🎤Kol-🐥Hayyah🐘 - קוֹל־חַיָּ֖ה
Lekh-Lekha 5779: Michal Morris Kamil
Lekh Lekha is Our Calling as Well... Now More than Ever.
And the Lord said to Abram, "Go forth from your land and from your birthplace and from your father's house, to the land that I will show you. And I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you, and I will aggrandize your name, and [you shall] be a blessing. And I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse, and all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you."
These words of promise and commitment from the Almighty in Genesis 12 to Abraham, formed the basis of a rationale of national identity, historic validation, and existential purpose of an entire nation, a promise given to one man, a head of a tribe, the forefather to the Jewish people (but not only) who would become one of oldest and most influential religions and ethical codes still in existence today. The voice of promise was vast in its grandeur, as were the words and intensity of commitment to partnership and covenant.
For many years, as a Jewish educator, I would seek out activities with my students involving role play, and though ‘Lekh-Lekha’ and the words we read are very powerful and bear huge personal and collective significance, what interested me even more was what I called, ‘The interaction the morning after between Sarah and Abraham.’ Sarah, Abraham’s wife, our foremother, is in the text, the creation of a narrative which is not her own, and she is not ‘self defined’ by her own unique voice. Our sages invested a multitude of commentaries defining her character and these are based on interactions throughout the stories of Berei’shit where we have minimal information about her, and hence, her persona becomes open to interpretations, often colored by the ‘agendas’ of the interpreters (E.g. Sarah and Hagar, Sarah and Isaac, etc).
So imagine this; how would the wife of a well established tribal head, wealthy, many servants and large numbers of cattle, very respected in the community, an heir to father’s successful business, settled in a beautiful cosmopolitan lifestyle, feel when her husband speaks of leaving all this life of luxury, stability, and respect, to go into the wilderness, across vast bareness of desert, and to a very uncertain future? And all of this based on a ‘voice’ her husband heard of an undefined entity promising peoplehood, multitudes of children, and a land with no name? Please note, Sarah is barren and advanced in years at the time. It is not the first time the children of Abraham will face deserts, unknown futures, and huge requirements for huge commitments and leaps of faith in order to survive. And yet, here, in our story of ‘Lekh-Lekha’, facing daunting prospects of the unknown, Abraham became partner to a future for himself, his wife, his children, and his tribe, and they all went forward, as a result of a message by the Almighty. It was one of the most grandest messages to be communicated to humankind of all times.
This week two items appeared on the news. The first was a report by the United Nations warning that if we do not take action now regarding global warming, our planet faces a point of no return towards its own destruction. A decade ago, the “father of global warming”—the first scientist to sound the alarm on climate change in the 1980s to the US Congress—announced that we were too late: the planet had already hit the danger zone. James Hansen, then head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, along with seven other leading climate scientists, described how a global average temperature above 1°Celsius (C)—involving a level of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere of around 450 ppm (parts per million) —would lead to “practically irreversible ice sheet and species loss.” ”But”, they added, “New data showed that even 1°C was too hot.” At the time the paper was issued in 2008, the atmospheric concentrations of CO2 were around 385 ppm. This was “already in the dangerous zone,” explained Hansen and his colleagues. “We were already at tipping points that, once triggered, can lead to irreversible climate change processes.” According to Hansen, these processes “May begin to come into play on time scales as short as centuries or less.” He warned that the only viable solution to guarantee a safe climate was to reduce the level of greenhouse gases to around 350 ppm, if not lower.
Today, October 2018, we are well in breach of this limit. And we have breached this limit at a much lower level of atmospheric CO2 than Hansen thought would be necessary to warm this much. As of May 2018, the monthly average atmospheric CO2 had reached 410 ppm. This is the highest level of CO2 the earth has seen in 800,000 years. Ten years on from Hansen’s warning, the United Nation’s new climate report, presenting the consensus of the world’s leading climate scientists, informs us that if we continue at this rate, the planet will warm to around 1.5°C in just 12 years, triggering a sequence of increasingly catastrophic impacts. The IPCC says that this would just be the beginning: we are currently on track to hit 3-4°C by end of century, which would lead to a largely unlivable planet. And there are scientists warning that the UN report went easy on the effects, as there are cumulative effects beyond the temperature breach that impact the speed of occurrences and outcomes, which means we have even less time.
The second news item to impact me this week was on 60 minutes, and was about an incredible photographer by the name of Joel Sartore. Sartore, who has much of his work published in the National Geographic, took it upon himself to photograph every living animal species on our planet, and create a ‘Photo Ark’. His motivation? By the end of this century over 50% of animals will be extinct. To capture them on film, he travels to the far corners of the earth, to jungles, deserts, swamps, conservation centers, and in doing so, has created a stunning collection of portraits of animals, highlighting the beauty, soul, and essence of every living creature still alive on this planet. For more information, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/joel-sartore-photo-ark-national-geographic-photographer-saving-memories-of-animals-60-minutes/. He is driven by this calling, and considers this his service to humanity, and at great personal cost.
In light of these two very dire warnings of the planet’s destruction, and of the animals’ vast extinction, both of which we are warned are imminent, I think of Parashat Lekh-Lekha. We live in an age where we are ‘numbed’ to grand voices, and in fact, are suspicious of them. So much so, that our political leaders callously and mockingly manipulate our sense of inner trust and instinct, no matter how dire the messages are. Like animals that get caught in front of vehicle headlights at night, we are stunned and rendered immobile. These expert voices and their warnings are reduced to the self serving platforms of political agendas labeled, ‘fake news’ and ‘conspiracies’ by those who are in positions that, ideally, necessitate service for the largest common good, but in actuality, are abused and manipulated for self interest, greed and power.
James Hansen and Joel Sartore, like Abraham, have listened to a calling and a voice that is far grander and more powerful than most people are comfortable to grapple with. It is not that we have no access to these voices, for we do. In a sense, we are like Sarah the morning after. Sarah, a very smart woman, must have wondered about Abraham’s sanity as he shared his experience and encounter with God. And though these are voices of humans, many of us doubt all sources of ‘grand voices’ rendering us either as cynical, or as ’helpless, like that animal caught in the glare of the headlights.
But we are not. I always regarded Abraham as an extreme figure, and though with huge awe and respect, was always weary of his willingness to stand the ultimate tests of faith, and acts for survival. For me, as a mother, I stood with Sarah’s silent voice on how she must have felt hearing that her husband was willing to sacrifice their son as an act of faith. Unlike Abraham, ours is not a desert of the unknown we are asked to go forward into. We already see the outcomes of global warming. Many of us have experienced it first hand, and if not, have family and friends who have. We all know of animal extinction, and know of animal species that are no longer with us. And yet, we ignore these immensely powerful voices of warning that call us to action. Sarah partnered Abraham in his decision to follow that voice that called him to stand up and respond ‘Hineini’- here I am, and will answer your call. And even though she had not heard it first hand, it was loud enough for both of them to recognize that there are moments in our lives where we can no longer remain in the status quo. With the warnings of today, we need to take actions that are of ‘Abrahamic’ proportions, and heed those messages. It’s time to give Sarah her voice, and her own persona, and rather than be passive players in a narrative handed down, or be players in a narrative that is being written for us as passive participants. Inspired by ‘Lekh-Lekha’, we must become active characters who respond to this huge wake up call of our reality and its existential dangers. We are being called to act. Our ‘Lekh-Lekha’ is truly about our children’s and grandchildren’s survival on this planet, and like Abraham, it’s time to listen to that grandest voice of all that is partner to God’s, our inner voice of common sense and knowledge that we must each do more and see it as the most important calling we as Jews have in our times, the saving of this planet and all who dwell upon it. Climate change is real, and we are heading for catastrophe.
Lekh-Lekha 5779: Michal Morris Kamil
Lekh Lekha is Our Calling as Well... Now More than Ever.
And the Lord said to Abram, "Go forth from your land and from your birthplace and from your father's house, to the land that I will show you. And I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you, and I will aggrandize your name, and [you shall] be a blessing. And I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse, and all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you."
These words of promise and commitment from the Almighty in Genesis 12 to Abraham, formed the basis of a rationale of national identity, historic validation, and existential purpose of an entire nation, a promise given to one man, a head of a tribe, the forefather to the Jewish people (but not only) who would become one of oldest and most influential religions and ethical codes still in existence today. The voice of promise was vast in its grandeur, as were the words and intensity of commitment to partnership and covenant.
For many years, as a Jewish educator, I would seek out activities with my students involving role play, and though ‘Lekh-Lekha’ and the words we read are very powerful and bear huge personal and collective significance, what interested me even more was what I called, ‘The interaction the morning after between Sarah and Abraham.’ Sarah, Abraham’s wife, our foremother, is in the text, the creation of a narrative which is not her own, and she is not ‘self defined’ by her own unique voice. Our sages invested a multitude of commentaries defining her character and these are based on interactions throughout the stories of Berei’shit where we have minimal information about her, and hence, her persona becomes open to interpretations, often colored by the ‘agendas’ of the interpreters (E.g. Sarah and Hagar, Sarah and Isaac, etc).
So imagine this; how would the wife of a well established tribal head, wealthy, many servants and large numbers of cattle, very respected in the community, an heir to father’s successful business, settled in a beautiful cosmopolitan lifestyle, feel when her husband speaks of leaving all this life of luxury, stability, and respect, to go into the wilderness, across vast bareness of desert, and to a very uncertain future? And all of this based on a ‘voice’ her husband heard of an undefined entity promising peoplehood, multitudes of children, and a land with no name? Please note, Sarah is barren and advanced in years at the time. It is not the first time the children of Abraham will face deserts, unknown futures, and huge requirements for huge commitments and leaps of faith in order to survive. And yet, here, in our story of ‘Lekh-Lekha’, facing daunting prospects of the unknown, Abraham became partner to a future for himself, his wife, his children, and his tribe, and they all went forward, as a result of a message by the Almighty. It was one of the most grandest messages to be communicated to humankind of all times.
This week two items appeared on the news. The first was a report by the United Nations warning that if we do not take action now regarding global warming, our planet faces a point of no return towards its own destruction. A decade ago, the “father of global warming”—the first scientist to sound the alarm on climate change in the 1980s to the US Congress—announced that we were too late: the planet had already hit the danger zone. James Hansen, then head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, along with seven other leading climate scientists, described how a global average temperature above 1°Celsius (C)—involving a level of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere of around 450 ppm (parts per million) —would lead to “practically irreversible ice sheet and species loss.” ”But”, they added, “New data showed that even 1°C was too hot.” At the time the paper was issued in 2008, the atmospheric concentrations of CO2 were around 385 ppm. This was “already in the dangerous zone,” explained Hansen and his colleagues. “We were already at tipping points that, once triggered, can lead to irreversible climate change processes.” According to Hansen, these processes “May begin to come into play on time scales as short as centuries or less.” He warned that the only viable solution to guarantee a safe climate was to reduce the level of greenhouse gases to around 350 ppm, if not lower.
Today, October 2018, we are well in breach of this limit. And we have breached this limit at a much lower level of atmospheric CO2 than Hansen thought would be necessary to warm this much. As of May 2018, the monthly average atmospheric CO2 had reached 410 ppm. This is the highest level of CO2 the earth has seen in 800,000 years. Ten years on from Hansen’s warning, the United Nation’s new climate report, presenting the consensus of the world’s leading climate scientists, informs us that if we continue at this rate, the planet will warm to around 1.5°C in just 12 years, triggering a sequence of increasingly catastrophic impacts. The IPCC says that this would just be the beginning: we are currently on track to hit 3-4°C by end of century, which would lead to a largely unlivable planet. And there are scientists warning that the UN report went easy on the effects, as there are cumulative effects beyond the temperature breach that impact the speed of occurrences and outcomes, which means we have even less time.
The second news item to impact me this week was on 60 minutes, and was about an incredible photographer by the name of Joel Sartore. Sartore, who has much of his work published in the National Geographic, took it upon himself to photograph every living animal species on our planet, and create a ‘Photo Ark’. His motivation? By the end of this century over 50% of animals will be extinct. To capture them on film, he travels to the far corners of the earth, to jungles, deserts, swamps, conservation centers, and in doing so, has created a stunning collection of portraits of animals, highlighting the beauty, soul, and essence of every living creature still alive on this planet. For more information, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/joel-sartore-photo-ark-national-geographic-photographer-saving-memories-of-animals-60-minutes/. He is driven by this calling, and considers this his service to humanity, and at great personal cost.
In light of these two very dire warnings of the planet’s destruction, and of the animals’ vast extinction, both of which we are warned are imminent, I think of Parashat Lekh-Lekha. We live in an age where we are ‘numbed’ to grand voices, and in fact, are suspicious of them. So much so, that our political leaders callously and mockingly manipulate our sense of inner trust and instinct, no matter how dire the messages are. Like animals that get caught in front of vehicle headlights at night, we are stunned and rendered immobile. These expert voices and their warnings are reduced to the self serving platforms of political agendas labeled, ‘fake news’ and ‘conspiracies’ by those who are in positions that, ideally, necessitate service for the largest common good, but in actuality, are abused and manipulated for self interest, greed and power.
James Hansen and Joel Sartore, like Abraham, have listened to a calling and a voice that is far grander and more powerful than most people are comfortable to grapple with. It is not that we have no access to these voices, for we do. In a sense, we are like Sarah the morning after. Sarah, a very smart woman, must have wondered about Abraham’s sanity as he shared his experience and encounter with God. And though these are voices of humans, many of us doubt all sources of ‘grand voices’ rendering us either as cynical, or as ’helpless, like that animal caught in the glare of the headlights.
But we are not. I always regarded Abraham as an extreme figure, and though with huge awe and respect, was always weary of his willingness to stand the ultimate tests of faith, and acts for survival. For me, as a mother, I stood with Sarah’s silent voice on how she must have felt hearing that her husband was willing to sacrifice their son as an act of faith. Unlike Abraham, ours is not a desert of the unknown we are asked to go forward into. We already see the outcomes of global warming. Many of us have experienced it first hand, and if not, have family and friends who have. We all know of animal extinction, and know of animal species that are no longer with us. And yet, we ignore these immensely powerful voices of warning that call us to action. Sarah partnered Abraham in his decision to follow that voice that called him to stand up and respond ‘Hineini’- here I am, and will answer your call. And even though she had not heard it first hand, it was loud enough for both of them to recognize that there are moments in our lives where we can no longer remain in the status quo. With the warnings of today, we need to take actions that are of ‘Abrahamic’ proportions, and heed those messages. It’s time to give Sarah her voice, and her own persona, and rather than be passive players in a narrative handed down, or be players in a narrative that is being written for us as passive participants. Inspired by ‘Lekh-Lekha’, we must become active characters who respond to this huge wake up call of our reality and its existential dangers. We are being called to act. Our ‘Lekh-Lekha’ is truly about our children’s and grandchildren’s survival on this planet, and like Abraham, it’s time to listen to that grandest voice of all that is partner to God’s, our inner voice of common sense and knowledge that we must each do more and see it as the most important calling we as Jews have in our times, the saving of this planet and all who dwell upon it. Climate change is real, and we are heading for catastrophe.