Posted on 12/04/2007 9:11:23 AM PST by wardaddy
In a campaign that has spread like wildfire across the Internet, a group of Israeli environmentalists is encouraging Jews around the world to light at least one less candle this Hanukka to help the environment.
The founders of the Green Hanukkia campaign found that every candle that burns completely produces 15 grams of carbon dioxide. If an estimated one million Israeli households light for eight days, they said, it would do significant damage to the atmosphere.
"The campaign calls for Jews around the world to save the last candle and save the planet, so we won't need another miracle," said Liad Ortar, the campaign's cofounder, who runs the Arkada environmental consulting firm and the Ynet Web site's environmental forum. "Global warming is a milestone in human evolution that requires us to rethink how we live our lives, and one of the main paradigms of that is religion and how it fits into the current situation."
Cofounder Tom Wegner, who heads the public relations firm Update Marketing Media, spread the campaign via mass e-mails and through social interaction Web sites like Facebook and Hook.co.il. He said no money had been invested in the campaign, but it had already raised awareness around the world and made people realize that they have to consider the environment this Hanukka.
Wegner said he did not consider the campaign anti-religious. The unlit candle could be the shamash, which is not required for the mitzva, he said. But he said he would encourage people who do not keep mitzvot not to light a hanukkia at all for environmental and educational reasons.
"We have many environmental traditions in Judaism like Tu Bishvat and Succot, but there are also traditions like Lag Ba'omer and Hanukka that made sense when they were instituted but are more problematic now in the days of global warming," Wegner said.
"There are many people who just light candles for the tradition and for their children," he said. "To tell a child on the eighth day that we are not lighting the last candle as a sacrifice for the environment is an act that is not only educational but also will prevent the release of a huge amount of carbon dioxide that would hurt the environment."
Shas MK Nissim Ze'ev said he was not convinced by the environmentalists' argument. He warned that the campaign would take away from the light of Torah that each and every candle symbolizes.
"The environmentalists should think about how much pollution is caused by one solitary diesel truck on the road," Ze'ev said. "They should be fighting the trucks instead of Judaism. This is so trivial, so anti-Jewish and so anti-religious that even the worst anti-Semites couldn't think of it. Just like the Helenists, they are trying to extinguish the flames of the Jewish soul."
United Torah Judaism MK Avraham Ravitz called the environmentalists "crazy people who are playing with the minds of innocent Jewish people." He said the campaign would only convince people who do not light candles anyway.
"They should encourage people to light one less cigarette instead," Ravitz said.
Rabbi Benny Lau of Jerusalem's Ramban Congregation, who is himself an environmental activist, praised the good intentions of the people behind the campaign. But he said the environmentalists should be trying to reach out to observant Jews instead of running campaigns that turn them away.
"People in the green movement who have an agenda have unfortunately made it anti-religious," Lau said. "This makes religious people think incorrectly that anything environmentalist is against them. The damage ends up being a thousand times the benefit. Tikkun olam [fixing the world] must be done by adding more light and not by adding more darkness."
Did you read Christopher Hitchen's latest article. He does just that.
Heyyyyy, I got yer green candle right here baby!
Gee - this Catholic is considering taking up the celebrations of our older brothers and sisters in faith.
They blame the Joooooooooooooooos when those dammable Catholics light so many votive candles??? < /Richter scale irony-disgust>
True, but the true story of Chanukkah is seldom told in America. The "official" version is that it is a celebration of "religious freedom" (ie, the right to worship any "gxd" or no G-d whatsoever so long as this decision is kept private and doesn't impinge on the "real world") and "separation of church and state." You know, like they had in ancient Biblical Israel . . . NOT!!!
As I understand it, Antiochus was an intolerant Southern Baptist Missionary who wanted everyone to be "saved" and Yehudah HaMaqqavi responded by founding the American Civil Liberties Union and filing a lawsuit, forcing Antiochus to stop forcing Jewish kids to listen to those awful chr*stian Tehillim at school every morning. At least this is what Abe Foxman thinks happened.
You know, I used to celebrate chr*stmas and it's hard enough to give it up, but to turn G-d's true alternative into a celebration of secularism and "multiculturalism" just makes this time of year so much worse.
Think I’ll hop in the gaz-guzzling SUV today, drive downtown to the store with the largest selection of menorahs (2 hours round trip), and buy the biggest one in the joint. ....holding at least 1-in. diamater candles. Thanks for the idea, wardaddy. Needed a new menorah anyway.
Soy candles don’t produce CO2. Switch to soy candles.
Soy? I’m looking for whale tallow candles.
Save the krill!
Just another excuse secular Jews can use to blow off Judaism.
Hanukkah should be a day of mourning for the secularists. They got their butts kicked.
Did you read Christopher Hitchen's latest article. He does just that.
Where is this article? I'd like to read it.
Now you've done it. The environuts will have to hunt you down and annoy you to death.
***Gee - this Catholic is considering taking up the celebrations of our older brothers and sisters in faith.***
Me, too. I’m going over to church right now and light some candles for the souls of the greenies.
*sigh* Who cries for the krill?
Here it is
Happy Chewbacca!
krill momma?
You can't make this stuff up, I'm lighting them all!
But if it annoys the greenies ...
Now you’ve done it ... I’ll have to go fire up a few votive candles, too. The big ones, you know, in the tall glass jars. They burn for a couple of days ...
Thanks!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.