Earth Based Judaism – Reclaiming Our Roots, Reconnecting to Nature
A recent article in ZEEK: A Jewish Journal of Thought and Culture by alumni Zelig Golden, co-founder and co-director of Wilderness Torah.
Read the whole article here.
Humanity’s current alienation from nature is unprecedented. As Wendell Berry explained in his seminal 1977 work The Unsettling of America, we are confronted with a “crisis of culture,” reflected in a “crisis of agriculture,” rooted in the simple fact that modern people have become disconnected from nature and the natural cycles we depend upon for survival. In less than fifty years, modern Western culture – particularly in the United States – has shifted from relying on small family farms that dotted the countryside to relying on an industrial food system run by massive corporate farms.
This rift from our food source is mirrored in our everyday relationship to nature. Richard Louv explains in his recent work, Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder, that “our society is teaching young people to avoid direct experience in nature,” at the cost of mental, spiritual and physical health. Citing research that the rise in Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), obesity, and autism could be directly related to what he calls nature-deficit disorder, Louv concludes that “[t]ime in nature is not leisure time; it’s an essential investment in our children’s health (and also, by the way, in our own)”. (120).
Read the rest of the article here.
Leora! Great article.. I am reading some of the books you mentioned and am so interested in preserving the right for children to experience nature.. So important, would love to talk further.
I have read Louv’s book and highly recommend it. I am over 60 years old and can remember riding my bike all over the neighborhood, playing alone in the woods behind our house, following the creek for a mile or more to the park, etc. I am often APPALLED at the lack of connection to nature in kids today. I currently live in rural Minnesoa and have a blog, “Notes from a Jewish Thoreau,” in which I connect Torah with my nature observations. Follow the link to get there — search “Nature Deficit Disorder” on the blog to find my essays on this topic.