. Instead, we propose to turn frustration into much stronger, broader, deeper action.
Shmita Plot Project
Participants will designate a piece of land to release into Shmita to lie fallow for the duration of 5782 (Rosh Hashanah 2021 to Rosh Hashanah 2022).
Shmita Loan Forgiveness Fund
Shmittah, which will be in its seven-year sabbatical cycle, come this 5782, calls for our tradition as Jews to forgive loans to fellow Jews
Shmita Month Off – Tishrei
At M², we have made a logistically complex and absolutely necessary decision to observe the month of Tishrei as a Shmita Month.