Topic: Newsletters

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Isabella Freedman Update and Summer Getaways

By Nigel Savage on May 26, 2020 in In the News, Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center, Newsletters, Nigel

Tuesday, May 26, 2020 | 47th day of the omer, hod she’b’malchut Dear All, Normally at this time of year we share updates on our plans for a vibrant summer at Isabella Freedman. As we all know, this year is a different kind of year, and this announcement is a different kind of announcement. Covid-19 has changed how we will be able to gather for the foreseeable future. It has become increasingly clear that retreats are unlikely to be able to run with the same participation numbers and pricing that they have in the past, even as Covid cases have begun to fall. As a result, we will be cancelling all retreats through the end of 2020. But even as we cancel retreats, we are hard at work trying to ensure that other programs can still take place at Isabella Freedman. Our campus is beautifully located. We exist to serve our clients, to offer rest and renewal outside the city, and to do so in a way that nourishes and inspires people. We can’t do that, this year, with our traditional retreats. It may not be possible to do anything at all. But we are exploring whether we can enable at least […]

Risk.

By Nigel Savage on May 22, 2020 in Newsletters, Nigel, Reflections

Friday, May 22, 2020 | 43rd day of the omer; chesed she’b’malchut Dear All, Things are fragmenting, and our old fragmentations are now fragmenting further. Different countries have different policies. Different states are opening up in different ways. Different sub-cultures have their own distinct rhythms and norms. And different political tribes turn out, once more, to have not just different views but even different facts. Underneath all this are different understandings of the nature of risk. As a society we lack functional numeracy, and it is not a surprise that we are not good at weighing different probabilities in relation to risk. (Michael Lewis’s The Undoing Project, about the work of Kahneman and Tversky is a fine thing to read, for starters.) When the coronavirus was a cloud on what seemed like a distant horizon, in general most of us underreacted to the actual risk. (On Feb 25th I suggested to someone that Hazon needed to prepare for the coronavirus, and got back the reply I am disinclined to put time into such a remote possibility. Exactly one week later the first Hazon staffers were in quarantine – and so it began…) Now, three months’ later, I fear that we are over-reacting, in various ways, partly because we are conflating […]

Introducing the Jewish Youth Climate Movement

By Nigel Savage on May 14, 2020 in Activism, Climate Change, In the News, Newsletters, Nigel, Teens

Thursday, May 14th | 35th day of the omer – malchut she’b’hod Dear All, We’re ending the fifth week of this seven-week journey towards the giving of the Torah, and choosing a different kind of freedom. In the world of the kabbalists, today is associated with “malchut she’b’hod.” Hod is about beauty and simplicity and malchut is about getting out into the world and making things happen. So it’s a day to introduce the new Jewish Youth Climate Movement. Anyone under the age of twenty today could reasonably hope to be alive in 2100. What will the world look like then? We don’t know, but the decisions and choices of those of us who are older will decisively impact, for good or for ill, those who are younger. (If you want to see a very intense example of that, check out this chart, showing opinions on Brexit, by age, in the UK, in 2018.) This grows out of our long-term work at Teva, and out of the sense that an organization like Hazon ought to be trying, as much as we can, to support and empower and network the best of our young people. So… I hand you over now to a message from the teen board members of JYCM… […]

After Zoom?

By Nigel Savage on May 8, 2020 in Newsletters, Nigel, Reflections

Friday, May 8, 2020 | 29th day of the omer – chesed she’b’hod Dear All, Lots of people aren’t on Zoom. Subway workers, farmers and food distributors, the police and the armed forces and the fire brigade, everyone in a hospital, people cleaning the streets – all these people are not on Zoom, and many more. But some of us are on Zoom a lot these days. The benefits are significant. Being able to see and talk with friends and family in different places. Zoom seders. At a different scale, our #SoundTheCall event had 32 presenters in 28 different locations, not to mention more than 1,500 people watching it. We couldn’t have done these things without Zoom. As a society, we had no idea how relatively easily our offices could migrate online. The consequences of this on where people live and how they work will have enormous ramifications in the next decade. For Hazon, just one small but significant example. We did a consequential Shmita Summit in London in April 2014, and were planning something similar this winter. Now, instead, we’re doing a Shmita Summit next month, online, likely the first of several. The cost of doing it online will […]

Five things that will make you feel better

By Nigel Savage on April 29, 2020 in Newsletters, Nigel, Reflections

Wednesday, April 29, 2020 | Yom Ha’atsma’ut | 20th day of the omer – yesod she b’tiferet Read through to the end, because there is an amazing treat in store when you get there….! Dear All, First, just a brief Hazon news update. The Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center is closed and, like lots of organizations, we don’t know when or how or in what way we will re-open. We’re using this time to figure out not only how to maximize impact in the near term, but also how to use this crisis to clarify and strengthen our work in the longer-term. And, meanwhile, Hazon staffers are working hard and well in this challenging moment. Teva’s Arielle Aronoff is helping day schools with online teaching. We’re planting and preparing at Adamah. Mike Davino and his crew are starting to make some needed repairs at Isabella Freedman. In Detroit, Wren Hack and Rabbi Nate DeGroot and our team have been helping on the ground, providing food, and help in growing food, for people and communities in need. And last week’s #SoundTheCall clearly hit a chord. The feedback was amongst the strongest from anything we have done. Hazon has a strong record of bringing new ideas and […]

Chad gadya, a raccoon in the park, and a second chasidic story.

By Nigel Savage on April 7, 2020 in Counting the Omer, Newsletters, Nigel, Passover, Reflections

Tuesday, April 7, 2020 | 13th Nissan 5780 Please join us for a series of weekly online conversations: “After the Plague: An Omer Conversation Series.” Our first call is noon ET this Sunday with Yossi Abramowitz and Rabbi Susan Silverman. Join us on Facebook Live on Hazon’s Facebook page. Learn more. Dear All, There’s an old chasidic story about someone who fears that the angel of death is coming for them, at a particular place and a particular time. Quickly they change their plans. They go to a different village… and then of course the angel of death is right there, in that different village, waiting to meet them, exactly at the appointed time. And the message of the story: when our time is up, our time is up. I wish for all of us long life, for sure. But it’s not unhelpful to be reminded of our mortality. For most of human history we knew that we were vulnerable, we saw death. We lived without penicillin. Women died far more frequently in childbirth. We died of polio and malaria, we died when the wrong flea bit us, we died of an abscess or a ruptured appendix. Only when I was writing a hesped for […]

Next Thursday night — and #soundthecall on April 22nd

By Nigel Savage on April 3, 2020 in Activism, Climate Change, Counting the Omer, Events, Newsletters, Nigel, Passover, Reflections, Shavuot

Friday, April 3, 2020 | 9th Nissan 5780 Dear All, Seder is one night – in Israel. In chutz la’aretz – ie, outside of Israel – it’s two nights, so next Thursday night is the second night of seder. And for most of the Jewish world, as we know, these two nights are indeed going to be different nights, as we figure out how to do seders by Zoom, or in small (very small) groups, and so on. It will be weird. And there will be lots of riffs on plagues, lots of haggadah supplements to download, and so on. Hazon’s gift to you is a frame for the second night, for Thursday night. Normally, at the end of the evening – with kids running wild, the table in chaos, the meal just finishing, various people conked out because it is so late or they’ve eaten so much or drank so much – right then, we count the omer. No wonder we don’t properly pay attention to it. So our gift to you this year is – don’t bury it. Make it a conceptual focus of your second night seder. The first night – celebrate that you’re alive. That your family made […]

Seven brief thoughts at the end of a long seven days.

By Nigel Savage on March 27, 2020 in Newsletters, Nigel, Reflections

Friday, March 27, 2020 | 2nd Nissan 5780 Dear All, These are seven very different thoughts, on very different topics…. Number 1: At Hazon and Isabella Freedman we’re hanging on, and thank you to everyone who has supported us in the last week. Isabella Freedman, like all places of gathering, is closed, for at least two months. We haven’t yet let any of our staff go, though like many non-profits we’re in a very exposed place. The federal bailout plan may be very significant for us, and we’re poised to apply for support from that as soon as we are able. Meantime, board members, donors, foundations, participants, and our own staff have all stepped up in quite extraordinary ways over the last two weeks. My great great thanks go to each and all of you. It is a cliché that crises often bring out the best in people. Every single day this week I have seen that to be true. Number 2: It is not too soon to draw conclusions from the different infection and death rates in places like Germany and New Zealand, on one side, and the USA, very sadly, on the other. Having universal health care makes […]

Noon, Wednesday April 22nd (Please read this.)

By Nigel Savage on March 19, 2020 in Activism, Earth Day, In the News, Newsletters, Nigel

Thursday, March 19, 2020 | 23rd Adar 5780 Dear All, First: my heart goes out to everyone. This is unbearably painful. People are in hospital. People are losing their lives. People are losing their jobs. People are losing their savings. People are afraid. And as I wrote last week, Hazon is one of the organizations most directly impacted by this. We are especially exposed because we have had to close Isabella Freedman, our retreat center, for at least two months, and have thus lost all our revenue from the busiest time of the year. We’re reviewing options right now, from a tight place. (We’re writing separately to people to whom we will be returning retreat deposits. Some of you will feel unable to do so, and we will understand that, but to the extent that you are able to donate some or all of your deposits – we would appreciate that enormously.) I also want to let you know that we have begun gathering community resources for both inside and outside activities at hazon.org/stuckinside. We’re curating there all sorts of things to watch, to read, and to do. Check it out and bookmark it. But as well as coping with […]

Now what? / An update from Hazon

By Nigel Savage on March 16, 2020 in In the News, Newsletters, Nigel

Monday, March 16, 2020 | 20th Adar 5780 Dear All, As well as everything else we’re enduring right now, it is becoming ever clearer that the range of impacts of the virus is extraordinarily varied. This is true in relation to health, but even more so in relation to organizations. For individuals: although there are exceptions, kids seem in general to be fine, and many young adults are fine also. (But if you get the virus it (a) could still be seriously injurious to you and (b) even if it is not, you could unawarely kill someone else by passing it on. So don’t be sanguine.) On the other side, as we have seen: for people who are old, or for people with weakened immune systems and so on – these are the people who are in intensive care and who are dying, and their numbers will grow. So the range of outcomes if you get the virus is indeed very wide. This is true in a different way for companies. Mask manufacturers are super-busy. Food retailers and food manufacturers are doing fine. Conversely – and to give just one example – Gotham Bar & Grill closed its doors for […]

Now’s the time to plan a cleanse!

By Nigel Savage on March 5, 2020 in In the News, Newsletters, Nigel, Passover, Purim

Thursday, March 5, 2020 | 9th Adar 5780 Dear All, The coronavirus is spreading, and it will get worse before it gets better. Batten down the hatches, wash your hands, follow public safety advice, be considerate to others – and don’t freak out. And the aftermath of the Israeli elections and the ongoing US elections – same advice… But as the velocity of travel, literally, starts to slow, I want to argue that we – you, me, all of us – do a cleanse in the next few weeks. And I get this idea from thinking carefully about the deep lessons from the Jewish calendar right now: First: Purim isn’t an isolated holiday. It comes to help us get ready for Pesach, existentially as well as physically. Purim is “the world turned upside down.” No mention of G!d in the story. Getting drunk. Cross-dressing. Purim comes to shake us out of false certainties. It comes to question the components of our identity, the relationship between inner and outer, the tension between who we are and what we have. And Purim does this because it kicks off an eleven week period from Purim to Shavuot. Seder night is the fulcrum of the whole period. And seder night is the […]

Jewish Tradition / Western Values

By Nigel Savage on February 20, 2020 in Newsletters, Nigel

Thursday, February 20, 2020 | 25th Shvat 5780 Dear All, Last week we heard the ten commandments. This week we read mishpatim (Exodus 21:1 – 24:18), which expands a short list of injunctions into a more detailed frame for establishing a just society. It is one of the most glorious sidras in the Torah. It has been foundational to what it has meant to be Jewish these last twenty centuries and more. And it prompts some quite deep questions – and even provocations – about the juxtaposition between Jewish tradition, on one side, and contemporary Western values, on the other. The sidra includes – variously – injunctions about the shmita year, about Shabbat, and about making restitution for damage done by your livestock. It twice includes the injunction against wronging a stranger, “because you were slaves in Egypt.” It includes the instruction that if you took your neighbor’s garment as security for a loan, you must release it before sunset – because if your neighbor is so poor that they’re using a coat as security, they’ll likely need it back that night. It proscribes false rumors, and boiling a kid in its mother’s milk and subverting the rights of the needy; and […]

Earth Day, JTree, and Tu B’Shvat

By Hazon on February 6, 2020 in Newsletters, Reflections, Tu B’Shvat

By Rabbi Isaiah Rothstein Hazon Rabbi-in-Residence What is Tu B’Shvat? What is a Tu B’Shvat Seder? Not one, but four times over the course of the year we are called upon to mark a new year, a rosh hashanah. Of these four new years in the Mishnah (Rosh Hashanah 1:1), it is taught that the 15th of Shvat (Tu B’Shvat) is the new year for the trees. Only one rosh hashanah became popularized as the Rosh Hashanah, when we reflect on our actions, pray for the wellness of the year, and perform teshuva. When the Temple service in Jerusalem ceased, the other three new years effectively went dormant for about 1500 years. The holy kabbalists under the leadership of Rabbi Isaac Luria (1534-1572) created a new Tu B’Shvat tradition with the multi-sensory seder we experience today. Humanity and Trees in the Jewish Tradition Though Tu B’Shvat was paused, trees continued to grow both in reality and on the pages of Jewish texts. In Jewish tradition, a relationship was formed between trees and humanity in the first week (see Gen. 2:9) and it still exists today. In fact, later in the Torah, we are reminded that it is forbidden to cut down a tree during times of war (Deut. 20:19). The […]

The British general election, Tu B’Shvat and Richard Powers

By Nigel Savage on January 28, 2020 in Newsletters, Nigel, Tu B’Shvat

By Nigel Savage Tuesday, January 28, 2020 | 2nd Shvat 5780 Dear All, What does Tu B’Shvat mean in 2020? It’s a deeper question than it may at first seem. It’s the “new year for trees.” And we indeed associate it with trees and fruits and perhaps a Tu B’Shvat seder. Ok – but beyond that? Answering this involves a certain kind of leap of faith. (It is not for me a theological leap. If I had to make a theological leap I’d barely get across a little puddle…) It’s a leap of faith in relation to the deep wisdom of an ancient tradition, in our unsettled post-postmodern age. We have to assume – and trust – and somehow really believe – that Jewish tradition isn’t just for kids. It’s not about the formal structures of Jewish life or responding to antisemitism or leaning in to Israel or any of those things. Such things may come from faith in the wisdom of Jewish tradition, but they can’t drive it. When they do our soil becomes depleted and we use the equivalent of pesticides or other interventions as a quick fix; and, as we are all learning, quick fixes like that […]

Reb Isaiah at the March, and Rob Kutner on Daf Yomi…

By Nigel Savage on January 9, 2020 in Jewish Texts, Newsletters, Nigel, Reflections

Thursday, January 9, 2020 | 12th Tevet 5780 Dear All, First: we were so proud of Hazon’s rabbi-in-residence, Isaiah Rothstein, who had a lead role at the march against anti-semitism in NYC on Sunday. You can see links to that here and here. Secondly: part of the punchline of the Bari Weiss book on anti-semitism – with which I very strongly agreed indeed – is that it’s vital that we not somehow become “anti-anti-semites.” That’s not why I’m Jewish. I’m Jewish because I love the tradition and I think it wise; and – right now – I especially believe that we should be rallying the full resources of Jewish tradition and of the Jewish community to address the global climate crisis, which is the greatest crisis civilization has yet faced. And so one aspect of that is actually to deepen our own Jewish learning. That leads me to daf yomi… Daf Yomi – literally “a page a day” is a recentish (early twentieth century) tradition of learning the entire Talmud, by doing a page a day; and if you do that, and stick to it, you’ll learn the entire Talmud in about 7 1/2 years. I somehow assumed that this was only an ultra-orthodox practice. But way […]

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