David Seidenberg: Judaism Unbound Episode 290 - Nobody Owns Land
David Seidenberg, author of Kabbalah and Ecology: God's Image in the More-Than-Human World, joins Dan and Lex for a conversation about why Shmita is the central commandment of the entire Torah.
This episode is the fourth in a series of episodes about the Shmita year. The Shmita year is a once-every-seven-years occasion, first described in the Bible, and its next occurrence begins on Rosh Hashanah 2021 (September 6th, 2021). It calls for a radical recalibration of our society’s relationship to land, food, debt, work, equality, and time – all of which resonate with crises we face today. Learn more at Shmitaproject.org.
[1] Learn more about David Seidenberg by visiting his website, NeoHasid.org. Purchase his book, Kabbalah and Ecology: God’s Image in the More-Than-Human World, via this link, and check out a variety of resources related to the book (and created by Seidenberg) at KabbalahAndEcology.com.
[2] For a few of Seidenberg’s written pieces about Shmita in particular, click here (Hazon.org) or here (Huffington Post).
[3] Seidenberg alludes to a Harachaman (addition to the blessing after meals) that he wrote for the Shmita year. Learn more about it, and access the text of the blessing itself, here.
[4] Dan mentions the book Collapse, by Jared Diamond, which relates to many of the topics that arose in this conversation. You can purchase it here.
[5] Check out the previous three episodes in this series of Shmita episodes by clicking the following links: Episode 287: The Shmita Project - Hannah Knibb Henza, Sarah Zell Young, Episode 288: More Magic, Please - Eli Kaplan-Wildmann, Episode 289: Jewish Anarchism - Cindy Milstein