The Kranzlers will be sitting Shiva, the seven customary days of mourning, in their Jerusalem apartment this week. All are welcome to hear stories of music and downloads, harmonies and instrumentals. 

May we pray together for resurrection of the dead, when man and his deceased machines will rejoice together in Zion.

So what does it say about our culture that we relate to stuff’s expiration, in the same language as we do our own?

“My pen died.” “My phone died.” My stuff, died. Yesterday, I told the mechanic that our car died. Died?

It makes me think. When our car dies, who mourns its loss? Us? Yet-to-perish Renaults? Do all cars begin to think about taking functionality for granted, and start saying to each other, “You know, it really makes you think…”?

How will our car be judged in heavenly court? As the vehicle that takes us dependably to work, that hosts us comfortably in its breast, and provides us with air conditioning and pretty music? Would it be damned for fuel inefficiency, as the Hybrids gallop by on their way to heaven? When confronted by God about climate change, will our car be able to say “I was just following orders?”

Another question: When rechargeable batteries die, what spiritual force reenters them through the socket in the wall, bringing them back to us again? Should we not call them Reincarnate-able Batteries instead?

I’m not sure what we’re implying when we speak of things dying. Is it that they are as important to us as living things? Do we not appreciate actual death?

It’s ironic, really, to use a human-defining ability like language to humanize things not human.

I’d like to think that speaking of things dying is just a coincidence. That it neither reflects nor influences our perception of objects, or our understanding of life.

But I worry that I’m wrong.

Is the chopping down of the trees that make my paper, as disturbing to me as the temporary death of my cellphone?

Am I that bothered when billions of creatures and their ecosystems are destroyed to provide space and fuel to give life to the objects I call my own?

And when I speak of things dying all the time, every day- when I can make them come back to life so easily by plugging them into the wall or getting them fixed- will I understand or feel pain, when real people suffer or are killed all over the world?

In any case, the Kranzlers are okay, despite their Ipod running out of battery on their way to work. In fact, they welcome you to come and listen to music on their newly reincarnated Ipod, who they now believe to be a Gilgul (reincarnation) of a Walkman.

Come come all, as together we’ll celebrate the genius of real, live humans, and enjoy their ability to create really, really great things.

I hope you’re all well.

The following is a piece I just published on Jewish Climate Initiative‘s Climate of Change. Hope you enjoy! Just as an update, Climate of Change has moved to a new site, http://climateofchange.wordpress.com. Hope to see you there!

And here’s the piece:

In memory of the late George Carlin, we’d like to present to you his take on environmental protection and, “Saving the Planet.” We’ll offer our take at the end, too. Happy Watching!

(If you can’t see the video player, click here)

Absurdities aside, Mr. Carlin makes some important points:

1. Environmentalists have often inspired people to worry, not to change. Those who aren’t worried find it hard to take them seriously.

We should be acknowledging crises without clouding them in doom. Awareness is a good thing! The chance to live better is a good thing!

2. Carlin’s right- “The planet’s not going anywhere. We are.” (If we don’t make some big changes.)

As my wife’s ecology professor likes to say, when we’re gone, “The roaches will still be here,” as will many of their friends. Our fight to control climate change, desertization, water-shortages, etc. are essentially fights for our survival.

I’d argue that environmentalists biggest mistake was to identify the cause as saving something called “The Environment.” When they did that, they made it external to us. By calling eco-crises “of the environment,” they were placed in a class with trees and bees, whales and snails. I’m a backpacker and love mountains and trees- and bees and snails. But the ecological challenges we face today are of a very different nature than protecting Nature.

3.. Plastic is one of earth’s children.

Okay, that part’s not true. Probably not, at least.

Plastic is very much a creation of our own. I’d part from Carlin Theory when he suggests how inconsequential we are in the world. We have a powerful role in earth’s ecosystem, and we can choose whether we want that role to be one of nurturing life or abuse and destruction.

I guess we’ll see which role we choose…Sure is fun to be at such an important junction in history, though.

A big thanks to Mr. Carlin. Rest in peace and good humor old man!

A crazy thing, life.

So I know, it’s been a long time since posting last. Gee whiz- I miss writing for Unpacked!

My sister Liron just got married and well things have been more than a bit nutty around here. Happy as ever, but a good lot nutty, too. But it sure is nice to see my little “Write a Post” screen in front of me.

I’d like to link you to a post I wrote for Climate of Change, our Jewish Climate Initiative blog, entitled Calling all Voices. I’ll give you a little chunk of it here, but give a visit to our site to read the whole thing (not that long, don’t you worry).

So a very major Congratulations and Mazal Tov and Happy Happy to Liron (and her husband, Eliyah), much love to you, and I hope to be in touch very soon!

Here’s some music with which to Unpack the week and a peaceful soundtrack for the Climate piece: The Be Good Tanyas, and their MySpace page.

And here’s the start of Calling All Voices:

“For the Jewish community to make a difference on environmental issues, we need brutal honesty to begin with. Jews are now roughly 0.2% of the world’s population; less than the margin of error on the Indian census. If all the Jews in the world recycle their newspapers it will make… pretty much no difference whatsoever. Nor if we put a solar-powered ner tamid in every synagogue, nor, more radically, if every Jew in the world swapped their existing car for a hybrid.”

-Nigel Savage, founder of Hazon.

“Our home planet Earth is undergoing rapid and sustained destruction of its eco-systems… Muslims comprise at least one fifth of the human community and they can contribute much to the thinking that is vital to re-evaluate the future direction of the human community and save its home for itself and other life forms.”

- The Islamic Foundation for Ecology and Environmental Sciences (IFEES)

What a difference one fifth of the world could make!

And us Jews? We sure are a little nation, but as history tells us, we have tremendous power to inspire ethical behavior, mobilize social change and spearhead the technology with which to bring that change about.

Click Here for the Full Article

That sounds kinda presumptuous. Maybe I mean more like “I think it’s pretty cool that He gave us the Torah.”

Yesterday and yesterday evening, we celebrated Shavuot and our receiving the Torah at Mount Sinai. To mark the day, we spent the entire night learning, in order to properly receive the Torah in the morning.

The evening began, for us, at a dinner with friends, among them a very brilliant young man who told us about the metaphysics of Facebook and social networking on the Internet, how Facebook signifies our leaving time-space limitations to experience a world based on pure data (Ok I’ll be honest- I think that’s what he said. Just believe me when I tell you it was impressive).

When dinner was over, we stopped in at friends who were hosting a “Habura,” a learning group made up of religious people, not religious people, men, women, all sitting around, learning ancient and modern texts and having discussions on the tension between the freedom to choose being bound by a system of morality and having one imposed on us.

Also enjoying the party was downtown Jerusalem, which held an all-night learning-fest with groups and classes going on right in the street.

In general, the “Tikkun Leil Shavuot,” or “Fixing of Shavuot Night” has become somewhat of a mainstream activity in Israel, singled-out as a time for people to check-in with the Torah and learn a little something more. It’s un-become a religious thing, and more a national one. It’s an important phenomenon, I think, because traditional wisdom and culture shouldn’t only be the property of people that keep the traditions.

Amidst all of this and holding my own Tikkun Leil Shavuot at my bedroom desk, my thoughts took me to wonder if we received the Torah in order to take ownership over it. God gave it us because growing and exploring and asking questions excites us. It must have been boring to be up there with angels who did everything right, without humans to take Torah and stumble and bumble along with it. (Traditionally, the angels objected to God giving us the Torah. Imagine the look of “I told you so” that God sends the angels during Tikkun Leil Shavuot).

Only humans would look at massive pop-Internet trends and explain them in light of Godly wisdom. We would see differences in background as a contribution to a learning circle. We’d realize the center of Jerusalem to be the obvious place to make Shavuot and Torah accessible for everyone.

I really hope that we take Torah to be the gift that it is and that we treasure it. It’s a major challenge to sustain the excitement of Shavuot night over the course of the year. I really pray that I’ll accept the Torah and mean it.

But I guess I take a lot of strength from the fact that God knew what He was getting into when he gave the Torah to us. So if we have the Torah, it means we have the potential to really accept it and maybe even to fix the world with it. Good luck to us!

(If you cannot see this image, click here)

More than a thousand teens dancing through Jaffa Street in Jerusalem in the Rikudegalim, the Dance of the Flags, in honor of Jerusalem Day and the 40th anniversary of our capital’s reunification.

I wait every year for Rikudegalim. As a matter of fact, it is one of the reasons I’m in Israel in the first place:

When I was in 12th grade, I went with my senior class to visit Poland and the Holocaust. Following Poland, we spent a week in Israel, and were in Jerusalem for Jerusalem Day.

I remember seeing kids my age dancing with such love for their homeland, celebrating so happily and passionately to honor their capital city (I imagine that I was thinking, “Washington DC is very nice, but I don’t think I’d ever dance for it”). To watch them be so alive just days after I looked down at the probable death sites of their grandparents was perhaps the most moving experience of my life.

I had wanted to live in Israel for a while then, but I also wanted to live in the Canadian Rockies and Jamaica. Rikudegalim put Israel over the top. This passion was something I wanted to be part of.

I like to think of myself as a deep thinker: someone who chooses to believe that reality is complicated. That things are not that simple.

But Jerusalem Day reminds me that sometimes, things really are that simple. That there is a level in this world that is very perfect and very pure and that doesn’t need to be argued with or over-analyzed. For my nation, that level exists in our being in Jerusalem today. After a billion years of praying a billion times everyday to return to Jerusalem, we’re actually back. Home, after such a long, usually dreadful journey abroad.

I write this because Jerusalem gets clouded in complex political discourse. I guess that’s okay and important, but the arguments are for naught if we cannot tap into the simple narrative, too. Whether we judge it best to keep the whole city for ourselves, to divide it with our neighbors or to give the whole thing over to someone else, it’s the same miracle that we’re here to make the choice. Just like the politics of Jerusalem demand that we learn to value our neighbors, they require that we learn to value Jerusalem.

In order not to give you the wrong idea about why we celebrate Jerusalem Day, I’ll say quickly that it is not about expressing how powerful we are. If our celebration reflects the dream of Jerusalem, at least, then our dancing is a prayer for something different, entirely:

The word Jerusalem is derived from the phrase “Inheritance of Peace (Yerushat Shalom).” It’s ironic to think, but Jerusalem’s religious significance has little to do with religious people fighting over it.

Crusaders who traveled halfway across the world to kill the “wrong” caretakers of Jerusalem, the Mufti (Muslim Chieftain) of Jerusalem who aligned himself with Hitler, the Jordanian WAQF that doesn’t allow us to pray on The Temple Mount today- they miss the point. Same goes for us if we think that Jerusalem is to be an exclusively Jewish city. In our tradition, inviting everyone to pray in Jerusalem is not a matter of tolerance but religious imperative. And prophecy.

The dream of Jerusalem is the happiest, most hopeful dream there could possibly be, because it represents a reality where we realize that there really is no fight.

Okay so maybe I did start to over-analyze on Jerusalem Day. But that’s me. The point is, that we have so much to be thankful for today.

So what a blessing to celebrate Jerusalem Day!

What a blessing for heaven to watch Jewish teens dancing through Jerusalem! What a blessing to watch Rikudegalim on the way home from work! What a blessing to be here, to see a dream so simple and pure, and want so badly to achieve it no matter how complex its fulfillment has proven to be.

What a blessing.

But yesterday, it all fell apart.

You see, I got up to play the mandolin for a few minutes of break. Upon hearing the very first note, Seamus grumpily glared at me, got up, did a little yawn, slumped himself out of the room and found somewhere more quiet to sit.

I’m sure you can appreciate that it did not make me feel very good.

On the other hand, though, there’s the world.

You know, the world, us, you, everyone- people in general, who are doing pretty good, I think.

I spent a few hours yesterday sifting through a list of 50 environmental blogs, in order to create our Suggested Links column on Jewish Climate Initiative‘s Climate of Change. And I encountered some pretty unbelievable sites and people and solutions:

There was The City Fix, a blog that explores sustainable solutions to urban mobility. I read about Kilmarnock, Scotland, which is instituting public buses that run on biodiesel made from used cooking oil.

How do you think passengers will pay for their bus? This is true- they will pay by bringing their used cooking oil. Had a stir-fry for dinner? Well you just earned yourself a bus ride. Cool, no?

Other favorites of mine included the high school kid that figured out how to biodegrade plastic bags, the Recycle This blog that tackles reusing/recycling things like old carseats and breadmaker pans, and the EcoGeek blog for EcoTechies.

An important blog, I thought, was the Climate Debate Daily, posting arguments both for and against combating climate change. It’s always valuable to learn from and engage with the other side, right?

For more great environmental blogs, click here for Climate of Change, and check out the column on the right labeled Bloggers Fixing the World.

No doubt that our potential as humans to harm the world has gotten bigger- Nukes, Climate Change, Global Food Crises- we can do more serious damage than ever, and we can do it very fast.

But like a pendulum, the farther we go down, the farther we can go up. And the truth is really that there are a lot of people out there coming up with creative solutions to help us all do Earth better.

And so, if this list of blogs is any indicator, then I’d say we really are in okay shape. Yup- I really think all the bad stuff is gonna have a very happy ending after all.

And as for Seamus and me? Well, I give him food. He’ll have to warm to my mandolin some day…

So this is an important book. About breaking free from the over-stuff-ization that accounts for much of modern man’s struggles. I’ve been reading my sister Liron’s copy for a few months now, and Mr. Coperthwaite’s wisdom has been instrumental in helping me learn to Unpack the slowness and simplicity of the backcountry in my life in the city. Thanks Liron!

As you may recall, I apologized publicly to my kitchen knife a few months ago, after the knife complained of its woes in its kitchen drawer. Little did I know that Mr. Coperthwaite believes in apologizing to stuff, as well!

Says Mr. Coperthwaite:

“Have you ever had the experience of apologizing to an inanimate object? When we drop a cup and break it, we violate its nature. All things, be they living or inanimate, have their own nature, spirit, or essence. Whenever we come into contact with anything, we either promote or hinder that essential nature. Unless we seek to understand the nature of the things that surround us, we will be a hindrance rather than a help to our world.

“Developing sensitivity and awareness by searching for the basic nature of things is the road to understanding. When we drop and break a cup, we do violence to its spirit, its purpose, and to the work of the artisan who shaped it. We owe the cup an apology.

“Whether running a canoe aground, dulling a chisel on a nail, or puncturing a tire- instead of cursing, we owe an apology. You may respond that the object has no feelings. I would tend to agree with you. But apologies are both given and received, and the effect on the giver may be more important than the effect on the recipient.”

Mr. Coperthwaite brings some pretty incredible quotes with him in A Handmade Life, and while I’m already quoting, I’d like to share two of my favorites:

“You say, ‘Isnt it sad that a diamond, when seen to its essence, is nothing but common carbon?’ I say, ‘Isn’t it wonderful that common carbon, in its most developed form, is the finest of diamonds?’ You say, ‘Isn’t it sad that altruism, when seen in its basic structure, is nothing but base selfishness?’ I say, ‘Isn’t it marvelous that base selfishness, in its most enlightened form, is the purest of altruism?’”

-Pierre Ceresole (Swiss Engineer, 1879-1945)

And (You may recognize part of this quote from Liron Kranzler’s music/Doogree Records):

“When you work you are a flute

through whose heart the whispering

of the hours turns to music.

To love life through labor is to be intimate

with life’s inmost secret.

All work is empty save when there is love,

for work is love made visible.”

-Khalil Ghibran (Lebanese-American Poet, 1883-1931)

(I love that “work is love made visible” part. Kinda sounds like marriage…)

May our work open us up to what we already have,

A simple week to all,

Yannai

Heard any good quotes lately? Share Share!

It has become the fashion to put down my generation for living in an “Age of Entitlement,” a “Cult of Self-Esteem” and for being spoiled, arrogant and narcissistic.

I’ve heard and read these descriptions and similar ones in the context of young people not wearing suits in the workplace, parents’ and educators’ frustration at motivating/controlling teens, even in cynical reactions to college students’ excitement about Barak Obama and the silly belief that the world could be better.

Part of me wants to say that older people have always called younger people spoiled. I imagine that Mitch the teenage caveman’s dad nagged him about cave-children thinking they were entitled to everything, just expecting stuff to be hunted and gathered to the cave all by itself. I am positive that cave-parents complained to each other all the time that “Kids these days just can’t imagine a reality without fire.”

And I could write it off like that. But that would only be partially true. Today’s critics are right: We have evolved into believing in our own entitlement. I just think it’s a good thing.

A solid chunk of history behind us, we’ve moved past believing that gods didn’t care whether we were good enough, to flagellating ourselves because we could never be good enough, to thinking that if we tried hard, we could “Make something out of ourselves” and become good enough, to finally realizing:

Hey- we are good enough. Now. From the beginning. We are something, before we’ve ever made, anything.

From my perspective, if anyone believes that people- young, old, near, far- are not entitled to a comfortable life with a family in a nice, safe living-space, then I guess I respect their opinion but think them tragically incorrect. I believe that our species erred in ever thinking that worth had to be earned.

I find it painful when I read articles putting down young people for finally getting excited about joining the political discourse, for being hopeful, for thinking people and Peoples all over the world should and could live in peace and quiet. Critiquing policy is constructive. Digging at hope is petty. In an ironic sort of way, I find it naive.

The most practical knock at my generation seems to be that we’re lazy. We don’t feel like we need to work anymore.

But that’s not it. It’s just that the “Make something out of yourself” argument doesn’t work anymore. I, for one, will not work because that’s how I become something. I don’t need to become something. I am something. I work because valuable work befits somethings like me.

Treating me like nothing- for example, giving me answers like “Because I said so” or “You’ll understand when you’re older” just put me off. “I don’t know,” works much better. I’m much more likely to acknowledge my own imperfection if you admit yours.

Teachers, parents, bosses- they need to be better now. Much better. They have to be honest, non-corrupt, with integrity. They need to make information meaningful, to present it as valuable. To make learning exciting. To talk “to,” not “down to.”

But here’s the thing, and this is important- To the generation frustrated with its young people:

It’s your fault. You finally realized that it is your job to love your kids no matter what. Once they’re your kids- you love ‘em. My parents make sure to hang up every phone call with us with “I love you.” How many parents used to do that?

So I’d like to make one small request: Quit throwing us off your shoulders!

You put us up here to look out hopefully to the world and to ourselves. You taught us that we are entitled. That everyone is entitled. You taught us that our worth is not contingent upon anything. If for that your life becomes more complicated, motivating us becomes more difficult, satisfying us becomes near impossible, then get to work at learning to match the work of your own hands.

But as you struggle along with us, please know this: Self-worth is the greatest gift you could ever have given us. You have provided us with the confidence and faith, the hope, determination and even the awareness that we still have value when we screw up, that will take humanity to worlds and levels it has never known before.

Give us time- we will learn to shed the kinks and the laziness and the scraps of arrogance that come with the merits of “The Age of Entitlement.”

But please: Quit throwing us off your shoulders. You put us up here- don’t throw us back down.

It’s an important time of year right now, smack in between Mother’s and Father’s Day- high time for sons, daughters and the owners of Hallmark. To my parents, who always make me feel deserving and loved- Thank you. I respect and appreciate you so much. To generations of mothers and fathers that made us and brought us here- Thank you too… And quit criticizing your own good work!

A happy week to you!

I am doing some work for a new project called Jewish Climate Initiative- a non-profit dedicated to developing a Jewish response to the global climate crisis by consulting ancient Jewish ethics, mobilizing our nation’s passion for social action and directing our abilities in science and technology toward solutions in sustainable living.

I’d like to refer you to a post I just wrote for the initiative’s blog, Climate of Change, called “Don’t Fall into the Doomsday Trap.” I’d really like your feedback on this one- sometimes I write something and am not super positive I agree with it (odd as that might sound). So check it out and let me know! (You can leave me comments here on Unpacked (if your comments are bad) or at Climate of Change (if your comments are good.) (Just kidding- you can leave me any type of feedback anywhere).

Also- I highly recommend subscribing to Climate of Change-the founders of Jewish Climate Initiative, Rabbi Julian Sinclair and Michael Kagan are pretty brilliant guys with credentials up the wazoo, and they always have interesting, creative (and well-written) things to say- so have a look! (As a by-the-way, “Wazoo” originally meant trap door. It’s also a nickname for Washington State University. Just thought you’d be interested…)

The post begins like this:

Environmental sensitivity has a trap: Actions too often become a “Fight Against.” I stop acting “in order to,” but rather, “to beware of”- whether that “Beware of” is carbon emissions, pollution, pesticides or the like.

Not that caution is a bad place from where to act- crises like climate change give us the urgency that (hopefully) makes us change. But that urgency should not only encourage us to ward off disasters, but to re-examine our experience in this world and discover what it is we are missing that brought about these crises in the first place.

Let’s take eating local foods as an example: Click Here for the Full Article

I look forward to hearing from you,

Yannai