MONTREAL — On Sunday morning, Sept. 21, Rabbi Schachar Orenstein will don plastic gloves, grab a garbage bag and head down to the riverbank in Lachine and pick up trash.
He’s challenging other members of the community to join him in a concrete expression of Jewish concern for the environment. They will be among the tens of thousands of volunteers expected to take part in the 15th annual Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup sponsored by TD Bank that week.
Orenstein is associate rabbi of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue, and co-founder and co-president of Teva, the Quebec Jewish Coalition for the Environment, now in formation.
“This appeals to me as a rabbi because it comes a week before Rosh Hashanah and is in keeping with the holidays’ theme of coming clean and making a fresh start. Renewal can be at both the inner level and external,” he said.
Lachine was chosen in part because it once had a small Jewish community, and was the boyhood home of the late Nobel Prize-winning author Saul Bellow, and its public library was named for him.
Participants will gather at 10 a.m. at the Lachine Visitors Services Centre, 500 Chemin des Iroquois, for a half-hour orientation. They will then comb the scenic shoreline of the St. Lawrence River from 55th east to 6th Avenues until noon. They will be asked to record the type and amounts of debris they find.
People of all ages are invited to join in, including children. Orenstein will bring his daughter Chana, who is almost 4.
This is dirty work and possibly risky if care is not taken, Orenstein said. “But I think it is more dangerous not to do this; think of the kids that may play along these shores and could get hurt by broken glass or other objects. Orenstein, who returned to Montreal last year, was active in the Vancouver Jewish environmental group, Adam va-Adamah (Hebrew for man and earth) and took part in the Shoreline Cleanup of one of that city’s beaches two years ago. Chana came along that time, too, and had a great time, he said.
Teva (Hebrew for nature) is the first organization of its kind in Montreal. It has not been officially launched yet, but Orenstein said it is already generating “huge interest.”
Montreal is one of the last major Jewish communities in North America without a Jewish environmental group, he said. Toronto alone has several, some along denominational, lines, he noted. “There is a lot going on in Canada, and the United States is miles ahead of us with its innovative programming,” said Orenstein, 35, who has personally been involved with Jewish environmental activism for about 10 years.
Part of the reason for the lag in Montreal, he believes, is that younger people tend to lead the way in environmental initiatives, and Montreal is older. “With our demographics, there have been other priorities until now,” he said.
That is changing with FEDERATION CJA’s launching this spring of its go-green initiative, which it hopes will be emulated by all of the community’s agencies and institutions. Canadian Jewish Congress, Quebec Region, is partnering with Teva for the shoreline cleanup. It, too, has become environmentally active, working with First Nations and other groups in a project called Communities Uniting for Mother Earth.
Orenstein’s fellow rabbis across the denominational spectrum are becoming cognizant of the issue as well, he said, noting that on the agenda of the Montreal Board of Rabbis’ next meeting is how synagogues can become more ecologically friendly. The board’s president, Rabbi Michael Whitman, is particularly tuned in to the importance of congregations’ recycling and reducing their use of natural resources, he said.
The rabbis will be looking at the feasibility of obtaining “green” certification from BOMA, the Building Owners and Managers Association, as the federation has done.
At the Spanish, Orenstein led its first “green Shabbaton” which attracted about 140 young adults, and Styrofoam cups are being banned in favour of old-fashioned mugs, a gesture intended as a daily reminder of the need to be mindful of the environment.
“I think the environment may also be a way for disaffected Jews to re-connect with the community in a meaningful way,” he said.
A Jewish presence in Quebec’s environmental movement is politically important, too, Orenstein thinks. “The non-Jewish community is looking for a Jewish organization to liaise with on the environment ,” he said.
Generally, he finds more and more Jews reading into the traditional command of Tikkun Olam, or healing the world, a concern for the protection of the Earth.
The environment is a ‘Jewish’ issue, Orenstein believes. There are many sources in Judaism that point to the need to care for the environment, starting in Genesis with God’s admonishment to Adam and Eve to protect the paradise they found themselves in.
The Jewish principle of bal tashchit is an explicit directive not to waste resources, he said. “Our bubbies and zadies were recycling long before it became fashionable.”
Teva’s co-founder and co-president is Shady Kanfi, a consultant in sustainable development, who is working on a doctorate in environmental studies. Israeli-born Orenstein grew up in Winnipeg, and completed his post-secondary studies in Montreal. He was assistant rabbi of Congregation Shaar Hashomayim from 2001 to 2004, before going to Vancouver where he was spiritual leader of Congregation Shaarey Tefilah for three years.
Teva has applied for Canadian charitable status and Orenstein hopes to affiliate with COEJL, the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life, the umbrella for Jewish environmental groups in North America.
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