I founded Shomrei Adamah, Keepers of the Earth, the first national Jewish environmental organization in 1988, and have been thinking and writing about the relationship between ecology and religion ever since. I believe religious and spiritual communities can be vitally important in organizing, inspiring, and sustaining individuals in the repair of the world, and I work to help mobilize them.
Shomrei Adamah grew organically out of my first ecologically-centered arts and music sederLit. Order. The festive meal conducted on Passover night, in a specific order with specific rituals to symbolize aspects of the Exodus from Egypt. It is conducted following the haggadah, a book for this purpose. Additionally, there an ancient tradition to have a seder on Rosh Hashanah, which has been practiced in particular by Sephardi communities. This seder involves the blessing and eating of simanim, or symbolic foods. The mystics of Sefat also created a seder for Tu B'shvat, the new year of the trees. for Tu Bi’Shevat, the Jewish New Year of the Trees, held in Philadelphia along the banks of the Schuylkill River 31 years ago. You can hold your own Tu B’Sh’vat seder (you don’t need to be Jewish!). Click on the PDF below for a free download of the seder and watch a documentary of the celebration below. Learn more at: http://www.ellenbernstein.org/a-new-year.
