Teva-JNF seminar:pt.2

I learned a new concept today: “The Edge effect”. This is a term used in environmental sciences that describes the phenomenon of increased biodiversity in areas where different habitats meet. This means that in areas where a forest and a meadow touch each other, you’ll find greater varieties of species coexisting. The introduction of new and seemingly disparate elements into a system expands it. Nili Simhai, Director of the Teva Seminar on Jewish Environmental Education, introduced this theme as she welcomed us all to this year’s 16th annual conference. She was teaching it in the context of Jewish environmental awareness and the interface between the learner, the teacher and the land, but I’m going to extrapolate from it: The education experience is like an ecosystem. The way we teach something has an impact on what we’re teaching. By bringing in new and possibly novel ideas and modalities, we can have an influence on both the learner and on what she is learning. While this isn’t such a revolutionary idea, the setting in which it was articulated made it special.

Rabbi Arthur Waskow followed Nili by exploring a spiritual aspect of the current environmental crises: Finding God in the Gulf, if you will. He started with the unpronounceable name of the Deity, explaining that it can only be articulated by exhaling. He’s right. Try to pronounce those 4 Hebrew letters. You can’t. If God’s essence is in a breath, then all life (human and other) is united by this. “The breathing of all life is God’s name.”  The implication is that “God’s own name is at risk” today on this planet, because of the threat to its ecological soundness. I found this thought refreshing not because I’ve become a follower of Jewish renewal (I have not), but because it reframed the question of our relationship to the environment, adding an extra layer to how we relate to it, interact with it, and influence it. The edge effect in action, if you will.

In my last post I wrote about my expectations of this seminar and how I hoped it would provide a new way to teach about Israel. Now I want to see how this “edge effect” can also describe the influence our teaching can have not only on the learner, but also on The Land.