From Nigel Savage March 23rd, 2017 | 25th Adar 5777 Significant news from Isabella Freedman… Dear All, How do we maintain balance in the 24/7 news cycle? How do we mediate social media and real life – and does the latter need airquotes (“real life” – as if to say, do we know what real life is, anymore, absent social media?) And how do we engage and deepen our relationship to Jewish tradition, if so many of its presumptions – about the nature of community, learning, relationship to language, practice – seem so far apart from so many of the rhythms of contemporary life? That’s the backdrop to Isabella Freedman. What does it mean that it is a “Jewish Retreat Center?” I no longer know when first I went there, but it was some time in the 1990s. I was there when Michal Smart was running it, and then Avital Rech; and maybe I was there when Eric Robbins was running it, though I don’t now remember. As an English Jewish guy, based at that time in Israel, I found it to be a remarkable place. The rhythms of it. The people wandering around. The Jewish relaxedness of it. The […]
Topic: Nigel
Yom hafuch / eating treif…
From Nigel Savage Dear All, “Hafuch” means something like “upside down.” If you order a “café hafuch” in Israel you’ll get the Israeli version of a cappuccino. One of my favorite phrases, from the same root, is “mamash l’hefech” “exactly the opposite.” So what’s “yom hafuch?” Well, it’s the name given to a well-known Jewish holiday by a friend of mine (who shall be nameless, but he is Canadian, and an academic, and in Toronto) a dozen years ago. It was the night of Purim, and this was in the days of JDub, z”l. It was some while after 1am, and many things had been ingested. We were both more than a little the worse for wear. This was the conversation: – Where did you hear the megillah? – I went to a late megillah reading – How come? – Well, first I went for my treif dinner – ? – [beat] – How treif? – Well, I had a crab salad to start with, and then pork, and then I had… – ???!!! – [beat] – Just remind me: how observant are you? (thinking I roughly knew the answer to this) – Well, I’m shomer Shabbat, I keep kosher, […]
When they go low, we go deep…
From Nigel Savage February 23rd, 2017 | 27th Shvat 5777 Dear All, There’s a lot going on. In recent weeks I was at the Jewish Community Farming gathering at the Leichtag Commons in Encinitas – one of the best gatherings of its sort that I have ever attended. A clear sense of a field that is deepening and broadening, with strong leadership from Andrew Gurwitz and Charlene Seidle, amongst others. In Boulder I got to see the extraordinary new JCC – home to Milk & Honey Farm, making it the first JCC in the country to open with an integral educational farm. Kudos to two generations of the remarkable Weaver family for making that happen, plus Jonathan Lev and the Boulder JCC team and active hands-on support from the amazing Julie Shaffer. And a beautiful Tu b’Shvat seder, starring twins – Gabrielle & Noah Shapiro – who were celebrating their bar and bat mitzvah that Shabbat. The best hope for the world, I often feel, is some of the truly inspiring young people that I get to meet. In Detroit I held meetings with communal leaders and rabbis, which was fascinating and thought-provoking. And we hosted a phenomenal Tu b’Shvat […]
Here’s what you can do this Tu b’Shvat
From Nigel Savage Dear All, Tu b’Shvat, the Jewish celebration of trees, is observed this Friday night (February 10th) and Saturday (February 11th). This holiday offers us a midwinter moment to take stock of our relationship with Jewish tradition, the natural world, and one another – a process we need this year more than ever. When the Torah describes Jewish tradition as the “tree of life” it is saying not merely that trees in themselves are important but that they are a profound metaphor for the goodness of human civilization on this planet. Our Torah is a “tree of life” because, just as trees grow and flourish and nourish us, so too we hope that Jewish tradition and the Jewish people will grow and flourish and nourish the world. And this is a year in which we all need to step up so that these are not merely words. At Hazon, we’re striving to make a difference. We’re rolling out our Hazon Seal of Sustainability. We’re striving to reduce our own footprint. We’re providing resources to rabbis around the country. We’re partnering with a wide range of our fellow JOFEE organizations. And we’re working with 350.org and a wide range of […]
Inspiration, aspiration, respiration…
From Nigel Savage Dear All, In December we had a board meeting and took part of the time to discuss the election. One of our older and wiser board members said, people are moving too fast, right now. We need to let this administration get started, and see what happens. Well, here we are: six days into this administration, with 1,455 still to go. (0.4% of the time has passed, and 99.6% still remains.) Buckle your seat belts. Hazon’s task is not to lose focus, in relation to the vital and good things we are doing, things which at their heart are about helping us to be the people we aspire to be, helping the Jewish community to be the community that it aspires to be. So: a few suggestions and requests: The Hazon Seal of Sustainability. We’re patient. This is messianic. From 2007 to 2014 we did systemic work on the Farm Bill. And we worked to grow Jewish CSAs. And we were persistent in helping to bring shmita back to life. And now we’re in year two of a new seven-year cycle in Jewish life, and the Hazon Seal pilot we launched last year – in year […]
Transitions & beginnings / a first-ever joint email…
Dear All, This past Shabbat, we read the last chapter of Bereishit, the book of Genesis. On Sunday and Monday, we celebrated MLK weekend. And this coming Shabbat, we start the book of Shmot, the book of Exodus. Bereishit is a story of individuals – a person, a family, a heritage. With Shmot, we begin the story of a people. We make this journey – from an individual to a family to a community – every year. It’s core to the Jewish narrative and to the human process – born into a family, individuating and figuring out our own unique journeys, then binding our own lives with those of others, in multiple ways. It’s the journey of our organizations, also, and that’s why this is the first email ever that is being sent out jointly by Hazon, Pearlstone Center, Urban Adamah, and Wilderness Torah. Each of our organizations has its own history, its own foundation myth, its own mission and vision. We have separate boards and staffs and CEOs. Yet we support each other in multiple ways, and we share many common values. We’re each involved in one or more of the elements that in acronym we summarize as JOFEE – Jewish Outdoor, Food, Farming, […]
Gratitude & practice
From Nigel Savage Dear All, It’s a hundred years since 1917. Technological change was accelerating. The promise of human-powered flight had turned into bombs raining down on the miserable soldiers in the trenches of the First World War. (One of them was my Zaydie, who took a bullet through his finger. It probably, in retrospect, saved his life.) The world was uncertain and scary. One of the books people were reading, a hundred years ago, was Walter Lippmann’s Drift and Mastery. Here’s a taste of it: “We are unsettled to the very roots of our being… We have changed our environment more quickly than we know how to change ourselves… We live in great cities without knowing our neighbors, the loyalties of place have broken down… We have to prepare children to face the unexpected, for their problems will not be the same as their fathers’ [sic]…” There is much in this vein, many pages of it, and of course I share it now because his observations, true then, have never in human history been more true than today. Over the holidays I read Andy Stern’s Raising The Floor. Andy joined the SEIU in 1977, and led it from 1995 […]
New light, new ideas, new collaboration
From Nigel Savage Dear All, We’re going strong into 2017. Hazon has had the best year in our history, and we have big ambitions for 2017 and beyond. A huge thank you to everyone who has supported us this year (including the many of you who have given recent year-end gifts). Our work happens only because of the stakeholders who enable it. Huge thanks. Huge thanks. And as the dust begins to settle on some of the changes in this country this year, some things are getting clearer. For Hazon, in 2017, we’ll aim to do all that we’re doing now – and then some. We’re going to strengthen our Isabella Freedman campus. It’s a unique resource in American Jewish life, it’s an especially vital resource for the tri-state area, and it’s a place where magic happens. Coming up soon, we hope and intend: fresh investments in our staff and in our campus, and a master-planning process to imagine a renewed and rebuilt Freedman increasing its impact for the next two or three generations; We’re deepening our work on the ground – in New York, in Detroit, in Colorado, in San Diego. We’re genuinely thinking globally and acting locally. Coming […]
Adaptive leadership / “the 3 x 3 grid”
From Nigel Savage Dear All, This last weekend at Isabella Freedman we held our fourth Jewish Intentional Communities Conference. I arrived at Freedman – truthfully – tired, a little sick, and more than somewhat depressed about the state of the world. I left refreshed, renewed, provoked, inspired, and smiling. The weekend served to remind me of the depth and impact of Hazon’s work, and the subtle and profound eco-systems of change we’re trying to engender and support. It prompts me this week to explain the context for our work in a slightly different way – what we call, internally, the 3×3 grid. But first, a more general point: This is a moment when we all need to step forward and step back – and the rhythm of that will be different for each one of us. Stepping forward is about having an impact in the world – changing the world, for good. We have to do that. And stepping backwards is about renewing and replenishing ourselves. We have to do that too. And the first – over the long run – is dependent on the second. Regardless of religious observance, for example, I’m more convinced than ever before that “observing […]
One week later / a 9-year-old’s question to G!d…
From Nigel Savage Thank you for the kind and thoughtful comments that many of you sent in response to last week’s email. This is a marathon, not a sprint, and I fear the intensity of what is going on at the moment. I feel it myself – the lurid pull of the news, that sense of OMG, now what’s just happened? – and yet I want desperately to find solid ground; for myself, for the Jewish community, for America. I agree strongly that faith communities, non-profits, ethnic groups, and the whole rainbow panoply of civic society will need to pull together in the coming months and years – to defend the EPA; to do all we can to stop the USA from regressing on climate change initiatives; to guard against the targeting of Muslim communities; and to stand clear and firm against anti-semitism. With due humility, Hazon will try to make as great a difference as we can on some of these issues, going forwards. Above and beyond these things, though, I’m concerned about issues of balance. Normally the intensity of the election campaign, already far too long in the US, gives way to a different energy after the election […]
The day after the election
From Nigel Savage I had a very strange day today: I rode out of Jerusalem, on the first day of our Israel Ride, with our largest ever group of participants, on a beautiful day. The day went smoothly and easily. The sun shone – but not too much. No accidents. Our crew – Israeli, Palestinian, Jordanian, and American alumni of the Arava Institute – were amazing. They’re an inspiration to everyone who spends time with them. They give of themselves in all sorts of ways because they believe that when people engage across difference they can create a better world for all. So: a wonderful day. And somewhere between our ride launch and our first rest stop, it was confirmed that Donald Trump would be the next president of the United States. As you know, we’re a non-profit, and we don’t endorse candidates for office. But I wanted to say a few words to everyone. First: there are many thousands of people on this list, so by definition there must be some of you who are delighted at the outcome of the election. To you I send congratulations and mazal tov. Those of you who did not vote for Donald […]
Brexit, the presidential election, social capital & the evolution of synagogues…
From Nigel Savage There’s a fascinating academic study on the aftermath of the Brexit vote in the UK. One of the things it looked at was the relationship between social capital and the referendum. It defines social capital as the resource that arises from interpersonal networks and the norms of trust and reciprocity that facilitate social interaction within them – the ‘glue’ which helps society function. Those with high social capital can draw on the people they know – family, friends, and community – for support in all aspects of life. High social capital has been linked with positive outcomes in a range of areas, from better government, higher levels of health and education, lower levels of crime, and even less tax evasion. People with high social capital may be better able to adapt to changes in their personal situation and changes in their communities because they are able to draw on more extensive social networks. The study showed a strong trend between social capital and Leave voting – those with the lowest levels of social capital were almost twice as likely to have voted Leave [on Brexit] as those with the highest levels. That’s a remarkable finding. And my […]
One other vote on November 8th
by Nigel Savage All eyes on November 8th are on the presidential election. To many of us it feels the most consequential choice, with the starkest consequences, of any in our lifetime. As the CEO of a non-profit, I have no official view on our choice, other than the prayer and the hope that Americans vote wisely. But there is a smaller decision on November 8th that will be, in its own way, a significant marker in the evolution of this country, and on this I do have an official view. Voters in Massachusetts will vote on “Question 3”, a ballot initiative that would prohibit the sale of eggs, veal or pork from a farm animal confined in a space too small for it to move. One of the reasons that Hazon has grown as an organization is that we have been, in a general sense, deeply resistant to banging people over the head and telling them what to do. Environmentalists do it and Jewish leaders do it and too frequently it feels to me both pedagogically ineffective and intellectually arrogant. Shivim panim l’Torah – seventy faces of the Torah – reflects the breadth of our tradition and the caution […]
The power of retreat
Shana tova – happy new year. I was in shul and I was wondering: if a social psychologist could somehow track the behavior of all the Jewish people in the world, relative to a/ our own behavior the rest of the year and b/ everyone else’s behavior this week, would there be some statistically significant measure of our somehow being better? Kinder, more thoughtful, more generous? I hope that would be the case. I do actually believe that that is the case. If the steady drip, drip of a religious tradition doesn’t make us better people then it’s not in either sense of the word a good religion – not morally good, not practically useful. Before Rosh Hashanah, I sent out the recent Andrew Sullivan essay on the need to step back from technology. If you haven’t read it, it’s really worth reading. If not before, print it out for the afternoon of Yom Kippur. But I also wanted to share the journal published ten years ago by Michael Steinhardt’s foundation on “The Power & Potential of Jewish Retreats.” The essays make interesting reading after a decade’s reflection. The power of retreats has, if anything, increased, as day-to-day life becomes […]
Shana tova / The year in wider perspective…
This is our last email of the first year of this shmita cycle. Rosh Hashanah – a week on Sunday night, October 2nd – marks the start of year two. It has been a good and productive and impactful year for Hazon, and I am so grateful to our staff, our board members, our funders, our participants. Just doing one thing makes a difference. Being kind, offering advice, pitching in, being brave, stretching, supporting. We each of us influence myriad others, each day, directly and indirectly. Thank you for your support. Thank you for your ideas. Thank you for showing up. As good as it has been for Hazon, it has been an unsettling year for the Jewish community, for America and for the world. We were refugees or immigrants once, every one of us reading this – we or our ancestors, known or unknown. “Civilization” is a grandiose term for the ups and downs of our day-to-day life, all that we take for granted. Water from the tap, medicines, decent schools. Food from around the world, just down the street. All this technology. Bike lanes. GPS. All these practical things and a thousand others we rely upon each day […]
