(2)מוסר - בין אדם לאדמה Mussar - Between Humans and Earth #2

Another translation for this verse: "Worship the earth and protect her". Avodah: Often translated as "tilling", or, "working" could and should be translated as religious work: worship.

Ten inscriptions of the void:

Stop your mouth from speaking,

stop your heart from murmuring,

and if your heart runs

return to the Place

for scriptures says:

the living beings were running and returning.

Regarding this matter.

a covenant was made.

(based on the translation by Rabbi Jill Hammer)

“So God Eternal took the man, placing him in the Garden of Eden to till it and watch it” (Genesis 2:15). Our original covenant, or assignment on Earth, was to “till it and watch it”– לְעָבְדָהּ וּלְשָׁמְרָהּ (l’ovdah ul’shomrah). The Hebrew here is interesting, especially relating to the word לְעָבְדָהּ (l’ovdah, “to till”). The assignment לְשָׁמְרָהּ (l’shomrah, “to watch”) is quite understandable; we are to be wardens of this place. לְעָבְדָהּ, on the other hand is usually understood as working the Earth, being good gardeners. But the root for עבד (a-v-d) has another meaning in biblical Hebrew, which is to worship. In this reading, our role is to guard the Earth and pay homage to it, that is, to realise once again the sacredness which dwells within its soil and ecosystmes as the Shchinah (God’s presence in the world) came and rested within the Mishkan. The Earth is the Mishkan and should now be the focal point of our spiritual and religious work as Jews.

(from Yom Kippur: A Jewish Earth Day, by Rabbah Gila Caine. in The Sacred Earth: Jewish perspectives on our planet. Ed. Rabbi A. Kahn. CCAR Press, 2023. p. 245)

We were born for community; we were born for service; we were born for joy; we were born to feel at home in this beautiful world; we were born to share certain unique gifts.

And of those gifts, the most unique and the most paradoxical is the ability to restrain ourselves. Conscious self-restraint belongs to no other creature, and for us it is the hardest of all, both as individuals and as societies. Can we learn to genetically engineer plants and animals? Of course we can. Can we stop ourselves from genetically engineering plants and animals?

(from The Comforting Whirlwind: God, Job and the scale of Creation. Bill McKibben, Cowley Pub. Cambridge Mass. 2005. P. 69)

Eagle Poem / by Joy Harjo

To pray you open your whole self

To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon

To one whole voice that is you.

And know there is more

That you can’t see, can’t hear;

Can’t know except in moments

Steadily growing, and in languages

That aren’t always sound but other

Circles of motion.

Like eagle that Sunday morning

Over Salt River. Circled in blue sky

In wind, swept our hearts clean

With sacred wings.

We see you, see ourselves and know

That we must take the utmost care

And kindness in all things.

Breathe in, knowing we are made of

All this, and breathe, knowing

We are truly blessed because we

Were born, and die soon within a

True circle of motion,

Like eagle rounding out the morning

Inside us.

We pray that it will be done

In beauty.

In beauty.

[Joy Harjo, “Eagle Poem” from In Mad Love and War. Copyright © 1990 by Joy Harjo. Reprinted with the permission of Wesleyan University Press, www.wesleyan.edu/wespress. Source: In Mad Love and War (Wesleyan University Press, 1990)]

Animation video of the poem: https://www.facebook.com/FireStarterStudios/videos/joy-harjo-eagle-poem-animation-for-national-endowments-for-the-arts-series/577666623285184/