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."
Oh, the horror, the Torah, whatever...If wasn't bad enough with the blood libel smear, now there's those Hanukkah candles snuffing out our ozone!
"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."
How true, it's that huge amount of of Hanukkah candle flames that have been aiding and abetting our environmental crimes. Of course, all the flatulent cows in the world produce in one year far more carbon dioxide release than all the Jewish candles ever lite put together is beside the point.
This is just a crude propaganda method to bring Jewish families on board the good ship "Global Warming".
Where’s CHRIST??
Secular Jews should observe Hanukkah as a week of mourning. It is their Tisha B’Av.
To ALL JEWS....HAPPY HANNUKAH ad LIGHT ‘EM IF YOU’VE GOT ‘EM!!
And that's all I'm gonna read. These people can go [censored] themselves. Buncha whackos.
???
You asked.
Was that Jesus?? it looked like an angel.
No, it’s my moose.
This sh*t is just insane!
Almost forgot you. Get a load of this!
Hey, this is your father-in-law. Nobody told me about the latkes. Unfair. I’m not using the electric menorah this year. Went and bought a box of CANDLES. Just doing my bit.
Buy a real big one with the biggest candles you can find.
man....where do these people come from?
This has got to be one of the nuttiest of all the eco-kook’s ideas.
Next they will be suggesting eliminating 2 or 3 of the Ten Commandments.. to save ink, of course, cutting down the number of books in the Bible, reducing the number of the Apostles, and throwing out one book of the Gospels.
I guess to these wackos religion and tradition re irrelevant to their greater good.
Of course one thing they don't demand is that blowhards with envirowhacko agendas like Al Gore alter their hyper-energy-consuming lifestyles one iota.
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