Dear Friends,
Lake Mead is so low that it is revealing buried bodies and boats. Lake Powell is nearing levels that threaten water and electric supply to seven states. The Colorado River is drying up, and the Thames, as well.
We may be inured to the water crisis out west when we peer upon the wide Hudson River and its rich abundance of water – until we remember that the Hudson is a tidal river which twice daily absorbs flows from ocean tides. Rather, look at browned lawns in the Hudson Valley to remember that it hasn’t rained here, much, either.
The terrible drought in America’s southwest, Europe, Africa and elsewhere, has an echo in this week’s Torah portion. We read, “For the Eternal your God is bringing you into a good Land, a land with streams and springs and fountains issuing from plain and hill.” (Deut. 8:7)
“A good Land” is defined in Torah firstly as one which has sufficient, if not abundant, supplies of fresh water. Yes, Torah also indicated that the Land sprouted rich produce – wheat and barley, vines, figs, pomegranates and olives, and its rocks were iron and copper (Deut. 8:8-9), but primarily the land must supply water. It is the very source of life. Waters were mentioned in day 2 of the Creation story in Genesis, and four rivers went forth from the mythic Garden of Eden. Water is life, and presently we are witnessing how its shortage not only threatens life, but is stirring resource wars across the globe.
Torah’s message should be central and demands our attention. Surely, we’ve heard climate change warnings for years, if not decades, but likely we saw those signs in the abstract. They were couched in temperatures rising over decades… three degrees warmer by 2070. It felt far-off, and we naively believed that technology and urgency would change the course… by 2060.
Yet, floods in Kentucky and California, coupled with the drought in the west, have demonstrated that later is today, and tomorrow is already yesterday. Supplies of lifegiving water cannot be taken for granted. Billions of gallons of fresh water melt from glaciers on Greenland and Antarctica daily, and we can only sit and watch. The Earth itself, no longer is the good Land about which Deuteronomy gushed.
It is time for every one of us to make changes. Shorter showers. Fewer and fuller laundry and dishwasher loads. I guess the good news about browned-out lawns is there are fewer lawnmowers crisscrossing grass and spewing carbon gases into the fragile atmosphere.
Originally, God gave us the good Land with abundant water. Now, it is up to us to preserve it, or, perish for want of water.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Douglas Kohn
Lake Mead is so low that it is revealing buried bodies and boats. Lake Powell is nearing levels that threaten water and electric supply to seven states. The Colorado River is drying up, and the Thames, as well.
We may be inured to the water crisis out west when we peer upon the wide Hudson River and its rich abundance of water – until we remember that the Hudson is a tidal river which twice daily absorbs flows from ocean tides. Rather, look at browned lawns in the Hudson Valley to remember that it hasn’t rained here, much, either.
The terrible drought in America’s southwest, Europe, Africa and elsewhere, has an echo in this week’s Torah portion. We read, “For the Eternal your God is bringing you into a good Land, a land with streams and springs and fountains issuing from plain and hill.” (Deut. 8:7)
“A good Land” is defined in Torah firstly as one which has sufficient, if not abundant, supplies of fresh water. Yes, Torah also indicated that the Land sprouted rich produce – wheat and barley, vines, figs, pomegranates and olives, and its rocks were iron and copper (Deut. 8:8-9), but primarily the land must supply water. It is the very source of life. Waters were mentioned in day 2 of the Creation story in Genesis, and four rivers went forth from the mythic Garden of Eden. Water is life, and presently we are witnessing how its shortage not only threatens life, but is stirring resource wars across the globe.
Torah’s message should be central and demands our attention. Surely, we’ve heard climate change warnings for years, if not decades, but likely we saw those signs in the abstract. They were couched in temperatures rising over decades… three degrees warmer by 2070. It felt far-off, and we naively believed that technology and urgency would change the course… by 2060.
Yet, floods in Kentucky and California, coupled with the drought in the west, have demonstrated that later is today, and tomorrow is already yesterday. Supplies of lifegiving water cannot be taken for granted. Billions of gallons of fresh water melt from glaciers on Greenland and Antarctica daily, and we can only sit and watch. The Earth itself, no longer is the good Land about which Deuteronomy gushed.
It is time for every one of us to make changes. Shorter showers. Fewer and fuller laundry and dishwasher loads. I guess the good news about browned-out lawns is there are fewer lawnmowers crisscrossing grass and spewing carbon gases into the fragile atmosphere.
Originally, God gave us the good Land with abundant water. Now, it is up to us to preserve it, or, perish for want of water.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Douglas Kohn