ism good morning and welcome to mow sai mosaic. an interfaith conference saying how a religious community involved in the matter of sustainability. we are more than happy to be joined by doctor david aaron ask

what to we get to think about this religious topic of sustainability. >> now more than ever it's an important subject to its floor. because of the fact we're in a major situation no matter where you are in the political spectrum we can feel that the world is changing and we have one of the most powerful tools in all of human history is religion. so we have to figure out whether religion has the tools to move us in a direction of season ability, of equity of the awareness around us and that's human life. general animal life in the natural world. >> and i can speak to judaism as a religion that has a very rich tool kit for figuring out how to live sustainably that, you know are kind of screaming out to us

at this very moment in history. >> okay. so let's start with your particular faith or judaism and some examples of how that faith can inform, let's say the opportunities we were in today or the mess we've made. >> yes, and i do want to talk about those tools and then of course if we have time i want to talk about some of their limitations. but let's talk about the tool kits. the hebrew bible has a whole set of obligations to fellow human beings, obligations to the rest of the animal world, obligations to the natural world. and wild life plants that are kind of encumbent upon all kind of people and especially jews to satisfy. and some of them i grew up with. i grew up in a traditional home and this was part of the language of the house.

the first one was called bal tashfit and it's don't be wasteful. take the food that you need . don't throw that away. you can't play with that it's food. so this general motion of non harming and non wasting it's part of the biblical heritage. another one is the prohibition of hurting the animal life. if you have a pet you have to feed your pet first. always to tend to them first and to tend to them above all else. even the pab -- maybe the famous jewish norm.

that milk comes from the mammal and coming the meat along with the milk almost has a kind of insensitivity to it. to the very animal that you're eating but nevertheless these imparives are cultivating to animal life. again the biblical and heritage instruct in terms of agriculture because judaism has itsural sie. have to do with the shaping of the style of how the land is tended. this includes the prohibition of harvesting your harvest all the way to the corners of the field. the bible says both. >> we're tending to gleaners here. >> don't harvest to the edge of the field just leave the edges for the poor. if you're harvesting grapes

don't collect them and go back and pick every last one. no. get accustomed to an open hand and it even includes how you handle money. there still was some money circulating and the idea was open the hand. just take what you need. every seven years all loans were forgiven. every 50 years property was returned to its family of origin because the poverty of the ancient world was if you didn't have access to land and so the biblical text is filled with obligations that have to do with social and economic equity. >> rebalancing and that's a different thing from you shall have do min on. we'll come back because we're talking about how religion is sustainability and care of our

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it's a practice that i think has become the medicine for today. >> keeping it different from you've got to get up and go to church and maybe watch football. now part of what's new is how did you get interested in this first of all? >> so i will say i teach at the graduate unilogical union in berkley and we are now host to a whole set of seminaries. various religions of denominations. greek orthodox studies. the many christian denominations that are represented there and it's really the center for darma

studies with the hint of buddhism. >> sustainability unpack that because i know that means a lot in accurate ademia. >> we elm embrace a life style that can continue until the 7th generation. some sense of equity of attunement to ecology. it's a new challenge and i will tell you something. i think that the reason why interfaith collaboration on this issue is so important is because the crisis of our current climate, the climate crisis is one that is asking religion to start to think about itself as part of a larger human community. as one of my colleagues said we

have to think of ourselves as earthlings now. maybe all of those things but also earthlings of a common human enterprise of a common natural enterprise. most of their history thrived in creating the kind of exceptionalism that informs a particular community. maybe we can do that but we don't have the luxury to do that all the time. religions are now going to have to update themselves to a kind of consciousness that is more global. >> exceptionalism. what does that mean? >> yes. meaning that the strength in human religion has very ouven certain social identities and social groups and to make them distinct from other groups that didn't have to create violence.

i don't think religion is the reason for violence in history. but for making social groups. >> reason to separate people. which is of religious groups beg active and involved. >> indeed because isn't religion in the business of making differences. since when is religion in the business of this kind of global reality that we live in now. but as one of my colleagues said we now have new problems and religion's going to have to think of new responses and i think that our focus, our conversation today on how kelg can respond to sustainability is very important. >> now how did you get into this issue? >> well i mentioned that i gre . it's been a very important and beloved part of my life.

it's why i devoted my career to teaching and literature. and judaism for me has provided a beautiful kind of guide for how to live a ethical sustainable life. when i'm now coming to realize is that all of that beauty needs to be redirected towards the global stage. >> and so when hindus and buddhists and christians all sorts of christian, when you get together, how do you start? >> that's so true. we bring the beauty of our partitions together. let me tell you what my religion has taught me about how to live sustainably and with social and economic equity and we kind of lay those treasures out and they inspire each other and then we press each other to see if we

can shed some of the particularism in our traditions and see if we can move towards this earthlings module. and i think the bay area is a place where it can happen is a willingness to see how even within our traditions there is the opportunity to cultivate a sense of unity, of human interdispense. >> you're optimistic that religion can then begin to talk with each other about i don't know care of the earth in their own traditions. people presbyterian that would probably involve some sort of confession that we haven't always at least from the protestant point of view we have more of a domination than an involving mode. >> yes, this is one of the

challenges that the current globalization. we are so aware of the fact that human communities around the globe are relating with one another in slr new ways and relating to the natural world in very new and demanding ways and we kind of all have some sense that we need a way to operate with each other in the natural world that will allow us to continue life as we know it in all of its beauty. we know that that's the current demand that's being made upon us and i think we should trust in us and our faith that these are those tools nevertheless i think the limits. for example you heard me at the graduate theological union. speak about what happened when the maternal life giving aspects of the divine are marginalized. in which there's a single god

that loosely has a male gender that leads the life giving aspects of our natural world to the kind of margins of religious life. i think we need to bring a lot of those themes back into our religious imagination. >> new and reclaimed ways of thinking in care giving i think. but we'll be right back. and then dean aaronoff will be joined here by alisa chavez.

dr. dean aaronoff and i have been talking and we're now joined by doctor alicia chavez. we got it. i went through a conference, two-day conference which was

sponsored by the darma studies. i think that's academic speak for getting together and seeing what we can do to better care for the earth and that is where i met dr. chavez. welcome. you've been listening to our conversation. what strikes you? >> well so many things. first of all, i love the idea of a tool kit as you were saying a jewish tool kit. i think that we could probably say that about a variety of religious and spiritual traditions as well. for example, if i start to think of not so much world religions but other spiritual l religions there's a lot for example native californian groups who have so much in-depth cultural knowledge for what's important for this land here and that's a

phenomenal tool box if i can use your phrase it opened up in a rev rant and appropriate way. >> how did you get interested in this? >> i grew up in northern california in a very rural area. i actually have no real religious background but rather i have become a spiritual insider through meditation. and i would say a lot of people do especially when you're growing up there's a real natural i would say kinship between young people and our pets. the birds that we hear. there's this great awe and wonder that's inspired in us and so i was no exception. i sort of looked to the natural world for in some ways peace and

a break from the i human life. and it wasn't until i found a spiritual path that i felt a much more intimate connection with the natural world through cultivating a deep inner spiritual life and through that i was able to bridge through a deeper understanding religious tradition. >> and you went to college and now have attended this conference where you sat and listened to these interdisciplinary people. coming back, how do the sort of traditional religions established religions embrace the kind of thing that felicia framed it in terms of childhood. to recover the

interconnectiveness that a child feels with the natural world and then forgets and so it's these kind of reminders and practices that restore the very natural and innate sense of unity with the natural world that a child might feel. >> such as... talk more about that felicia. how do you approach this? >> i think one way to look at it is really in terms of just the basic principal of opening. so in a society in which we're consistently bombarded as you were saying in relationship to taking stab with technology with this aggressive form of messaging, we shut down and how do you feel the rest of life when you're shut down? and that doesn't just apply to the squirrel that's bouncing across the park. it also applies to interpersonal

relationships. >> those squirrels ate my gladiolas last night. but go ahead i interrupted you. >> but actually i do believe that there is a way to even when it comes to actually consuming animals for example i do believe that there are ways to do that in a rev rential and prevalent way. when i was little my dad said to me i don't want to hear you complaining about killing animals to eat them unless you don't eat them. a light bulb went off. i don't have to eat them and then i can complain. but as i've grown older and studied various cultures i have seen that there are practices in which the spirit of the animal is held in a different way. that's very different from the current state of for example

this agricultural industry and the way that animals are raised and treated in our society. >> how do our traditional faiths fit in with what she's saying. what can we do? how do we get from here to there? >> indeed. the tool kits that judaism would provide for consuming ethically and responsibly are some of the demands or obligations that i mentioned at the start of our show together. what i do want to say is that it may be the case that in order to recover our opens to life and a sense of our interconnectiveness we might have to do accomplish an even more challenging task which is actually to recover our sense of interdependence the way in which human beings in order to survive are completely dependent on one another and we

may have to revisit our notion of independence. even our notion or our dispense dependence on die vine blessing. which is the assumption that if we're good, god provides. but actually our provisions, that would provide for us is a much broader web that involves human interdependence and our dependence on the natural world. judaism certainly can. but it will have to loosen its kind of relationship to a more strict understanding that the situation that a human finds him or herself in is a situation that is determined by following or not following divine command. we have to start to integrate the fullness of our interdependence on the natural world. this is why i'm calling for the

possibility of folding forward. a notion of the maternal role of the divine and the natural world in caring for us and our environment. >> how would you say that. >> well, i was very fortunate to participate in a page program in mythological studies which i just recently completed. >> congratulations. >> thank you very much. lots of work but again i felt just really blessed to be able to explore these territories of religions that i had not been exposed to really to any great degree. and so i think that to go back again to this interconnection, we do need to not just sort of invite in the possibility of it, but actually to look at our existing text for example, and

words from saints throughout history who very specifically say we are all one and to take that with great -- to take that in and try it on when we're walking down the street and we perhaps encounter someone that we tend to you know have this closing toward. in certain circumstances and certain risk factors. certain kind of closing or having good boundaries is necessary. but really what we're talking about is a kind of opening our hearts that is spoken of by so many people throughout the ages and we have to take it seriously. >> we'll be right back. stay with us.

a thought, a sentence for our viewers to take home. >> a sentence to tell the parents out there that you are the teachers. trust that your religion has the possibility of embracing mother nature, the environment and our interconnectiveness and really ltouatcu ye forr child's the na. >> felicia a sentence. >> cultivate your own direct experience of the divine. >> thank you very much ladies. go out and sustain and do good things. we'll see you again next week.

center for the arts will 'transform oming welcome to bay sunday i'm your host kenny choy. in just a few weeks the arts will transform at the name of an up coming performance festival that celebrates the power of performance and ideas and action. joseph from ybca welcome to bay sunday. >> thanks for having me. >> good to have you here. how does this latest event and performance focus on citizenship through dance. explain. >> well we have these questions that run through the institution over the course of the years and we invite in this specific case