Miryam's Space

Psalm 27, verse 4, read each day during Elul declares that we have one over-arching request, “to dwell in Your house all the days of my life, and gaze on Divine Beauty. What is this “house?” It is prayed for each early morning: Mah Tovu, what goodness is in this tent (our earthy home)….And as for me, with your great loving kindness, I will go to your house, I will bow in awe in your Holy Palace!

In my Mah Tovu practice each morning, I summon the emotion of awe at this time. However, recently contemplating the discouraging happenings, during these difficult times, I recall the “palace on fire” (birah doleket) from Midrash on Lech L’chah, where Avraham sees a beautiful palace on fire, and seemingly without a Master, when G8d answers him, “I am the master” of the palace on fire.

Perhaps the reason we cultivate love and awe at the world, a palace on fire, is to enter the palace, to protect the world we love. We in this nation have voted in power a false “master”, one who is amoral. Simply that should be enough to disqualify. The brilliance of Jewish tradition is that the Divine is not a power hungry god like Zeus, but who is our teacher, and our healer, and urgently cares about our moral integrity. Zeus only cared about his ego. In addition the whole earth is filled with G8d’s “Kavod” This word for “glory” also indicates Shechina, the feminine, indwelling aspect of G8d, the only sephirah directly accessible to us.

Halachah (Jewish law) clearly implies that it should be forbidden to consume fossil fuels due to the damages to future generations, and to Sh’khina herself. Creatures are dying, our children are/future is endangered. (Nina Beth Cardin, Sustainability as Mitzvah)

Fossil fuel  technology however is established and entrenched in our time, in the US it garners most of the public dollars spent on transit, and as such it enables our lives, to connect with our loved ones, to do mitzvot (what G8d wants us to do) to learn, etc. Which of these are the greater of our obligations? This is a terrible conflict of obligations, and calls us to activism to change the situation. The burning of fossil fuels, (among other causes ) also damages G8d’s presence on earth, Sh’chinah herself. This makes living with this technology a series of impossible choices to those on a spiritual path. When Shechina is loved, blessing flows to us. To love G8d is to care for the earth.

The amoral leadership now elected to power in the US is preparing to turn up the dial on fossil fuel use. This looming danger cannot be ignored. As we enter spiritually into this beautiful palace of a planet, “the day is short, the work is great and the Master of the house is pressing” says pirke avot. It is not ours to complete the task, neither are we free just zero it out. We are “eved Elohim” Servants of the most high. Even if we feel overwhelmed and weary. Perhaps Jefferson Smith was right that “Lost Causes are the only ones worth fighting for” (Mr. Smith Goes to Washington)