VaYeitzei - The Changing Earth

by Rabbi Katy Z. Allen

I just came back from the Israel Ride, a bicycle ride across Israel that is a fundraising event for the Arava Institute (www.arava.org) and Hazon (www.hazon.org). Water was much a part of the ride, in terms of seeing, and learning, and awareness. Many thoughts and images of water remain in my mind:

* the much-needed heavy rains and wind that greeted my arrival in Israel;
* visiting the Hula Nature Preserve, and learning how the drainage of the Hula Valley swamps for farming led to the extinctions of several bird species that stopped on their migrations and did not produce the rich farmland that had been expected;
* the beauty of early morning sunlight streaming through sprays of irrigation, bringing food to Israel; from where is the water coming?
* sunset over the Mediterranean Sea;
* riding through the Negev, sparse and many shades of brown, and not a drop of water to be seen; faucets and showers running freely in the hotels and kibbutzim where we stayed;
* learning about efforts to grow plants with low-water needs at the Arava Institute;
* hearing about the Dead-Red canal, which the Jordanians now plan to build without the cooperation of Israel and the Palestinian Authority because they need the water desperately; the consequences to the environment remain to be seen.

In this week’s parashah, Jacob meets Rachel beside a well, and – after various twists and turns in the plot – the future of the Jewish people is insured.

Would that every encounter involving water were as positive! In last week’s parashah, Avimelech’s servants stopped up the wells that had been dug in the time of Abraham, a statement that "this water is MINE," and a clear act of aggression, especially in water-hungry country such as ancient Israel.

At the Arava Institute, the motto is "the land knows know borders," and it is a theme that carries through all of their work, both educationally and in terms of research. Israelis – both Jewish and Arab, Palestinians, and Jordanians study together; through honoring the land, they come to know and honor each other.

Many indigenous people honor the land in ways that we have forgotten how to do, including by listening to the Earth, and to the animals and to the plants. They do not listen in a figurative or a metaphoric way, but in a very real way, trying to hear and to understand what the other parts of the natural world are telling them. Listening in this manner requires that we listen with more than just our ears; we must listen with our entire body and with our heart and our soul. Only then can we hear the deep sounds beyond the wind and the calls of the birds.

The land changes, in large ways and small, from small rivulets of running water that carry sediment, to the movement of huge tectonic plates of the Earth's crust. The Earth changes, and we can change as well, in small ways and large ways, both personally and as a community. We can change in terms of how we hear and honor and treat the land.

The use of water in the United States dropped by 30% from a peak in per capita water usage in 1975 until 2005.* In large part this was due to changes in agricultural uses, from flood irrigation to sprinkler irrigation, to drip irrigation, each of which uses less water than the one before. Reductions took place in industry due in large part to laws regarding waste water - it was easier to become more water efficient and produce less waste. Laws regarding water efficiency in homes have also made a difference. We can change.

We are far from at a sustainable level of water usage. But, whether here in the U.S. or in the Middle East, as a society and as individuals we can change. We can change in physical ways by honoring and respecting the water, each drop of which has existed since the origin of the Earth, and by using it more efficiently. We can change in spiritual ways that are just as deep. We can bring forth water from our physical and spiritual wells in ways that can provide for all of Rachel's flock and can ensure our own personal spiritual future and the future of humankind as well.

If the Earth can change, so can we.



* http://www.pacinst.org/press_center/usgs/New_Data_Shows_Water_Use_Drop.pdf