by A. Siegel, via Get Energy Smart!
Arev Yom Kippur … The eve of the Day of Atonement. After the period of reflection and engagement with others between Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur, this is a moment to turn to internal considerations and the relationship between the individual and G-d.
As part of the prayers for the Day of Atonement, the Vidui, the Al Cheyt or recital of sins, is perhaps the most important. (Modern Judaism being what it is, there are a myriad of translations and modern variations on the Vidui/Al Chet.) A key word: Ashamnu … “we have sinned” is a recognition of individual and communal failures. The Al Cheyt is a recognition and statement about sins by ourselves (and our community) against others, against oneself, against G-d through action … and inaction.
It is clear: one can do wrong through action and words … and one can do wrong through inaction and silence.
And, there is a silence that bears heavily on the heart at this time: the silence in our political leadership and among too many of us on the damage we are doing to the planetary system, the risks of climate change, and the urgent necessity for meaningful change to change our path toward something that enables sustainable prosperity for humanity.
From a Yom Kippur sermon leading into a Viddui recitation,
This is Yom Kippur. This is a night for confession. So let us be honest. If ever there was a time for candor, this is it. We humans are not good with limits. We are pushing the planet and its animal resources to the limit. We want what we want when we want it. We pretty much take, hunt, fish, and consume until someone or something stops us or until there is no more to be taken.
Do you remember the Viddui we will be reciting in a few minutes? It’s the Confession prayer that lists our sins alphabetically.
a…b…c…
We abuse. We besmirch. We consume. We destroy. We excuse ourselves. We forget the consequences of our actions. We are greedy.
I could continue through the alphabet, and I should go on because, as the saying goes, although religion ought to comfort the afflicted, religion also needs to afflict the comfortable. And we truly do need to be uncomfortable tonight. Remember an alternate name for Yom Kippur is Yom Ha-Din…the Day of Judgment. This night is meant to be a time for severity.
“a time of severity”. We are living in a time of consequences, a time where humanity’s future (and our own, unless you are on your deathbed, futures) require confronting Inconvenient Truth, and acting in this regard.
The individual matters and we need, for Yom Kippur, to judge ourselves with “severity” — to push our own comfortable ways as to whether we ’sin’ and damage and harm unknowingly or knowingly.
We, however, live within a society. And, while each of us has a voice and role in that society, there are leaders. And, we expect leaders to show leadership. Truthfully, there is no such thing as that perfect person (take a look and reflect on the Al Cheyt) nor is there such a thing as a perfect leader. But, we should recognize our own faults and seek to change our patterns. And, we should look to our leaders’ faults and seek to help them change for the better.
Most of all, we cannot afford more of the same timid politics when the future of our planet is at stake. Global warming is not a someday problem, it is now.
Who said this? Senator Barack Obama in 2007.
Where, however, is President Barack Obama and Presidential-candidate Barack Obama in 2012?
There is no question that President Barack Obama is better on environmental and climate issues than a tea-party ruled Mitt Romney conceivably could be. However, this is an incredibly low bar of judgment.
Even though climate change is an arena of incredibly stark differentiation between the parties (and candidates); even though President Obama’s one-liner about climate change was one of the best received lines during his DNC speech; even though “the future of our planet is at stake”, the silence about climate change from Presidential candidate Barack Obama and Vice Presidential candidate Joe Biden is simply deafening.
We sin … we do wrong through action and words. We sin, we do wrong through inaction and silence.
It is past time to end the climate silence.
A. Siegel blogs in the domains of energy and environment at Get Energy Smart! NOW. This piece was reprinted with permission.
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It’s great to see hear more religious voices being raised.
“Keep the company of those that seek the truth, but run from those that know it.” Vaclav Havel
More from Vaclav Havel . .
“What could change the direction of today’s civilization? It is my deep conviction that the only option is a change in the sphere of the spirit, in the sphere of human conscience. It’s not enough to invent new machines, new regulations, new institutions. We must develop a new understanding of the true purpose of our existence on this Earth. Only by making such a fundamental shift will we be able to create new models of behavior and a new set of values for the planet.”
For those who have not read Clive Hamilton:
http://www.clivehamilton.net.au/cms/media/documents/articles/oxford_four_degrees_paper_final.pdf
Thank you Adam Siegel and– as always– to Joe for posting
If only all would be good with the world with a change in Barack Obama’s focus. The challenge is much greater. Changing the minds of about 314,500,000 Americans (maybe 500K have the necessary lifestyles) is what is needed. Government could facilitate new lifestyles; it certaintly won’t.
We consume all we come upon… We are no better than bacteria in this primeval sense. Still a ways to to go on our evolutionary journey. This could be a major station in it, if we get through our global warming.
Yes, it has to be a real turning-point, away from greed, materialism, xenophobia and misanthropy, towards humanity, compassion, sufficiency and wisdom. Of course some people have always exhibited these nobler virtues, but our crisis is caused by the dominance over the planet of Them, the insatiable ones, the destroyers of Life and the natural world ie the capitalists and the Rightists who they spawn and who are the plutocrats’ shock troops. Capitalism and capitalists must go or we are not going to see out this century, let alone evolve as a species, individuals or a civilization.
Adam, thank you for writing this thoughtful piece.
Barack Obama said it in 2007 to garner support from the extreme left. Then he moved to the center once he won the primary. His etch-a-sketch moment.
So, only the ‘extreme Left’, support action to save humanity? Yep- you’re probably about right, there.
Thank you, Mr. Siegel, for writing this. Though not Jewish (only “spiritual” at best), I concur with the entire post.
A few years ago I had high hopes that because of the whole world nature of global climate change that the whole world would come together to tackle this problem. I believed that the realization of the severe threat to all of civilization from global warming would bring the governments of all nations to work in cooperation to combat the threat.
I could imagine a world transformed by cooperation and the common good. I imagined heaven on Earth.
What I see happening however is greed of big corporations working to doom civilization by their desire to plunder the riches that fossil fuels represents. I now imagine civilization experiencing catastrophe after catastrophe from climate changes resulting in Hell on planet Earth.
The earth is our children’s inheritance, and their children in turn, forever. We’re the stewards of at least seven million species of life that we have counted so far.
The idea that “We’re spending our children’s inheritance” feels morally wrong when it’s the earth that we spend, for a mess of pottage in return.
At birth we’re given spirit, heart, eyes to be open and hands to be whole. Most of us are given an education these days so that we’re scientifically literate, and we know where the libraries are. We are given an internet.
In a primitive world we would simply build our houses to use less firewood and more solar. Yet humans are communal beings who specialize. We need inventors, product developers, engineers, businesspeople. We need leaders. We need prophets. For the good of your great-grandchildren and theirs in turn, you should set aside some of your beautiful, precious time, some of your beautiful, precious mind and your hands, to do some work that God would rejoice in you doing.
In school you probably weren’t taught to lead other people, which probably is a lesser sin of our country. In a democracy, the citizens are the leaders, and real democracy works when each of us does 120% of our share. I ask you to take the life that you have so far, whether you grew up on a soft mattress or on a hard floor, teach yourself just a bit more about being a leader, and try leading the people.
You almost certainly weren’t taught to be a prophet. We need prophets anyway. Even if you can’t use psychic abilities, develop your common sense. A wise woman or a wise man is a fair substitute for a prophet.
You probably weren’t taught to be an inventor, but we’re going to need them too.
We live in a greedy society filled with frauds: fraudulent leaders, sham prophets and probably faux inventors too. They’ve all given their industries a bad name. Does that mean we are doomed to broil as we cower in fear of frauds? I should hope not.
Instead of condemning all of the specialist types as Jonah condemned Ninevites, go walk a mile in their shoes. Then you’ll get it.
We need tiny, close communities that seek out and uphold the gifts of leadership, prophecy, inventiveness and any other skills that we as a people need to inhibit climate change. My advice is to not pay your leaders and other key people millions, but do pay their rent. If you need leaders and specialists of many kinds, it’s your own failing to automatically cut them out of your care without thinking more deeply about them.
“Keep the company of those that seek the truth, but run from those that know it.”
I’d say stand up to rather than run.
Yes, stand up to those who claim they KNOW the future of our planet is at stake if we don’t stop emitting CO2.
Sigh … Nice to have some who is sure that the international scientific community is united to conduct a fraud on everyone else come to the table.
How about agreeing that you don’t know what you don’t know and supporting a serious ‘no regrets policy’ path forward? Energy efficiency and clean energy will improve health, improve economic performance, increase resiliency in the face of storms. Better agricultural practices will produce more food with less pollution (like dead zones in the Chesapeake Bay and Gulf of Mexico). Etc … Asking the question “what’s the worst that can happen?” with a serious and open mind leads to doing this, at a minimum.
By the way, the ‘planet’ will be fine — it will continue, for billions of years, to orbit the sun — with or without humanity. It is the future of human civilization and humanity (along with innumerable species) that is at stake.