Starting Small
On VE day last Friday we had an interesting experience of ‘counting our blessings’. We had decided to try and see what rationing would have been like, so we measured out the amount of butter, cheese, egg, sugar, and sweets for a family of four. It really did not amount to very much. The butter ration for a person stretched to two slices of toast, and the cheese barely covered half a slice. Needless to say, the children were not impressed and there was a lot of grumbling at lunch time, which was only made up by the cupcakes (more than a week's worth of butter and sugar) that we had made to mark the celebration of the end of the war. For the children they could not get their head around the lack of food. Apart from a bank holiday in northern Norway one year where nothing was open and Yom Kippur, they have never experienced want and a lack of food. Were they grateful at the end of our small rationing experiment? We definitely counted our blessings in a different way.
This week’s parasha also touches on gratefulness and counting our blessings but in a much more practical way. The sabbatical year for the land and letting it lay fallow and not harvesting the corners of our fields, are two major mitzvot which impacts the structure of society. In today’s world the shmitta year has become synonymous with growing environmental awareness and our use and abuse of the natural world for our own gain. In the midst of a crisis, and a serious worry about how the world’s economies can get back on track, it is easier to not worry about the environment and only focus on economic growth. And yet, we are continuously amazed at the bird song, the fresh air, at the wildlife that is popping up everywhere. And the question which has again risen to the fore is what can we do? How can we help save the planet?
It was therefore really helpful to learn about the book ‘Saving the Planet one object at a time’ by environmental scientist Dr Tara Shine. “Feeling powerful at an individual level is important, and paradoxically, the Covid crisis shows this like nothing else. The government can set rules and regulations, but unless we all play our part, we won’t achieve the goal; that’s no different with climate change. We can set really ambitious targets to get to zero emissions by 2030, but none of that can happen unless we also get on our bike instead of getting in the car, reduce our emissions, eat local food. It’s not one or the other, it’s both...One of the things that stands in people’s way is confusion over what’s right. So I’ve read all the stuff for you, and boiled it down into simple actions in this book. In the ‘what you can do’ sections, some things are ambitious but lots of the things are really easy and quite a lot of them actually save you money...The idea with this book is that you flick through it and pick up a couple of tips; you start small.”
Some of the areas covered in the book will only confirm what we are already doing, but other small suggestions will be helpful.
Book by Cork scientist shows us how to save the planet - one object at a time