In this week’s special Elul episode, we study a text from Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah on Repentance that explores the shofar’s role as a spiritual wake-up call. We discuss how the shofar calls us to set aside our normal preoccupations with vanities and focus on what is most important in life. We see a powerful parallel in the moments of clarity within the climate movement—often sparked by climate disasters—that serve as clarion calls for us to focus on the big picture and take meaningful action.

Follow along with the source sheet here: http://www.sefaria.org/sheets/667761

In this week’s episode we are on plague number two of our Ten Plagues series with the plague of frogs. We talk about how the plague of frogs can be seen in the light of air pollution, since the smell of the frogs is specifically described. We talk about how involving a strong motivation like fear of disease (frogs everywhere including places involving preparing and consuming food, or air pollution causing asthma and heart disease) can be a strong motivator for change. We also talk about how climate change involves the extinction of many species and how amphibians are at a heightened risk, so in the modern era we are suffering the plague of no frogs. We end with an encouragement to seek out ecosystem restoration projects.
Follow along with the source sheet here: http://sefaria.org/sheets/642211

In this week’s episode we kick off our Ten Plagues series with the first plague, the plague of blood, seeing how changing water availability (which climate change fundamentally does), has a cascading effect on ecosystems and agriculture. We also see the speed of human ingenuity and thus climate resilience as the Egyptians start to build wells and create our own midrash about Israelite cultural knowledge of well-building being shared in this difficult time. Follow along with the source sheet here: http://sefaria.org/sheets/642209