Teva Service

In addition to my major in parks and recreation management, I am also pursuing a religious studies minor with an emphasis in Jewish studies. This played a big role in the reason why I applied for, and eventually accepted this internship with Camp Young Judaea West. Part of my responsibilities as the nature and camping specialist were to help to create a Jewish service that could relate our religion to Teva (Hebrew for nature) and the outdoors. At camp we have an outdoor sanctuary overlooking the Pacific Ocean known as the “Bears’ Den,” and this is where I have requested that such a service be held. After collaborating with the unit head responsible for planning our Judaic services we have decided to have a traditional service at the “Bears’ Den” while including exerts that I have picked out to be read in addition to our customary prayers. Listed below are a few of these quotations that I have chosen to use, and many of these exerpts relate to environmentalism, sustainability, and green ethics.

Upon creating the first human beings, God guided them around the Garden of Eden, saying: "Look at my creations! See how beautiful and perfect they are! For your sake I created them all. Make sure you don't ruin or devastate My world. If you do, there will be no-one else to repair it."

- Ecclesiastes Rabbah 7:13

“The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely, or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quite alone with the heavens, nature, and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be, and that God wishes to see people happy, amidst the simple beauty of nature. As long as this exists, and it certainly always will, I know that then there will always be comfort for every sorrow, and I firmly believe that nature brings solace to all troubles.”

- Anne Frank

Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai said, 'Three things are of equal importance - earth, humans and rain'. Rabbi Levi ben Hiyyata said, '...to teach that without earth, there is no rain, and without rain, the earth cannot endure, and without either, humans cannot exist'.

- Genesis Rabbah 13:3

Master of the Universe
Grant me the ability to be alone;
May it be my custom to go outside each day
Among the reeds and the grass,
Among all growing things;
And there may I be alone to enter into prayer,
Talking to the one to whom I belong.

May I express there everything in my heart,
And may all the foliage of the field awake at my coming
To send the powers of their life into the words of my prayer.

So that my speech is made whole
Through the life and spirit of all growing things.
Which are made as one by their transcendent source.

- Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav

Attached to this post is a picture of the lean to shelter that I helped the campers to build in the forest. We made the roof out of moss to help protect us from the rain.

Listed below is a link to the COEJL website which is just one of many organizations that acts to link environmentalism and Judaism.

http://www.coejl.org/index.php