Dear Elul Writers,

Engaging in cheshbon hanefesh, the soul accounting of this season, requires a certain amount of hope. Without it, the process would feel empty and meaningless. Perhaps we have managed to scrape together enough belief in our own potential, but feeling hopeful on a more global level is a challenge. This is certainly true when it comes to the climate crisis that we are living through. So, I was happy this year to stumble upon the book Not Too Late, edited by Rebecca Solnit and Thelma Young Lutunatabua. The short book collects essays by scientists, activists and storytellers in hopes of “changing the climate story from despair to possibility.”

I keep coming back to one essay in the book, called “The Asteroid and the Fern” by the paleoecologist, Jacquelyn Gill. (Paleoecologist is a really rad sounding job!) In the piece, Dr. Gill described walking into a Siberian permafrost tunnel, where entire ecosystems had been frozen in place, and emerging from the tunnel completely transformed. As she concludes the essay, she gives a charge that feels strikingly Deuteronomic. 

“The hard rock record does not promise that we, in all of our soft-bodied ephemeralness, could not possibly do as much damage as an asteroid: in the climate crisis, humans are the impact event, but we are also the small furry things emerging from the safety of our burrows in the aftermath and the ferns renewing the blasted landscape with greenery, creating something new out of the ashes of the old world. Unlike the dinosaurs, we have a choice: will we be the asteroid or the fern?”

DAY 21 PROMPT

In this week’s parashah, we read the famous pasuk, “...I put before you life and death, blessing and curse — choose life, that you and your offspring will live.” This verse sets up the power of choice in shaping our lives. I believe that we are drawn to the simplicity of the verse because, sometimes, when we are faced with a decision, with a fork in the road, we know that we have the capacity to choose the path of life. On this 21st day of Elul, consider how you can push yourself to choose life this year. What reminders can you set up for yourself so that, when confronted with a hard decision, you can make the choice of blessing? And, while we’re at it, what concrete actions can we take to protect our planet? Political organizing? A donation? Work on a local issue of environmental conservation? How can we, more often than not, be the fern, bravely unfurling and “creating something new out of the ashes.”

In soft-bodied ephemeralness,

Jordan