On Tisha B’Av, Dayenu Offers Jewish Wisdom to Help Us Face a Climate Crisis
This summer, the climate crisis is not an abstract problem somewhere far away. It is showing up in our neighborhoods, our communities and our lives.
Across the United States, Americans are confronting dangerous heat, destructive wildfires, smoke-filled skies, intense storms and flooding. Sadly, communities are experiencing disasters that leave behind more than damaged homes and disrupted lives. They leave grief, anxiety, fear and a profound sense of uncertainty about what comes next.
For many of us, the question is no longer whether climate-related disasters will affect the people and places we love. It is how we will respond when they do—and how we will care for one another long after the headlines disappear.
That is why I am grateful for a new set of resources from Dayenu: A Jewish Call to Climate Action, released this week in advance of Tisha B’Av.
Tisha B’Av, literally the ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av, is traditionally a day of fasting and mourning, commemorating the destruction of the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem and other tragedies throughout Jewish history. It is a day when Jews confront loss and grief, but also remember that even after destruction, communities can rebuild, renew and imagine a better future.
That makes this moment especially meaningful.
Dayenu’s new resources, Jewish Spiritual Care After Extreme Weather, recognize something that is sometimes overlooked in the aftermath of disasters: recovery is not only physical. It is also emotional, communal and spiritual.
In the immediate aftermath of a hurricane, flood, wildfire or........
