Pesach Pledges challenge Jews to take climate action

Melting ice blocks on the seder table is not enough. This year, the Jewish Climate Network wants people to pledge action against climate change at Pesach.

With Pesach on the horizon, many of us start to prepare for this all-encompassing festival. The food, the guests, the fold-out chairs, the deep clean.

And for many, there is the deep desire to have interesting and powerful contemporary discussions around the seder table, inspired by the long-standing themes of Pesach - freedom, slavery, peoplehood, survival, the past, the future.

The magic of Jewish survival has been our capacity to take the old, and have it inform the new challenges of the day.

In that vein, a big question I and many others will be asking around the seder table this year is: What might the themes of Pesach have to say about my role in tackling climate change?

In past years, the Jewish Climate Network (JCN) has invited the community to place an iceblock on the seder table. As it melts, it evokes the melting ice caps, driven by human-induced global heating. It evokes discussion among guests about this unfolding crisis.

We still encourage this symbol at seder, a night of strong symbols.

But a discussion does not always lead to action. Understanding does not always lead to responsibility. And the Haggadah directly implores us: See yourself as though you, personally, came out of Egypt. If that is not a more direct invitation to material experience and action, I don’t know what is.

So, this year, JCN is taking it one step further, with an emphasis on action.

This Pesach, we have developed the “Pesach Pledge”. This platform provides community members with an opportunity to commit to a single action - in the next 12 months - that will reduce our collective reliance on fossil fuels (coal, oil, gas); the root cause of accelerating extreme weather events the world over.