From the Rabbi

As of June 17, 2015, 360 rabbis have signed the Rabbinic Letter on the Climate Crisis. Among those who initiated this letter are Rabbi Arthur Green, past president of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, Rabbi Mordechai Liebling, past head of the Federation of Reconstructionist Congregations and Havurot, and Rabbi Deborah Waxman, president of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and of Jewish Reconstructionist Communities, our movement’s governing organization. The letter was circulated by Rabbi Arthur Waskow of the Shalom Center, in anticipation of the release of a papal encyclical on global climate change. Immediately after reading it, I signed on.

As we enjoy the longest, and therefore the most sun-filled, days of the year, consider how we might mobilize locally on some of the action proposals in the letter. It’s never too late, and always urgent, to act on climate change. To ensure that kol yoshvey tevel/all who dwell on earth have a dwelling place in the decades and millennia to come is surely the most exalted expression of the core Jewish value ledor vedor, from generation to generation. Read the letter and see the full list of signatories at tinyurl.com/climaterabbis.

— Rabbi Liz