January 16, 2009
A great organization called Canfei Nesharim is providing a whole slew of great educational resources on Tu B’Shvat and the Environment. Here is what they have to say:
Tu b’Shevat, the Jewish “New Year of the Trees,” falls this year on February 8-9. It’s a great time to learn and share with your community about Torah teachings on protecting the environment. This year Canfei Nesharim is offering a wealth of NEW resources for this Tu b’Shevat, including FREE colorful haggadot for your Tu b’Shevat seder; synagogue activity suggestions (with resource sheets) for children, teens, adults and communities; FREE “Appreciation for Creation” wallet cards for you to order and give out to your community; “The Trees Sang with Joy,” a new Torah teaching for Tu b’Shevat (available for reprinting); electronic greeting cards to share with your loved ones; and the opportunity to plant a tree in our virtual forest OR in the land of Israel. Don’t miss this great opportunity to learn and educate your community about our Torah-based responsibility to protect the environment. Check it all out at http://canfeinesharim.org/community/shevat.php!
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Posted by eimatai
March 3, 2008
The impact of Eimatai was colossal on the students of Westchester Hebrew High School. The students that attended the program from WHHS put to use all the skills they learned from the program. The students Nili Yaari, Robbie Schrag, Dani Haramati Daniel Revkin, Hannah Lubart, and Lexi Milstien managed to put together a school-wide recycling program. With the help of their Eimatai advisor Caren Abitbol, they utilized all their leadership traits developed on the program, to inspire other students in their school to be more aware of the environment. The teens got their high school to dedicate one week to environmental awareness and ran programs that included a speaker from the NY Times, an environmental debate, and a recycling program.
A truly heated debate over environmental issues hastily engulfed the school during environmental awareness week. The school got an expert speaker working for the NY Times to come and discuss his views on the topic. “Once the debate got going it seemed like a perpetual stream of views were being discussed” said Nili Yarari, “I didn’t realize how many people were truly interested in this issue”. The debate portrayed countless opinions on the topic and gave several solutions for the issues being discussed. Teachers and students worked together to try and propose possible ways in which the students could help solve some of the issues. One major solution proposed was a school recycling program.
The WHHS recycling program is indubitably unique. It is an unprecedented effort at WHHS to try and help reduce wastes in the environment. The school set up boxes around the building each with a grade number on it. The goal of it was to see which grade could recycle the most and the winner would receive a luxurious pizza party. The program rapidly took off and the competition was on. The program not only did an outstanding effort in reducing garbage but also helped to unite each grade slightly more. The grades had to work together to make sure everyone was recycling, because otherwise they would stand no chance in winning. “It was so cool” said Dani Haramati, “my whole grade joined together with one set goal. I know it sounds cheesy but I really felt like we were a family”. In the end, while the juniors won, the atmosphere in the school hinted at a school-wide victory.
Eimatai truly had a profound effect on the students of WHHS. Even those whom did not attend the program were still able to feel a part of it because of the environmental awareness week. The program set a recycling precedent in WHHS that will surely not fade any time soon. All in all the goals set on that fateful weekend in Baltimore of achieving a cleaner school in WHHS have without question been achieved. It just goes to show you that a little leadership goes along way.
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Posted by eimatai
January 16, 2008
When thinking about the Jew’s relationship and responsibility to the natural world, it is worthwhile checking out a mishnah in Pirkei Avot that might make you think that Environmentalism is a waste of time for Jews.
The mishah reads: “Rabbi Yakov said: If you are walking along the road reviewing your studies, and you stop to look up and say ‘what a beautiful tree’ or ‘what a beautiful field’ then it is considered as if you committed a corporeal sin.”
This seems to be quite damning for anyone who might be interested in appreciating the beauty of nature. The mishnah isn’t simply talking about the problem with interrupting your Torah study, because it specifically mentions someone who is outside and distracted by nature. In addition, the punishment seems quite severe.
In order to understand this Mishnah, we need to really analyze the specific language that was used. The word the Mishnah uses is “hifsik” – he stopped learning. According to _______ the mishnah was talking about someone who thought that he could relate to G-d better through Nature than he could through the Torah. He felt that he would leave his Torah and rely solely on the Environment to become close with G-d.
Rabbi Kenneth Brander further emphasized the point by explaining that some people have the misconception that Nature and Torah are completely separate. That in order to appreciate Nature, they have to abandon the Torah. The Mishnah teaches us just the opposite – by using the Torah as a lense to view the world, we will have a richer and fuller appreciation of Nature.
Achad Ha’Am took a very different approach by saying that the issue at hand was that this person was not in the land of Israel. Israel is the Holy Land, and only there is there strong enough of a connected between the Jewish people and the Land for a distraction in learning to be justified. We cannot become distracted by the Land outside of Israel because it will pull us from our learning. Only in Israel can we have the synthesis of the Land of Israel and the Torah of Israel.
With this new understanding of the Mishnah in hand, we can use this year’s Tu B’Shvat to better appreciate Nature, and find those links between our Torah study and the world we live in.
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Posted by eimatai
January 16, 2008
Look around your house, and you may find that like most Americans, you have a bunch of old cell phones just lying around not being used. In fact, over 150 million cell phones are taken out of service each year in America alone. That is over 400,000 cell phones per day! The image above is just a sampling of those 150 million phones. (For more photos of how much waste Americans produce, checks out these shocking photographs by Chris Jordan).
The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) has launched a new effort called “Recycle Your Cellphone: It’s an easy call!” to get people to start recycling old cell phones.
Aside from just being more garbage that has to go somewhere (landfills are filling up!), the batteries for these phones are pretty detrimental to the environment.
So thankfully, there are a number of ways you can recycle an old cell phone with very little effort. Different cell phone providers (Verizon, T-Mobile…) have different recycling policies, but Sprint will take any phone from anywhere.
In order to publicize the scale of this issue, and artist named Chris Jordan had photographed the awesome amounts of waste that Americans produce each year. Chris want’s people to realize how much waste we produce, and think more about Reusing, Reducing, and Recycling. Check out this great interview with Chris and Steven Colbert on the Colbert Report.
Recently, the NY Times featured this issue in the Sunday Magazine, and really delved into the issue of cell phone waste a recycling.
You can arrange a cell phone recylcing drive in your school, and send the phones to a number of places that will refurbish the phones, or recylce them. Some will also donate some money to the charity of your choice for each phone donated. For one example of this kind of organization, check out Collective Good.
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Posted by eimatai
December 24, 2007
The Hebrew Academy of Nassau County is preparing for a revolution. And not just any revolution. HANC Eimatai Emissaries are leading the school on a mission to change the way students interact with their local environment and the larger global environment. The Eimatai Emissaries recognize that HANC students value giving back to those who give to them. HANC students understand that the world shares a responsibility to the future. So, the Eimatai Emissaries have instituted a new environmental initiative dubbed, “
Another Kind of Green.” After all, “Im lo achshav, eimatai?”- if not now, when?
We live in a non-renewable world. Every day, valuable resources that are taken from the Earth are wasted. If nothing is done to preserve the precious materials we are so generously blessed with, we will be left with nothing. Only 27 percent of newspapers in the United States are recycled, and 500,000 trees must be cut down to produce each week’s Sunday newspaper. It is easy to think that we, as students, are powerless and cannot attack this problem. The HANC Eimatai representatives have decided to break free of this way of thinking and actively fight to save the environment. We may not be able to drastically alter our lifestyles to go entirely “green”. Yet, we can take the
first steps in the right direction to save our planet and our futures. Therefore, HANC is launching its first environmental initiative: “Another Kind of Green”. We hope to diminish the amount of renewable products wasted through a
school-wide recycling program in coalition with local sanitation departments. Remember, seventeen trees are saved for every ton of paper recycled! By starting small, we hope to spread our initiative to other schools.
The recycling campaign represents one facet of HANC’s efforts to preserve the global environment. We recognize another environment in need of protection. A city close to our hearts and constantly on our minds: HANC’s sister city: Sderot.Sderot, an Israeli settlement, lies one kilometer from the Gaza Strip and the Palestinian town of Beit Hanoun. Since the beginning of the Second Intifada, Sderot has been under constant rocket fire from Qassam rockets launched by Hamas and Islamic Jihad. These rockets have caused death and injuries, as well as significant damage to homes and property. In May, 2007, a significant increase in shelling from Gaza prompted the temporary evacuation of thousands of residents from their homes. We seek to aid those in need in Sderot by preserving and rebuilding their precious environment.
The devastating damage is occurring across an ocean, yet HANC students empathize with the residents of their sister city. The HANC Eimatai Emissaries seek to intensify the bond between HANC and Sderot by collecting money to support rebuilding and beautification efforts. To connect with rebuilding efforts overseas, display unity with Sderot and deeply root a sense of environmental appreciation in HANC, students will take part in planting a garden on school grounds. Through their initiative, HANC students hope to emerge into the future as leaders and pioneers with the goal of helping the environment and global community.
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Posted by eimatai
