ביעור חמץ | Kavvanah for Returning Our Ḥametz to the Earth by Rabbi David Seidenberg (neohasid.org)

Contributor(s):

David Seidenberg and neohasid.org

Shared on:

24 March 2013 under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International copyleft license

Categories:

Erev Pesaḥ

Tags:

58th century A.M., English vernacular prayer, ecoḥasid, eco-conscious, חמץ ḥametz, Aramaic, 21st century C.E.

https://opensiddur.org/?p=6335 ביעור חמץ | Kavvanah for Returning Our Ḥametz to the Earth by Rabbi David Seidenberg (neohasid.org) 2013-03-24 12:27:45 Some people think of this as a magic formula that turns <em>ḥamets</em> into dust. It really is a legal formula that means that you renounce ownership of any <em>ḥamets</em> still in your space or your domain, so that it no longer has any value to you. But is it true that dirt is valueless and ownerless? We certainly act like we own the dirt, the soil. Developers take good land, build houses on it, and truck the topsoil away to sell to other people—thereby doubling profits and doubling damage to the earth. We act like the soil can be renewed and replaced at will, poisoning its microbial communities with pesticides applied even more strongly on our GMO corn and soy, while we replace the nutrients they create with petroleum-based fertilizers. We send the soil downstream and into the ocean along with vast quantities of agricultural runoff, creating algal blooms and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anoxic_waters">anoxic</a> dead zones. In that sense we do treat the soil like it is both ownerless and valueless. But our lives are almost entirely beholden to the soil. If it is ownerless it is because it belongs to all of us, or more precisely, as the story of the rabbi deciding between claimants goes, “The land says it doesn’t belong to you or to you, but that you belong to it.” Like the dirt of the earth, the ḥamets inside your house becomes what at Burning Man we call “MOOP” (<a href="https://burningman.org/event/preparation/leaving-no-trace/moop/">Matter Out Of Place</a>). Finding out where it belongs means finding out that it doesn’t belong to you or to us. Returning it to the soil means tilling our stuff back into the earth, where it can become renewed, where it can become sustenance for new life. Text the Open Siddur Project David Seidenberg David Seidenberg neohasid.org https://opensiddur.org/copyright-policy/ David Seidenberg https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ Erev Pesaḥ English vernacular prayer ecoḥasid eco-conscious חמץ ḥametz Aramaic 21st century C.E. 58th century A.M.

Some people think of this as a magic formula that turns ḥamets into dust. It really is a legal formula that means that you renounce ownership of any ḥamets still in your space or your domain, so that it no longer has any value to you. But is it true that dirt is valueless and ownerless? We certainly act like we own the dirt, the soil. Developers take good land, build houses on it, and truck the topsoil away to sell to other people—thereby doubling profits and doubling damage to the earth. We act like the soil can be renewed and replaced at will, poisoning its microbial communities with pesticides applied even more strongly on our GMO corn and soy, while we replace the nutrients they create with petroleum-based fertilizers. We send the soil downstream and into the ocean along with vast quantities of agricultural runoff, creating algal blooms and anoxic dead zones. In that sense we do treat the soil like it is both ownerless and valueless. But our lives are almost entirely beholden to the soil. If it is ownerless it is because it belongs to all of us, or more precisely, as the story of the rabbi deciding between claimants goes, “The land says it doesn’t belong to you or to you, but that you belong to it.”

Like the dirt of the earth, the ḥamets inside your house becomes what at Burning Man we call “MOOP” (Matter Out Of Place). Finding out where it belongs means finding out that it doesn’t belong to you or to us. Returning it to the soil means tilling our stuff back into the earth, where it can become renewed, where it can become sustenance for new life.

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Source (Aramaic)	Translation and Kavvanah (English)
	(Add the words in parentheses in the morning when you burn the ḥamets.)
כָׇּל־חֲמִירָא וַחֲמִיעָא דְּאִכָּא בִרְשׁוּתִי (דַּחֲמִתֵּהּ וּ)דְלָא חֲמִתֵּהּ (דְּבַעֲרִתֵּהּ וּ)דְלָא בַעֲרִתֵּהּ לִבְטִיל וְלֶהֱוֵי כְּעַפְרָא דְאַרְעָא׃	All the ḥamets that is in my possession/r’shut, which (I did see or) did not see and which (I did remove or) did not remove, let it be nullified and become like the dirt of the earth/afra d’ar’a.
	May we remember on this day that just as we do not own this ḥamets, we do not own this Earth.
	May we recall that Adam, the human, is made of afar min ha’adamah, soil, dirt from the ground, and that we belong to the soil.
	May we cherish the soil that comes from millennia of rocks breaking and life growing and decomposing. We too are “hewn from the rock and dug from the mine” of Abraham and Sarah.^[1] Cf. Isaiah 51:1-2.
	And so, may it be Your will, Adonai Eloheinu, that we give truth to your promise to Abraham, that his progeny would become “like the soil of the earth” – ka`afar ha’arets” – k`afra d’ar’a – and that, like the soil, we may live to nourish all Life.^[2] Genesis 13:16.

Notes[+]

Notes
1	Cf. Isaiah 51:1-2.
2	Genesis 13:16.

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“ביעור חמץ | Kavvanah for Returning Our Ḥametz to the Earth by Rabbi David Seidenberg (neohasid.org)” is shared by the living contributor(s) with a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International copyleft license.

David Seidenberg

Rabbi David Seidenberg, founder of NeoHasid.org, teaches text and music, Jewish thought and spirituality, in their own right and in relation to ecology and the environment. With smikhah (ordination) from the Jewish Theological Seminary and from Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, he has taught at over 100 synagogues, communities, retreats and conferences across North America (and a few in Europe and Israel). Rabbi Seidenberg's teaching empowers learners to become creators of Judaism through deep study and communion with texts and tradition. Areas of specialty include Kabbalah and Ḥasidut, Talmud, davenning, evolution and cosmology, sustainability, Maimonides, Buber, and more. Rabbi Seidenberg has published widely on ecology and Judaism. He is the author of the acclaimed book Kabbalah and Ecology: God's Image in the More-Than-Human World (Cambridge U. Press, 2015). To read selections and find out about ordering the book, go to kabbalahandecology.com.

neohasid.org

NeoHasid.org was created by Rabbi David Seidenberg to help folks integrate Chasidic song, learning, and nusach into their davenning and communities and to explore embodied Torah. It evolved to focus on eco-Torah and to share liturgy that honors our relationship with the Earth and/or expresses gender parity.

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ויהי נעם אדני אלהינו עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננה עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננהו "May the pleasantness of אדֹני our elo’ah be upon us; may our handiwork be established for us — our handiwork, may it be established." –Psalms 90:17