eclipse prayers; Shemini; videos; the war

[David Seidenberg]

Dear Chevra,

Got eclipse prayers? Yes: neohasid.org/eclipse/

Please check it out. Here's a kavannah:

May the revelation of the sun’s wings bring us healing, as it says, וְזָרְחָה לָכֶם יִרְאֵי שְׁמִי שֶׁמֶשׁ צְדָקָה וּמַרְפֵּא בִּכְנָפֶיהָ — “And the sun of righteousness will shine for you and will bring healing in its wings, and you will go out and gambol like calves set free.” (Malachi 3:20/4:2) May we recognize with awe the grandeur of Your works, as it says, שְׂאוּ מָרוֹם עֵינֵיכֶם וּרְאוּ מִי בָרָא אֵלֶּה — “Lift on high your eyes and see: Who created these?” (Isaiah 40:26) so that we may be filled with אַמִּיץ כֹּחַ courageous strength to heal the Earth from human destruction. May the desire for peace eclipse the desire for war, may love eclipse hatred, may we see the light hidden within the light, the invisible within the visible. And may salvation arise for the heavens that shield us — יְקוּם פּוּרקָן לִשְׁמַּיָא — so that the sun’s rays shine for blessing and healing, for us and for all life.

And here's some Torah for this week's parshah, on Leviticus 11:3 – "Everyone of split hoof and that divides its hoofs, bringing up cud (to digest) among the animals, that you can eat." The following paragraphs come from what I contributed to the Eco-Bible:

"Any animal that chews its cud, such as a cow, can eat grasses and plants that humans cannot digest. Any animal that has split hooves, such as a sheep, can walk and graze on land too rocky for people to farm with a plow. Thus, the only land animals that we can eat, according to the Torah, are animals that do not compete with humans for food. Embedded in this wisdom is another truth: any culture that lets domesticated herds compete with humans for food also pits farmers against herders and pits the poor who have no land against owners who control both land and herds.

"I propose that it was not ritualism or symbolism but ecology that first determined the rules about which species of mammals were permitted to be eaten. Ruminant animals can make use of marginal land growing grasses inedible to humans, and animals with split hooves can graze on rocky land that would make for poor farming. From a purely ecological perspective, these rules permit only species that do not compete with humans for land or food.

"These species allowed humans to sustainably derive the most sustenance from agriculturally marginal land by herding animals that can graze there, especially sheep and goats, and eating them. Conversely, these constraints of hoof and stomach would compel some people to live as shepherds and goatherders, leading their animals from one wild area to the next, maximizing the flock’s growth. Rising world food prices now endanger the poor in many countries.

"Prices are driven up in part by the massive industrial feeding of grain to cattle raised for beef instead of giving them their natural diet of diverse grasses and other pasture plants. The cost is driven up further by the ethanol fuel industry’s competition for the grain, competition between feeding our cars or cattle, or people. 

"To attain justice, possibly the most important value within Judaism’s culture, we need farming and animal husbandry to produce enough food for all people, poor and rich. We need to find alternatives to fuels from crops as well as fossil fuels. The ways to deal with these challenges may differ among ecosystems, but any culture founded on justice must find a way to bring its values into alignment with its ecosystem."

There are now videos of two of my classes on "Jews and Indigneousness", one from Berkeley and one from Northampton. Both are on my youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@neohasid 

Finally, there's too much to say about the war in a small space, but it seems impossible not to say something.

It is clear after the killing of seven aid workers from World Central Kitchen, if it wasn't already clear from tens of thousands of civilian deaths, or from the fact that three hostages stripped to the waist and waving a white flag were shot dead: 

The IDF is not protecting civilian lives in the way that it has always reputed itself to do in the past. How many times were regular Gazan civilians killed under similar circumstances, where no cry was raised because the mistake was not so obvious? And to what degree is this seeming shoot first policy a direct expression of the attitude of Israel's right-wing government, which includes fascists who actually do advocate genocide? Or to what degree is this disaster of a war a result of the shattering pain left by the Hamas atrocities? 

Regardless of the reasons, any child who dies of starvation has been killed by Israel, not by Hamas, even though the war was started by Hamas. Mass famine equals genocide. That is the point we are at, yet it is not too late to prevent the worst. If Israel would rebuild the Erez crossing (the northern gateway between Israel and Gaza) and bring in food on its own trucks, famine would be quickly averted and alleviated within a few days.

Our Torah envisions living in the land in peace and with justice. May we see better days soon, and may we be blessed with both peace and justice, 

David Seidenberg