Goy Vey!
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742 Evergreen Terrace
April 4, 2005 - 8:00pmI have a pretty unique housing situation here in Ithaca. It's kind of a long story as to how I ended up living where I do, calling the Chabad House, a community center for all Jews but affiliated with the Hasidic movement, my home. It has been quite an experience renting a room there for almost two years, especially for a non-Jew.
When I first moved in, it felt like I had moved abroad for the semester. Every Friday night and Saturday afternoon, my landlord, Rabbi Eli Silberstein, and upwards of 50 other Jews congregate in my dining room, praying and singing in Hebrew, to celebrate Shabbat. For someone who was raised Catholic and whose experience with Hebrew was limited to what I heard at my friends' Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, it definitely took me a few weeks to get accustomed to the new surroundings. But before too long, I got used to it and even mustered enough courage to go downstairs and share Shabbat dinner with them.
My ignorance of Judaism has been exemplified a few other times over the past two years. During the first fall I was in the house, one of my housemates (who is a Hasidic Jew) told me that I was going to have to stop locking my bike to the wood frames in the garage for a few weeks because Sukkot was coming. My response to him was, "Who is Sue Coate?"
But in terms of living in the house, the most important lessons of Judaism I have had to familiarize myself with are the rules of Shabbat. While as a non-Jew I do not have to follow Shabbat rules, I do need to know how to respect them. And in case you are wondering, no, Walter Sobchak from The Big Lebowski does not quite cover everything you need to know. Of the many rules of Shabbat, the ones that most concern me, are the ones having to do with energy. From the time Shabbat, the day of rest, begins Friday evening to when it ends on Saturday evening, observing Jews cannot turn ovens on, thermostats up or lights on since doing so is considered kindling a fire, an act of work. So, in preparation for Shabbat, meals are cooked in advance, thermostats are set beforehand and all lights needed for Shabbat (basically in all of the non-sleeping spaces) are turned on Friday afternoon.
For someone who promotes environmentalism and sustainability, you can imagine how frustrating it is for me to purposefully leave the lights on in home for almost 24 hours straight! It practically kills me; I just want to turn them off so badly when they are not in use. This started me thinking about the role religion plays in environmentalism again. I first considered all of this a few years ago when the "What Would Jesus Drive?" campaign was launched. While the WWJDrive campaign is more of a theoretical discussion, in the case of Shabbat, Jewish scriptures basically force observant Jews to waste electricity (though to be fair, from what I have heard, many people now use timers to turn lights on and off for them on Shabbat. Additionally, because observant Jews cannot kindle fire, that means they cannot drive cars on Shabbat either. So, their net energy consumption cannot be calculated by the lights alone. In any case, this column is not out to prove one religion more environmentally friendly than another, though that might be an interesting topic to research).
When I went home to my predominately Christian neighborhood for winter break this past year, for the first time, I really thought about how much electricity must be used in the weeks leading up to Christmas in order to power the millions of little Christmas lights decorating almost every house. Sure, the scriptures do not explicitly say, "thou shalt light thy house with many little lights," but culturally, at least in this country, Christians ubiquitously do this at Christmastime.
When I mentioned my thoughts on this to a friend of mine from Massachusetts, she pointed me to an organization that she had heard of back when she lived at home, Massachusetts Interfaith Power & Light (MIP&L). When I went to their webpage, I was pleasantly surprised to learn about this "non-profit initiative to offer Massachusetts congregations of every religious tradition a comprehensive means of reducing energy consumption, lowering operating costs and promoting clean, renewable energy in houses of worship and related buildings." Their premise is that most congregations stress the importance of environmental stewardship, but do not always practice it themselves. So, MIP&L provides member congregations with energy-saving tips, workshops and energy audits. After a little more browsing, I found that a bunch of states have their own IP&L organizations, including New York (though none of Ithaca's congregations are members).
Member congregations of various IP&L organizations have applied sustainability in different ways. For example, some congregations replaced incandescent lights with compact fluorescents, others decided to purchase only renewable energy from their utility and others installed their own renewable energy generation. Whatever the extent to which congregations act on IP&L tips, religious meeting places are great venues to both teach and act on sustainability.
So, I encourage you to speak with the leaders of your own congregation here in Ithaca and back home (especially those of you heading home for Passover in a few weeks) about joining an IP&L organization. If every congregation, and its members, takes small steps towards sustainability, a big difference can be made.
Doug Mitarotonda is a graduate student in economics. He can be contacted at dcm14@cornell.edu. 742 Evergreen Terrace appears alternate Tuesdays.
Archived article by Doug Mitarotonda