Do Not Destroy - Blog Action Day

Deuteronomy 20:19-20:
“When in your war against a city you have to besiege it a long time in order to capture it, you must not destroy its trees, wielding the ax against them. You may eat of them, but you must not cut them down. Are trees of the field human to withdraw before you into the besieged city? Only trees that you know do no yield food may be destroyed; you may cut them down for constructing siege works against the city that is waging war on you, until it has been reduced.”

This Torah text is the basis for the Jewish value of "Bal tashchit" - which means "do not destroy" (okay, that's not a literal translation - literally, it means "master of destruction.") It's a pretty important Jewish commandment, and I'm proud that our tradition has environmental protection as a basic belief.

With that in mind, we come to this year's Blog Action Day, whose theme is climate change (did anyone else remember that we did this topic in 2007?). Yes, that's right, the environmental disarray that we find in our world today. We definitely have a responsibility to do something about the current state of our environment.

We tend to be pretty "green" in our house. We recycle, we use cloth napkins, we take reusable lunch bags and don't buy bottled water. It's a pretty regular topic of conversation in our house.

But of all the things I've ever written about being eco-friendly, this post is my favorite. It's not long, so I'm going to reprint in its entirety:

7 year old, practically spitting: Mom, I am so mad at you!
(glances around...) I'm so mad at you that I'm going to waste water!

He turns on the bathroom faucet and just lets the water run for a few moments.

Then he shuts it off and walks away.

What does it say when your kid rebels by being eco-unfriendly!?

 Are you participating in Blog Action Day?

The King and the Shack - Blog Action Day - Help me DONATE!

I love to tell the following story on Sukkot:

Once upon a time there was a very generous king. He decided to replace any decrepit or unlivable housing with bright new homes for all of his subjects. Everyone was to have a lovely place to live. The people were very grateful and the kingdom prospered. The king took a tour of his kingdom; he went all over and was greeted with great joy. In his capitol city, however, he found, in an out-of-the-way area, a rundown shack. He found a family inside, living there. Shocked, he asked them, "How is it that your house was not replaced as all the others were? Why do you still live in this shack?" The family replied to the king, "The townspeople have forgotten us."

The king was distraught. He realized, if the townspeople can forget this family that lives in their midst, how much more could they forget the King himself, who lives far from them in the palace and only appears occasionally! He ordered the family's home replaced with a new one, and he had their old shack moved to the center of town. Over it was placed a sign: "This is the kind of shack we ALL used to live in."

The Jewish holiday of Sukkot, which began on Monday night, is that reminder for us. Once a year, for a week, we are commanded to "dwell" in the Sukkah. A sukkah is meant to be flimsy, and its roof is required to be open to the stars. It's not meant as a comfortable, warm dwelling. Instead, it serves to remind us of the fragility of our lives and our world. There are so many other reasons and explanations for the holiday of Sukkot but this one, I believe, is so important. When we consider that almost half the world — over 3 billion people — live on less than $2.50 a day, it's wise to remind ourselves regularly that our cozy lives do not exist in a vacuum. When we consider that 1 billion children live in poverty, it makes us appreciate the ability to feed and clothe our own children. When we consider that 640 million children live without adequate shelter, eating a few meals in the Sukkah seems like small potatoes. (Stats according to UNICEF, via http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats)

What can we do? There are so many ways to help others, through giving and doing. The Blog Action Day blog has a list of 88 ways to do something about poverty. Some of them are pretty simple - yet doing them is possibly a first step towards changing the world. Our sages taught: "Ours is not to complete the work of the world. But that does not allow us the freedom to do nothing." (That is a paraphrase.)

This year at Am Shalom, we tried to give our congregational sukkah a "mitzvah theme." We collected mittens and gloves and hung them as our decorations. It looks great! And when people wonder why there are all those mittens hanging in our sukkah, we have a wonderful opportunity to share with them how many people are in need in our own city. (Photo below)

I'm also participating in the Donors Choose Blogger Challenge. See the left-hand sidebar to check out some of the amazing school projects that are in need of our help. It seems like such a small amount of money, and we can have so much impact. Education is one of the keys to overcoming poverty. Let's help make sure that students have the resources they need.

UPDATED: Thanks to a great idea from this blogger, I will donate $1.00 to a Donors Choose educational project for every comment on this post.

Are you joining in Blog Action Day? Leave your link in a comment or email me (phyl613 at yahoo.com) and I'll add a link to you here in this post.

We cannot afford to be silent any longer.

Other Blog Action Day Posts:
Fighting Poverty with the Crunchy Domestic Goddess

Bloggers Unite for Human Rights...

Today is a day for bloggers to come together and stand on one issue, this time it's human rights.

What can I possibly say about human rights? It's overwhelming and unbelievable to me that while I sit comfortably on my couch, there are people around the world suffering from unbelievable abuse.

In Darfur.

In Myanmar.

Even in our own backyard.

Around the world, there is violence against women, violence against children, terror in the streets.

What can we do?

We can sign a petition.

We can vote.

We can make phone calls and write letters.

We can put bumper stickers on our cars. (We can drive our cars less!)

We can travel and help and support.

And we must do all these things.

Because we can't stand idly by.

The world can't wait.

See more posts here.
Are you blogging about human rights today?
Leave me your link and I'll update this post to include you.

MomGrind has something to say about homelessness.

Read Marci's post about Rabbis for Human Rights.

Deb, Momof3Girls, has this great Thursday 13.

Amy, the Crunchy Domestic Goddess, is rounding up all the posts (and she promises her own later)

Miriam wrote about her own personal and close-to-home fight for rights.

Keepin' It Green...Blog Action Day & BSM

Today is Blog Action Day, a day for bloggers to unite on one topic. This year's topic is the environment, a topic that I have blogged about before. Today, in order to increase the reach of my Blog Action Day post, I've decided to combine it with my Best Shot Monday...today's picture is of my kiddo enjoying our natural environment...and a few links to some of my other posts on environmental topics. (And yes, it's from the summer time. It's a little too cold around here for this kind of behavior now!)

Why save the world?

Because it's the only one we've got.

It is not ours to complete the task, but neither are we free to desist from it. (Ethics of our Fathers)

Changing the World, One Post at a Time...

Change the World, One Sandwich at a Time

Bottled Water Challenge

Re-usable Grocery Bags

See more Best Shot Monday here.

Learn more about Blog Action Day here.

Are you participating in Blog Action Day? Why not give it a go?