Topic: Holidays

Omer Week One: Chesed

By Hazon on April 9, 2015 in Counting the Omer, Spirituality

Thoughts from Rabbi Lee Moore This article is from the Lippman Kanfer Foundation for Living Torah Blog Chesed is often translated as loving-kindness, but I prefer the term Grace. Chesed denotes a kind of expansiveness that we often do associate with love. Where there is a willingness to open, a willingness to accept, a willingness to allow what was previously wrong be OK –Chesed breaks through. This kind of breakthrough feels like love in the sense that Chesed provides a truly unconditional milieu where connections are forged and closeness happens beyond what one might have thought was possible. We see Chesed at work when we reach the edge of what is possible, and then realize that we can actually go farther, expand our horizons, generate new ideas, forge new connections, embrace new ways of being, and discover new places to be. A realm of opportunity and growth, Chesed displays the kind of love that the world naturally provides, even though the world may not ‘deserve’ it. For this reason, Rabbi Ebn Leader has emphasized birth as a key metaphor for this symbol-cluster. At birth, a being has done nothing to merit its coming into this world. It is freely created with no […]

Omer Week One: Adon Olam

By Hazon on April 4, 2015 in Counting the Omer, Spirituality, Video

Traditional Yemenite melody with original music by Aviva Chernick and Joel Schwartz Filmed at the Small World Music Centre, Toronto, Canada Videography by Rodrigo Castro The 7-week period between the holidays of Pesach and Shavuot is called the Omer. For each of these 7 weeks, we will be making available one offering per week from 7 leaders of our upcoming Shavuot Retreat. Join us Memorial Day weekend for the Shavuot retreat to go deeper and get higher with these wonderful teachers. (Use early discount code EARLY10 through April 24th for 10% off.) In the meantime, enjoy our Omer experience!

Shmita and Interconnection

By Hazon on March 19, 2015 in Holidays, Shmita

By Rabbi Rachel Barenblat Note: This piece first appeared in the Shalom Center’s Purim to Pesach campaign. To sign up to receive future mailings, visit the Shalom Center’s site. Our sages took some pains to ensure a Jewish calendar in which Pesach would always fall in the spring. (They were operating in a northern hemisphere context; I don’t think the challenges of antipodean Judaism ever occurred to them.) In the northern hemisphere, Pesach is inextricably connected with spring. As the earth shakes off the constrictions of winter, her frozen places thawing, so we remember our shaking-off the yoke of slavery to Pharaoh. As plant life and trees are “reborn” into the warming air, we tell the story of our renewal and rebirth out of the constriction of slavery and into freedom. We retell this story in embroidered detail at our seder tables. But we also remind ourselves of it in daily prayer and in the Shabbat kiddush. Shabbat is our time to stop doing and just be: the opposite of the slavery our mythic ancestors experienced then, and the opposite of the internal constriction we may experience now. On the Jewish calendar this is a shmita year, a year […]

Bring Hazon to your community for Tu B’Shvat!

By Hazon on November 1, 2014 in Education, Holidays, Tu B’Shvat

Tu B’Shvat is a perfect holiday to learn about creating a healthier and more sustainable Jewish community, and a healthier and more sustainable planet. Enrich your Tu B’Shvat programming by featuring a Hazon speaker at your Tu B’Shvat seder, or bringing a Teva educator to run a youth program at your school or synagogue. For more information and to create a unique Tu B’Shvat experience for your community, contact info@hazon.org Hazon Staff Guest Speaker at Your Tu B’Shvat Seder Hazon staff can speak to your community about the New Jewish Food Movement, Tu B’Shvat themes, the upcoming Shmita year and a variety of other Jewish environmental topics. Send us an email or call us so that we can get a sense of your community and its needs, and we’ll match you with the right person for your seder. Cost: travel + honorarium Elementary/Middle School programs with Teva Educators in the NY region Teva educators are trained to create fun and meaningful educational experiences, on the trail or in the classroom, combining Jewish values and environmental stewardship. Bring them to your community to lead a 1 – 2 hour experiential program (for your classroom, youth group, etc) for groups of 25 – 100 […]

#goatselfie photo contest 2014/5774

By Hazon on April 17, 2014 in Holidays, Opportunities, Photos

How to enter: 1. Visit the barnyard at Isabella Freedman in April or May 2014. Take a photo with your favorite goat with your phone or camera. 2. Upload your #goatselfie to Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. To be part of the contest, the photo must include the following: include the hashtag #goatselfie in the text of the post tag your location at Isabella Freedman or include @IFJRC or @adamahfarm make sure your post is ‘public’ so that your happy moment of goat love can be shared with all **For those who prefer not to post on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, you can also enter via email goatselfie@hazon.org. 3. Our esteemed panel of goat herders will choose ten finalists on June 1. Then the public will vote on the best photo via our website. The winner will be announced at the Teva Seminar on June 12. The winner will receive a one-of-a-kind water color drawing of your #goatselfie by Adamah Farm Barnyard Manager, Meredith Cohen, as well as a half pound of our delicious goat cheese. Note: Individuals may submit multiple unique entries – however, re-posting the same photo too many times will result in disqualification. Make sure to follow #goatselfie […]

Home for Dinner Parents’ Email #1

By Hazon on December 9, 2013 in Education, Tu B’Shvat

December 9 , 2013 • 6 Tevet 5774 Dear Home for Dinner Parents, Welcome to Home for Dinner! This program, which will take place at your synagogue or school and which is supported by Hazon, will provide opportunities for you and your child to learn about healthy eating, the importance of family meals, and engage in shared experience of learning about contemporary food issues in the context of Jewish family life. The ultimate goal is to strengthen the family unite and in turn, the Jewish home and Jewish life. My name is Liz Traison, and I am the Hazon staff coordinator of Home for Dinner. I am fortunate to have a supportive team in California and Colorado composed of Deborah Newbrun, Becky O’Brien, and Sarah Kornhauser, who will be working with you locally — as well as education consultants Vicky Kelman and Amy Kassiola. Approximately once a month we will send you updates about the program. Please note that you have not been included on any other of Hazon’s email lists. If you have any thoughts or questions, please feel free to be in touch. We would love to hear from you. We look forward to taking this journey with […]

10 Ways to Make your Chanukah More Sustainable

By Hazon on November 26, 2013 in Food, Holidays, Recipes

Here are the Top 10 quick and useful suggestions from Hazon, to make your Hanukkah more healthy and sustainable. To find out more information and suggestions from Hazon for Hanukkah, visit the Hazon Hanukkah Resource Page.

Why We Do What We Do

By Nigel Savage on November 14, 2013 in Activism, Holidays, Newsletters, Nigel

Dear All, People used to send fundraising emails before the end of the year. But everyone did that, so they moved to early December, and then from there to late November. This year, as you know, it’s both Chanukah and Thanksgiving in five minutes time. So we’re sending our year-end appeal now – with the autumn leaves still on the trees – to ask you to become a stakeholder in Hazon. Ideally – for us, but I hope also for you – we’d like to ask you to give a monthly gift, as a growing number of people are doing. For the price, each month, of three cappuccinos, two bars of dark chocolate, and maybe a banana, you can feel that in a purposive and persistent way you are helping to create a healthier, more sustainable and more vibrant Jewish community; and helping the Jewish community, as a community, to create a more sustainable world for all. This is not minor. Hazon is doing important work, and we certainly need your support; and/but we also want you, for yourself, genuinely to feel that by becoming a stakeholder you’re making a difference in the very many areas in which we’re doing […]

10 Ways to Make your Shavuot More Sustainable

By Hazon on May 6, 2013 in Food, Holidays, Recipes

Here are the Top 10 quick and useful suggestions from Hazon, to make your Shavuot more healthy and sustainable. To find out more information and suggestions from Hazon for Shavuot, visit the Hazon Shavuot Resource Page. 1 – Shavuot Recipes 2 – Understand the Dairy Connection Although everyone agrees that the food of choice for Shavuot is cheese (most typically blintzes, crepe-like pancakes filled with farmer cheese, or a Sephardic [Mediterranean Jewish]equivalent such as burekas, cheese-filled dough pockets), there are differences of opinion (some quite charming) as to why it is a custom. 3 – Choose the Right Kind of Dairy Traditionally, Shavuot is a dairy-laden holiday, with cheesecake and blintzes and burekas up the wazoo. Check out the Hazon Food Audit Toolkit and Food Guide for links to Kosher sustainable dairy providers. 4 – Eat Dairy Responsibly If you are looking to dive into the kitchen, head over to our Healthy and Sustainable Shavuot Menu with recipes and resources to bring delicious local seasonal treats bursting with spring flavor to your dairy-based feast. 5 – Learn about Adamah Dairy Our friends at Adamah have built a thriving dairy operation based on Jewish and sustainable food values. Check out these articles and podcasts on their amazing work: Goat […]

Passover Resources 2013

By Hazon on March 20, 2013 in Passover

Passover is the Jewish tradition’s “eat seasonal” poster child. The seder plate abounds with seasonal symbols: the roasted lamb bone celebrates lambs born in spring; karpas (dipped green vegetables) symbolizes the first green sprouts peaking out of the thawed ground; and a roasted egg recalls fertility and rebirth. Learn More.

10 Ways to Make your Passover More Sustainable

By Hazon on March 11, 2013 in Food, Holidays, Recipes

Here are the Top 10 quick and useful suggestions from Hazon, to make your Passover more healthy and sustainable. To find out more information and suggestions from Hazon for Passover, visit the Hazon Passover Resource Page. 1 – Passover Recipes Charoset from Around the World 2 – Plan Ahead In the time leading up to Pesach , be mindful of what you buy. Try to finish those “almost empty” containers in your fridge, and half empty bags of bread, rather than automatically resorting to buying new. You can get rid of chametz in the most sustainable and cost effective way by planning ahead in order to use up as much as you can of what you have before the start of pesach. 3 – Invest in Passover Dishware Pesach is a time when many families break out the fine china and heirloom silverware. It is a good investment, cost effective, and a sustainable method to invest in a set of Pesach dishware, that way you do not need to buy disposables every year. However, if you’re using disposable plates this year, use post-consumer waste paper or plant-based ones. For some great compostable disposable dishwear products, check out Leafware, Go Green in Stages, Let’s Go Green, and World […]

10 Ways to Make your Purim More Sustainable

By Hazon on February 11, 2013 in Food, Holidays, Recipes

Here are the Top 10 quick and useful suggestions from Hazon, to make your Purim more healthy and sustainable. To find out more information and suggestions from Hazon for Purim, visit the Hazon Purim Resource Page. 1 – Purim Recipes 2 – Edible Groggers Serve crispy, crunchy, NOISY foods this Purim (try things like: fresh veggies and yogurt-dill dip, blue corn chips and salsa or home made pita chips with your favorite store-bought or home made hummus). As guests snack away, their crunches will let Haman know what a wicked, wicked man he really was. 3 – Can the Canned Fruit! You may want to buy fruit for your hamentashen filling, but try your best to avoid fruit from a can! Buy your fruit for your hamentashen in glass jars, or use fresh fruit. Cans (and most plastics) are lined with a chemical called Bisphenol-A (BPA) which is an endocrine disruptor, and a chemical that all should try their best to avoid. Learn more about Bisphenol-A from Grassroots Environmental Education. 4 – Sustainable Drinks Don’t forget to drink sustainably this Purim. Pick an organic wine from our kosher, organic wine list. For some celebratory Whiskey for Purim, check out the Koval Distillery in Chicago for organic spirits. Or mix your […]

Seven Sustainable Species for Tu B’Shvat

By Hazon on January 14, 2013 in Food, Holidays, Tu B’Shvat

These 7 Tu B’Shvat Species will help to make your Tu B’Shvat celebration even more sustainable! For many people in the US, the 7 species are not in season locally

10 Ways to Make your Tu B’Shvat More Sustainable

By Hazon on January 7, 2013 in Food, Holidays, Recipes, Tu B’Shvat

Here are the Top 10 quick and useful suggestions from Hazon, to make your Tu B’Shvat more healthy and sustainable. To find out more information and suggestions from Hazon for Tu B’Shvat, visit the Hazon Tu B’Shvat Resource Page.

Sukkah Bike Hop “the Coolest!”

By Becky O'Brien, Director, Hazon Boulder on October 26, 2012 in Colorado, Cycling, Holidays, Rides, Sukkot

“This was the coolest!” enthused Jillene Moore of Loveland, when asked about her experience cycling the Sukkah Bike Hop. Marv Goldman of Denver summed up his biking experience, “The ride immeasurably added value to the holiday: being outdoors, exercising, chatting, and eating with not only fellow cyclists and Jews, but also having the hospitality of families along the way.” Eighteen riders came together at the Chabad of NW Metro Denver in Westminster as the starting and ending spot for the three routes. Riders of all ages came from Boulder and across the Front Range, and from different Jewish backgrounds and cycling experiences. Read more at Boulder Jewish News. Click here for more pictures from the 2012 Sukkah Bike Hop.

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