Jewish Energy Guide: Ten Torah Tweets for Creation Care

Summary: In 140 characters or less, COEJL Governance Committee member Rabbi Fred Scherlinder Dobb puts a modern twist on environmental messages from the Torah.

Today the environment — God’s Creation, our one and only home — needs all the friends and all the help it can get. People of faith have rich traditions that should place us among Creation’s most passionate defenders. Somehow, though, despite strong statements from religious leaders and much scholarship at the intersection of religion and ecology, the message hasn’t sufficiently gotten through. So maybe some spiritual sound bites on sustainability — some Tweets on Creation care — will better reach the faithful and encourage them to curb their carbon. While the Ten Commandments are all found in one place, here are 10 Torah talking points on sustainability, two taken from each of the five books of Moses.

Click here to read the full article.

---

Rabbi Fred Scherlinder Dobb serves as the rabbi of Adat Shalom Reconstructionist Congregation in Bethesda, Md., since 1997, during which time the synagogue built its U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Energy Star Award winning building, installed a 43-kilowatt solar array and planted an organic garden. In addition to serving on the governance committee of the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life, Dobb serves as the chairperson of Greater Washington Interfaith Power and Light and as co-chair of Religious Witness for the Earth. A co-founder of the Green Zionist Alliance and a past president of the Washington Board of Rabbis, Dobb received his doctorate from Wesley Theological Seminary.

The Jewish Energy Guide presents a comprehensive Jewish approach to the challenges of energy security and climate change and offers a blueprint for the Jewish community to achieve a 14% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by September of 2014, which is the next Shmittah, or sabbatical, year in the Jewish calendar.

The Jewish Energy Guide is part of COEJL’s Jewish Energy Network, a collaborative effort with Jewcology’s Year of Action to engage Jews in energy action and advocacy. The guide was created in partnership with the Green Zionist Alliance.

Sign up here to join the Jewish Energy Network and receive weekly articles from the Jewish Energy Guide.

---