Water and sukkot

If there were a new year for water, the holiday of Sukkot would be it.

It is the time of the turning of the seasons in Israel, from summer - the dry season, to winter - the wet season.

It is the time we recite plaintive prayers for rain - rain not just for our sake but for the sake of our ancestors who demonstrated their faithfulness through water, and for God's sake, who worked miracles for our ancestors through water.

Indeed the joyous holiday of Sukkot hosted the grandest extravaganza in ancient Israel's ritual repertoire: the Simchat Beit HaShoevah - the annual water pouring festival. Think Times Square on New Year's Eve, just in sandals on carved stones in the more balmy ancient Mediterranean night air.

We need such a celebration now. Something that reminds us of the preciousness of water; the ways we use it, revel in it, are soothed by it, depend upon it. We are, so they tell us, about 60% water ourselves.

But we also need to be taught about how we waste it. How our energy use consumes vast amounts of water; how fracking not only consumes but poisons millions of gallons of water; how mining by mountaintop removal should really be called mining by stream degradation and burial, affecting over 2000 miles of vital streams in the Appalachian region alone.

We need the blessings of abundant energy, yes. But we also need the blessings of abundant clean water. Yet the energy industry is exempt from the Clean Water Act both regarding valley fill and fracking processes.

We cannot continue to pit nature against itself; or put another way, to pit energy against the environment.

We can do several things.

(1) Continue to reduce our energy usage. It is good for our water and land, not just our air.

(2) Advocate to bring the energy industry under the clean water laws.

(3) Plant trees! It is amazing all the beneficial services that trees provide us, all at the same time, for a fraction of the cost of public works infrastructures. Not to mention the recreational, aesthetic  and spiritual enjoyment too. Can't say that about a water treatment plant.

(4) Make BGE accountable for all the trees it is cutting. We need to have an accounting of how many trees it took down; the environmental impact; and how and where they are going to replace those trees. (Be sure to contact BGE for your tree replacement voucher if they took a large tree down on your property. And let's advocate for a complete tree replacement policy.)

(5) Manage our own lands well. Substitute our lawns with region friendly vegetation that won't make unusual water and pesticide demands; that will hold and filter our rainwater so it stays where it falls and becomes cleansed as it percolates; and plant fruit trees to boost commitment to caring for the trees and greater neighborhood resilience due to local food production.

And for a sweet English language treatment of our traditional prayer for rain, check out this video from the Jewish Farm School.

And if you are looking for a project for your shul or class, check out Tom Horton's great idea for citizen river stewards in this week's Sun paper.

Then, tell me about what you are doing.