A Message from Rabbi Yitzhak (September, 2005)

Every two years, ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal holds a kallah, an international conference, somewhere in the United States. This year, to my good fortune, it was held just outside of my hometown, Pittsburgh. Not only was I blessed to visit with my family and friends back in the "old country," but I also had some real high points of Jewish experience that I want to bring back to our congregation.

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Creating a System of Eco-Kashrut

Approximately eight hundred participants gathered, mostly North Americans, with a respectable showing of South Americans, Europeans, Israelis and a few from as far away as Australia. Representatives of a broad range of Jewish practice and denominational affiliation joined together in common purpose to envision and experience the renewal of our tradition, to look at the deep roots and to find ways of making contemporary meaning flow from those ancient roots.

As well as teaching a class on the life and music of Reb Shlomo Carlebach (z"l) with Neila Carlebach, his widow, I also had the opportunity to participate in an interfaith panel discussion about a new project that has grown out of many years of collective effort to create a system of ethical or eco-kashrut. This project stems from a question raised by Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi some twenty five years ago, "Can electricity from a nuclear plant be considered kosher?" In other words, if a product endangers life and is harmful to the environment, can we ethically make use of it and consider it kosher?

ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal has recently received a $200,000 two-year grant from the Kellogg Foundation to initiate the Sacred Foods project in partnership with Christian and Moslem project partners. The project will define standards for food production that address the environmental impact, work conditions, humane treatment of animals and the affordability of foods with a goal of having a significant positive impact on food production.

Each of these factors is addressed by Jewish, Christian and Moslem ethics and we will seek ways of defining and affirming our shared religious values and commitments within the framework of the Sacred Foods project. In this world of religious divisiveness and bloody warfare waged in the name of G-d, a bright ray of hope emanates from this project. It is crucial that religious communities find ways to develop covenantal agreements around areas of shared concern such as the issues addressed in the Sacred Foods Project.

Our own K'vod Ha-Teva (Honoring Nature) committee has done well in raising our communal awareness about the Jewish basis for environmental concern and has also reached out to join in interfaith efforts. The Sacred Foods project affirms TBI's commitment to eco-kashrut. I believe we will soon find ourselves part of a rapidly growing constellation of faith communities as eco-kashrut spreads and as opportunities increase for expressing our values alongside of other communities that share common ground commitments.

Shalom,
Rabbi Yitzhak