This commentary is by Rabbi Michael M. Cohen, rabbi emeritus of Israel Congregation in Manchester Center.
A student of mine, Kallen Fenster from the Bennington College Conflict Resolution class I teach at the Burr & Burton Academy in Manchester, invited me to speak at the Vermont Youth Lobby’s Rally for the Planet at the Statehouse in Montpelier April 14. Here’s what I said.
I am the rabbi emeritus of the Israel Congregation in Manchester Center, and I teach conflict resolution at Bennington College and the Burr & Burton Academy. Since 1996, I have divided my time between our Vermont home and the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies on Kibbutz Ketura (in southern Israel). There we bring together college-age Israelis, Palestinians, Jordanians, Moroccans, and other international students to learn about environmental diplomacy, including at our Climate Change Adaptation Center. Students from Vermont high schools, colleges, and universities have studied at the Arava Institute.
I mention the Arava Institute not only because it stands at the intersection of conflict resolution and addressing cross-border climate change, but because it is located in the hyper-arid Arava desert. We live here in the beautiful forested and watered Green Mountain State — there, trees are few, no topsoil, annual rainfall is about an inch a year, the annual evaporation rate is 13 feet.
It is so important to be exposed to different ecosystems, to understand them, to then see one’s own ecosystem with fresh eyes, with a better understanding and appreciation.
That environmental diversity is also a metaphor for effective political activism — it is essential to understand those who think differently. We should never be so hubris, thinking we are always correct; the test is to be open to different vistas.
In the Talmud, the collection of ancient rabbinic debates, rabbis were paired together who disagreed with each other. In such encounters, we allow ourselves to meet those who don’t think like us. Only through such meetings can we learn to understand where they are coming from. That gives us the best, only chance of being successful in creating the arguments to bring about the necessary change these times demand.
In the mid-1970s, a few years after the first Earth Day, when I was a senior at Ewing High School, I co-founded the first recycling center in Ewing, New Jersey. I note that for a few reasons. Once an activist, always an activist — welcome to the club! In addition, this work, particularly around the environment, is about a long-term commitment that will include accomplishments and defeats. It can at times feel overwhelming and debilitating.
Just last month, U.N. General Assembly President María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés told the world, “We are the last generation that can prevent irreparable damage to our planet. … Eleven years is all we have ahead of us to change our direction.”
We often hear about the Greatest Generation, those individuals born in the first decades of the last century who fought in World War II against huge odds to save the world for democracy. Their self-sacrifice was their hallmark.
Today, we see democracy, at home and abroad, once again threatened. Success is neither linear nor short-term. That generation was also defined by the 1930s economic Depression.
Every generation has its challenges; you are no different. You will be defined by how you meet today’s challenges. This is your time to become the Greatest Generation — and I mean really the Greatest Generation, for your, and our, task is simply to save our planet.
So how do we do that?
- Too often we hear only about the dire conditions of our planet. At the same time, it is so important we remind ourselves of our climate change victories, learn from them, drink from them, become emboldened from them.
At the end of every year, we can look up those achievements. They sustain us and give us the knowledge and energy to go forward. It is critical to remain light even if the times are heavy.
- Listen to, learn from, and follow that great Vermont environmental prophet Bill McKibben, the founder of 350.org. In this month’s Rolling Stone magazine, he writes, “It’s our last shot; here’s how we take it: Climate change is ultimately a math problem, and these are the numbers that could change the end of the story … and some of it points to a way out.”
That is to say we have the knowledge and the answers. The test is about being effective in making those the compass that guides us. - Which leads to the next point. The environment is a sophisticated, interconnected beautiful system — and so our path needs to be sophisticated, interconnected and beautiful. Related, our way to resolving climate change, or rather our approach to those who we need to bring along to make the necessary changes to repair our world, must not be reduced to slogans and denunciations so we feel good. This is not about feeling good; this is about being compelling, including serious engagement with those who may not think like us.
- If you want to change the world, include economics, history and psychology in the classes you take, the books and articles you read. They are keys to unlocking the doors to transformation.
- Early this month, now-former New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern, a climate change champion, gave her final speech to the New Zealand Parliament. She poignantly closed by saying:
“I cannot determine what will define my time in this place. But I do hope I have demonstrated something else entirely. That you can be anxious, sensitive, kind and wear your heart on your sleeve. You can be a mother, or not, an ex-Mormon, or not, a nerd, a crier, a hugger — you can be all of these things, and not only can you be here — you can lead.”
It is your time and responsibility to lead. By being here this morning on the steps of the Vermont Legislature, it is clear you have accepted that burden and recognized the agency you all have.
A famous rabbi, Hillel, from days long ago, said, “If I am not for myself, who is for me? When I am for myself, what am I?” That is to say, we need to care for our needs, but if that is all we do, who will help with the requirements of others and what does that make us if we are so limited in our focus?
That insight of Hillel recognizes we live in concentric circles of yearning and obligations that start with each of us and expand out in a web of interdependence, as stated by Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.: “All humanity is tied together; all life is interrelated, and we are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.”
Hillel concludes his saying by asking, “If not now, when?” Gathered here together at this moment, you clearly state, “Now is the time to act,” as you take up the mantle of the Protector Generation. That is your destiny.
