Socrates Sculpture Park, June 6 2023
Drash given at Malkhut Kabbalat Shabbat, Friday June 9th 2023
by Emily Herzlin
On Tuesday evening I was headed out to Socrates Sculpture Park to lead the sunset meditation. I left my apartment, opened my door, and the smell of smoke hit me. My neighbor was sitting on the stoop smoking a cigarette, so at first I thought it was just her.
As I walked down the block the smoke smell continued and I thought, oh, it’s getting to be summertime, must be a big barbeque going on, but the smell persisted.
Then when I turned onto Broadway and could see down towards the East River, I noticed the haze in the sky, the smoky cloud that was obscuring the skyline, and I realized it must have been from the wildfires in Canada. I put on a KN95 mask, and suddenly I was transported back to the early days of the pandemic, the last time I walked outside with a mask on. I think a lot of us felt that resonance of early pandemic days this week.
When I arrived at the park, I saw some people assembling to meditate. I looked around at the hazy sky, and felt the irritation in my throat, even through my mask. I approached the group of people and said, I think we need to cancel tonight, right? I got the sense that some people agreed, but some weren’t all that phased and wanted to stay. I briefly entertained the possibility of staying to teach, but thought better of it. We canceled the event and folks dispersed.
I felt then and still feel pretty stunned that even with this mass of smoke and haze that had descended over our city, folks were still showing up thinking we’d meditate, stunned that even I thought it could be okay, however briefly. Something was very, very wrong with this picture.
During the pandemic we’ve been told that outside is safe. We’ve missed being together so, so much, and we’ve moved as much as we can outside to be able to reconnect with people as safely as possible. And this week, outside wasn’t safe. Is it that we are so deprived of connection, that we were willing to risk our health, in different way, to at least be together?
Or have we all gotten so numb to the cascade of moral injury after moral injury that has been our collective experience of life for the better part of a decade, that we were willing to meditate in the midst of objectively dangerous conditions? That we didn’t smell the smoke and see the haze and immediately say (excuse my language), no fucking way, and also, what the fuck?
In our parsha this week, Beha’alotcha, we read about how as the Israelites were wandering in the desert en route to the Promised Land, the presence of YHVH would descend in the form of a cloud as a sign to stop and set up the Tabernacle. We read:
On the day that the Tabernacle was set up, the cloud covered the Tabernacle, the Tent of the Pact; and in the evening it rested over the Tabernacle in the likeness of fire until morning.…
At a command of יהוה the Israelites broke camp, and at a command of יהוה they made camp: they remained encamped as long as the cloud stayed over the Tabernacle.
When the cloud of YHVH descended, it was a sign. Everybody noticed it, everybody paid attention, everybody heeded it. It was time to collectively stop, build the Tabernacle and engage in the service of YHVH.
Imagine if the presence of YHVH descended as this massive cloud, and everybody saw it, but they went about their business as if it wasn’t even there.
That is what we did this week, it’s what we have been doing as a society for decades.
No matter how long the Israelites had been going on their journey, or where they were at on their journey, or how invested they were in getting to the Promised Land, when the cloud of God descended, they paid attention. They stopped.
That is truly what we need to be doing as a society in response to the cloud of God that is the climate crisis. But our society can’t, or won’t, stop the forward momentum of capitalism, won’t stop running on the unsustainable sources of fossil fuels and desire, towards a false Promised Land flowing with comfort and money.
How do we imagine God feels, that we are ignoring God’s command to stop? Pretty angry I’m guessing. And this week in New York and along the East Coast, the orange sun looked angry, the yellow sky looked angry, our lungs and throats felt angry. As they should be angry. God should be angry.
But I understand how hard it is to stop. I’m in it, as we all are. I’m one of the Israelites wandering in the desert, I’m exhausted and somewhat traumatized from what we’ve been through, I’ve been told, promised, there’s a beautiful destination of peace and plenty at the end of all this struggle, I just have to keep doing what I’m doing and I’ll get there. I want to get there, I want to get my family there. Am I really going to stop? Especially if nobody else is? And if nobody else is, what’s the point?
I am reminded of the poem “Keeping Quiet” by Pablo Neruda:
Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still
for once on the face of the earth,
let’s not speak in any language;
let’s stop for a second,
and not move our arms so much.
It would be an exotic moment
without rush, without engines;
we would all be together
in a sudden strangeness.
Fishermen in the cold sea
would not harm whales
and the man gathering salt
would look at his hurt hands.
Those who prepare green wars,
wars with gas, wars with fire,
victories with no survivors,
would put on clean clothes
and walk about with their brothers
in the shade, doing nothing.
What I want should not be confused
with total inactivity.
Life is what it is about;
I want no truck with death.
If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with death.
Perhaps the earth can teach us
as when everything seems dead
and later proves to be alive.
Now I’ll count up to twelve
and you keep quiet and I will go.
Shabbat is a moment of stopping. It’s a taste of that “exotic,” collective stillness Neruda writes about. Shabbat interrupts our trance, our habitual mode of constant doing, and invites us into being. When we stop doing, and can just be, we can look inside ourselves and around us, and be aware of what is actually happening now, and from that space of stillness and awareness, wisdom and compassion can arise.
The kind of stopping we need to do as a society, the kind of service towards the earth, is truly radical. It will seem like we aren’t going anywhere, like we’ve ceased our journey forward towards the Promised Land. But if we don’t take the time to stop, there will be no land left, promised or otherwise.
It’s easy to fall into despair when we contemplate the climate crisis. There’s a quote by Václav Havel: “Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something is worth doing no matter how it turns out.” We don’t know what the outcome will be when it comes to environmental activism, but we know in our hearts it’s worth doing.
Mary Annalise Hegler, a self proclaimed “Climate Person,” writes that she hates when people ask the question, “what can I do?” It’s impossible to answer simply. We know by now that it’s beyond individual actions at this point–we can buy green, bring our compost to the bin, bring a reusable bag to the store all we want, and it’s not going to be enough. And if we believe that it is and don’t see change, we are going to get frustrated. (We probably already are).
Hegler distinguishes between the idea of climate action and climate commitment. Climate action is individual and comparatively narrow, like recycling or going vegan. Climate commitment is bigger. It's a framework. A practice that leaves room for imperfection. It’s ongoing awareness and engagement with community.
To the question of what can I do, she writes, “Do what you're good at. And do your best.
If you're good at making noise, make all the noise you can. Go to climate strikes, call your representatives, organize your neighbors. Vote. Every chance you get….
If you're raising children (and they do not have to be your children—nieces, nephews, and play cousins all count!), teach them to love the Earth and to love each other, teach them the resilience that shows up as empathy. If you're good at taking care of people, take care of the legions of weary climate warriors. If you're a good cook, cook. Make it as sustainable as you can within your means, but more than anything, share it, build a community around it.
Severing ties with fossil fuels is nothing short of a revolution, a rebirth. The truth is our world was built on fossil fuels. It never should have happened, but it did. There's no reversing it. That's why we need a whole new world, and we all, every single one of us, has a powerful role to play as a midwife in this rebirth.”
I invite you to take a moment, close your eyes if you like, settle in, take a few breaths, savor them. And taking some time to contemplate your role in setting up the Tabernacle for the service of the earth, take a moment and ask yourself–what am I good at? Am I good at making noise? Am I good at teaching? Am I good at cooking? Am I good at taking care of people? Am I good at organizing people? Showing up at meetings and taking on administrative tasks? Am I good at researching candidates and getting out the vote? What am I good at and how can I lend what I’m good at towards the ongoing service of the earth? And if the answer is, “I don’t know,” can I take some time to stop, during or after Shabbat, to explore this?
On this Shabbat, may we blessed with the clarity of mind and heart to not only notice the cloud of God but to listen to its call to stop; may our lawmakers have the courage to cease their service at the altar of capitalism and instead, worship in the tent of loving interdependence; may we be blessed with the wisdom to identify our role in the building of the climate Mishkan, and may we experience replenishing joy through our efforts; and in so doing, may we actually create the conditions for the land to flow with milk and honey. Shabbat Shalom.