Articles by the Rabbi

Press Statement on Global Climate Change

December 13, 2007

Three times a day, observant Jews around the world read one of the most important biblical passages for our people, Deuteronomy 11:13–21. In these verses, God tells the Israelites that if they obey God’s commandments with their whole heart and soul, there will be abundant rainfall in its appointed time and a temperate climate to support crops for feeding the people and their livestock. However, if their hearts are led astray to follow the false gods of greed, exploitation, and short-sightedness, the rains will cease, the climate will no longer support fruitful harvests, and the land will become unlivable. This extraordinary pronouncement about global climate change, its causes and its consequences, is so fundamental to the Jewish people that we are commanded to place its words upon our hearts, to bind them as a sign upon our hands and between our eyes, to teach them to our children, to speak them both at home and away from home and upon lying down and getting up, and to inscribe them on the doorposts of our houses and upon our gates, so that we and our descendants might enjoy a sustainable way of life.

Along with the rest of the faith community in Michigan, we Jews are deeply concerned about the impact that pollution from greenhouse gases has on God’s creation and on public health. The Bible teaches that we are caretakers of the land we inhabit. It is our duty to protect the land for future generations, and to treat our environment with sacredness and respect. And yet our state alone releases nearly 182 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions, more than the combined emissions of 91 developing countries.

The prophet Isaiah warned our ancestors not to become a nation with unlimited chariots that fill the land with horses, the original source of horse-power. Instead, the prophet commanded them to use their wealth to feed the hungry, house the homeless, and provide for those in need. Unfortunately our consumer-driven economy has ignored Isaiah’s plea. Instead we have earned a stern rebuke from the prophet Ezekiel [34:18]: “Is it not enough for you to graze on choice grazing ground; must you also trample with your feet what is left from your grazing? And is it not enough for you to drink clear water; must you also muddy with your feet what is left?” I suggest that the time has come to wash our feet by demanding auto-fuel efficiency standards commensurate with other industrialized nations: not just 25 or 30 mpg, but rather on a par with Japan's 46.9 mpg by 2015, or the European Union's 48.9 mpg by 2012. I suggest the time has come for the U.S., with 5% of the world's population, to stop trampling the rest of the world’s choice grazing ground with 27.8% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, and to adopt emission reduction goals comparable to China’s 40% by 2020 and 80% by 2050.

This for us is an ethical issue. The Bible commands us to maintain the highest standards of purity, both out of obligation to God and out of consideration for the health and well-being of the entire community. Any step we can take to increase the quality of the air breathed by our citizens, their children and grandchildren, deserves our wholehearted endorsement.

Hanukkah—Complex Holiday for Complex Times

Once again, Jewish people will kindle light for peace for all.

Lansing State Journal, December 10, 2006

After the Jewish people had dwelled in the land of Israel for more than 1,000 years, the Seleucid Greeks occupied the land and outlawed Jewish religious practices. Their defeat by the Maccabees, a local band of Jewish warriors, is commemorated at Hanukkah.

But that's not the whole story. Roughly 1,800 years ago the rabbis in ancient Israel decided not to base the celebration upon a military conquest. They prescribed that we read from Zechariah at Hanukkah, "Not by might, not by power, but by the spirit." They emphasized the miracle that after the Temple was restored, there was only enough oil to burn for one night; and yet the Temple lights burned for eight days. This miracle sustained the optimism, faith and determination of the Jewish people in exile.

In the last century, a new miracle occurred. Three years after the end of the Nazi Holocaust, the State of Israel was established. While there had been a small Jewish presence there throughout history, it was in the early 20th century that refugees from European oppression poured into British-held Palestine.

In 1917, the British government endorsed "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people" in the Balfour Declaration. In 1948, the dream came to fruition.

Like Hanukkah itself, our story is complex. Israel has suffered repeated attacks from its Arab neighbors.

Following an unprovoked invasion in 1967, Israel occupied Arab lands along its borders to protect itself from future attacks. This occupation has endured nearly 40 years. These years have seen repeated terrorist attacks against innocent Israeli civilians; with each attack, attempts to negotiate a return of occupied territories and the establishment of a Palestinian state get sidetracked.

In the interest of security, Israel has taken decisive military actions, resulting in yet more suffering, bloodshed and desire for revenge. New attacks bring new reprisals; new reprisals bring new attacks. Moderate voices in both camps are drowned out by shrieks of revenge.

Still, we remember: "Not by might, not by power."

Both Israelis and Palestinians have suffered immeasurably at one another's hands. We pray for the day we can dwell alongside our Palestinian brothers and sisters in peace. Despite tragic events driving our communities apart, the Jewish community continues to stand up vigilantly for the rights and safety of our Islamic neighbors, as we did following the Sept. 11 attacks.

And we remain confident that when Israel's neighbors recognize her right to exist, when the killing of Jews is no longer glorified in Arab schools, when terrorism is denounced once and for all, the occupation will quickly end.

Hanukkah, which falls on the evening of Dec. 15 this year, is a complex holiday for complex times. We kindle a light in the darkest time of year, and recognize a glimmer of hope. Could Israelis and Palestinians lay down their arms, mourn their losses together, and join in creating a safe and peaceful future? Or is there too much darkness for a tiny light to penetrate?

Perhaps. But at Hanukkah, I pray for a miracle.

Presentation for Global Warming Awareness Day 2004

Michigan State Capitol, Lansing

When the Israelites were about to enter the promised land in Deuteronomy 11, God told them, “If you love Me and serve me with all your heart and all your soul, then I will grant the rain for your land in its proper season: the early rain and the late rain. You will gather in your new grain, wine, and oil, and I will provide grass in the fields for your cattle—thus you will eat and be satisfied.” This was God’s plan: rain in its proper time, a healthy climate, and an abundant planet...But only if our love for the creator of heaven and earth is never compromised by our short-sightedness: “Take heed not to be lured away to serve other gods and to worship them.” What are other gods? The god of greed. The god of materialism. The god of exploitation. And especially, the god of fear. “For if you are lured away to serve these other gods, the Lord’s anger will flare up against you, and God will shut up the skies so that there will be no rain and the ground will not yield its produce; and you will soon perish from the good land that the Lord has given to you.”

God’s message couldn’t be clearer. God is not interested in market share, or output capacity, or deregulation. God wants our love and devotion, our stewardship of the earth, our appreciation and respect for the fragile ecological balance that sustains our lives.

Every morning, we Jews thank God for creating our body as a precision instrument: if a single organ is open when it should be closed, if a single cavity is closed when it should be open, our lives could not be sustained. So it is with our environment: if the average summer temperature increases by too many degrees, if Lakes Michigan and Huron recede by too many feet, if the proportion of greenhouse gasses to oxygen increases by too many percentage points, then whole species of plants and animals are threatened, whole sectors of the economy are in jeopardy, and the abundance of our fields, lakes, and streams is in peril.

In Isaiah 5:24 we read:

Assuredly, as straw is consumed by a tongue of fire and hay shrivels as it burns. Their stock shall become like rot, and their buds shall blow away like dust. For they have rejected the instruction of the Lord of Hosts.

Again, the message is clear: Things are heating up, as long as we choose to ignore the call...the call that comes just a few verses later in Isaiah 6:3, the call of the sacredness of God’s earth and everything on it, the call that blared forth from the mouths of angels in many tongues to the nations of the earth:

Kadosh kadosh kadosh Adonai tzevaoth
Sanctus sanctus sanctus Dominus Deus sabaoth
Holy holy holy is the LORD of hosts.

M'lo kol ha’aretz kvodo.
Pleni sunt coeli et terra gloria Tua.
The whole earth is full of His glory.

It sounds so simple—just love God and appreciate the divine glory of every corner of our planet.

It means to keep our eyes and ears open, to ignore the false prophets of denial, who dismiss global warming as some kind of urban legend. For it’s not too late to heed Isaiah’s warning:

“Dull that people’s mind, stop its ears, and seal its eyes. Lest, seeing with its eyes and hearing with its ears, it also grasp with its mind, and repent and save itself. For how long? Till towns lie waste without inhabitants and houses without people, and the ground lies waste and desolate.”

We don’t need to wait that long. There’s an election coming up in just five months, and we can send the false prophets of denial back to where they came from.

And there’s plenty of work to do before November. Today you are going to learn about some exciting legislative initiatives we can support today, about your opportunity to buy a fuel-efficient hybrid SUV produced right here in Michigan by the end of the summer, about the findings of intrepid scientists and the contributions of responsible business leaders, and you will come away with a cornucopia of suggestions for reversing global warning, both through what you do in your own life and how you support the sacred work of the leaders in this field.

In the words of Isaiah:

“For as the rain and the snow drop from heaven and soak the earth, and make it bring forth vegetation, yielding seed for sowing and bread for eating, so is the word that issues from the mouth of God. Yea, you shall leave in joy and be led home secure. Before you, mount and hill shall shout aloud, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.”

Right now the trees are going it alone, absorbing as much of the carbon generated by us Michiganians as they can. So let’s give the trees a round of applause.

And now let’s be silent for just a few moments, turn off our motors, releasing no more CO2 than what we naturally exhale. And if we listen carefully, we may be able to hear the trees clapping their hands for the work we are doing on their behalf.

God bless all of you, and God bless this beautiful state!

Post-Election Message

Dear Friends at Kehillat Israel,

A long and painful election season has come to a close. I know there are many in our congregation who have put extraordinary effort into the campaign, and many who may be bitterly disappointed at the outcomes. After actively participating in the "No On 2" campaign and voting my conscience on the candidates, I share that disappointment. My optimism may have diminished, but my hope is as strong as ever.

There are few outcomes this year, on either the local or national level, that reflect the views and the values of the large majority of Jewish voters. Religious agenda contrary to our own have swept increasingly into the political agenda, and fear and hatred of those who are different has been written into our state’s constitution. The separation of church and state, the great principle of American democracy that has protected generations of Jews seeking freedom, prosperity, and security, is under siege. And, personally, I share the view recently expressed by Alan Dershowitz that current American foreign policies have both weakened the position of the United States on a global level and threatened the security of the State of Israel.

While we may lose our optimism at a time like this, we do not need to lose our hope. Throughout recorded history, Am Yisrael chai (the Jewish people live). We have weathered the best and the worst political climates, not to mention the most extreme forms of persecution. Throughout the 20^th century, we proudly and audaciously sang Hatikva ("The Hope"); even in the most unimaginably dark days of the Shoah when our physical survival seemed doomed, this hopeful vision of a new Jewish future never escaped our lips.

What exactly is the difference between optimism and hope? Optimism, though much better for our physical and spiritual health than pessimism, is nonetheless a naive faith that somehow things will be better tomorrow than they are today. Hope is a confident mental posture, based in fact and reason combined with moral courage and trust in God, that we can join forces with one another and act in partnership with the Divine to participate in creating a positive future. For religious sceptics, God need not be part of this equation; yet a faith in the God that Michael Lerner defines as "the voice of what could and ought to be, calling us from the future and moving us toward the fulfillment of our possibilities" makes the process a lot easier.

Hope is more enduring than optimism; it can sustain us to do the work we have been called upon to do. What have we been called upon to do? "Let justice well up like water, righteousness like an unfailing stream!" (Amos 5:24) "To unlock fetters of wickedness, and untie the cords of the yoke. To let the oppressed go free; to break off every yoke." (Isaiah 58:6)

We have been warned that the Temple was destroyed because of Israel’s idolatry. Idolatry is not statue worship; it is the worship of money, power, and the idols of material culture. More fundamentally, idolatry is bowing down to the false gods of greed, hatred, and fear. If we as Jews are out of the step with the direction our society is going, that is no reason to give up who we are and what we stand for.

This year I have been proud to be part of KI as our congregants have built houses with Habitat, fed the hungry, recycled their printer cartridges, supported overseas Jewish communities, rallied against global warming, and struggled against unjust legislation. We plan to intensify our commitment to Tikkun Olam in the course of the year to come. The more injustice we discover in the world around us, the more opportunity we have to raise up the holy sparks from out of the ashes.

B’Shalom,

Rabbi Michael Zimmerman