I'm dreaming of a green...Hanukkah

[Guest]

Just my five cents--inflation, ya know.

Economics, The Dismal Science

[Guest]

"No need for another miracle." If God feels the need to personally interject in a manner witnessed by thousands, then there is a need to do so. We could all use a few more miracles.

I'd like to see God do something loud and clearly a miracle. Then I could sit back and watch all the nonbelievers try and explain it away!

[anitarose]

"No need for another miracle." If God feels the need to personally interject in a manner witnessed by thousands, then there is a need to do so. We could all use a few more miracles.

I'd like to see God do something loud and clearly a miracle. Then I could sit back and watch all the nonbelievers try and explain it away!

They have, several times. Remember the crossing of the Red Sea? So-called scientists said that the Red Sea at that point was "only about an inch of water" when the Israelites crossed.

The birth of Christ? Oh, that was Mary and Joseph fooling around. There's no way a virgin could get pregnant.....

and that's only *2* instances....

Anita

[Guest]

"No need for another miracle." If God feels the need to personally interject in a manner witnessed by thousands, then there is a need to do so. We could all use a few more miracles.

I'd like to see God do something loud and clearly a miracle. Then I could sit back and watch all the nonbelievers try and explain it away!

They have, several times. Remember the crossing of the Red Sea? So-called scientists said that the Red Sea at that point was "only about an inch of water" when the Israelites crossed.

The birth of Christ? Oh, that was Mary and Joseph fooling around. There's no way a virgin could get pregnant.....

and that's only *2* instances....

Anita

Sorry, I should have stated "a miracle in this day and time." Something that would wind up on CNN.

[Guest Biblicist]

Sorry, I should have stated "a miracle in this day and time." Something that would wind up on CNN.

The miracles that happen in this day and time don't end up on CNN, because people don't believe in miracles anymore. I think FOX would be more prone to broadcast miracles anyway.

I hold two miracles every Sunday, when they are not home sick.

Every morning when I wake up breathing, it's a miracle.

Several women in my church have experienced miracles that are CNN worthy, but most people call them "modern medicine".

My son is friends with a miracle.

My son and daughter are miracles.

LOVE is a miracle.

The things that you do see on television. Are they miracles of God to you, or just news? People are not seeing the miracles that happen every day because they lack faith.

[ladypeartree]

May I take this opportunity to thank you Marnie for bringing this story to my attention......

Now at last I have a very valed reason for NOT having candles on my birthday cake .....it has nothing to do with not wanting everyone to know how ancient I am ..it is to save the planet

[Guest Biblicist]

May I take this opportunity to thank you Marnie for bringing this story to my attention......

Now at last I have a very valed reason for NOT having candles on my birthday cake .....it has nothing to do with not wanting everyone to know how ancient I am ..it is to save the planet

Also, it saves the tax payers money, no longer will it be necessary for the fire department to be dispached to your house on your birthday!

[ladypeartree]

[AnExample]

In a campaign that has spread like wildfire across the Internet, a group of Israeli environmentalists is encouraging Jews around the world to light at least one less candle this Hanukkah to help the environment.

The founders of the Green Hanukkia campaign found that every candle that burns completely produces 15 grams of carbon dioxide. If an estimated one million Israeli households light for eight days, they said, it would do significant damage to the atmosphere.

"The campaign calls for Jews around the world to save the last candle and save the planet, so we won't need another miracle," said

Liad Ortar, the campaign's cofounder, who runs the Arkada environmental consulting firm and the Ynet Web site's environmental forum. "Global warming is a milestone in human evolution that requires us to rethink how we live our lives, and one of the main paradigms of that is religion and how it fits into the current situation."

Cofounder Tom Wegner, who heads the public relations firm Update Marketing Media, spread the campaign via mass e-mails and

through social interaction Web sites like Facebook and Hook.co.il. He said no money had been invested in the campaign, but it had already

raised awareness around the world and made people realize that they have to consider the environment this Hanukkah.

Wegner said he did not consider the campaign anti-religious. The unlit candle could be the shamash, which is not required for the

mitzva, he said. But he said he would encourage people who do not keep mitzvot not to light a hanukkia at all for environmental and

educational reasons.

"We have many environmental traditions in Judaism like Tu Bishvat and Succot, but there are also traditions like Lag Ba'omer and

Hanukka that made sense when they were instituted but are more problematic now in the days of global warming," Wegner said.

"There are many people who just light candles for the tradition and for their children," he said. "To tell a child on the eighth day that we are not lighting the last candle as a sacrifice for the environment is an act that is not only educational but also will prevent the release of a

huge amount of carbon dioxide that would hurt the environment."

Shas MK Nissim Ze'ev said he was not convinced by the environmentalists' argument. He warned that the campaign would take

away from the light of Torah that each and every candle symbolizes.

"The environmentalists should think about how much pollution is caused by one solitary diesel truck on the road," Ze'ev said. "They

should be fighting the trucks instead of Judaism. This is so trivial, so anti-Jewish and so anti-religious that even the worst anti-Semites

couldn't think of it. Just like the Helenists, they are trying to extinguish the flames of the Jewish soul."

United Torah Judaism MK Avraham Ravitz called the environmentalists "crazy people who are playing with the minds of innocent Jewish people." He said the campaign would only convince people who do not light candles anyway.

"They should encourage people to light one less cigarette instead," Ravitz said.

Rabbi Benny Lau of Jerusalem's Ramban Congregation, who is himself an environmental activist, praised the good intentions of the

people behind the campaign. But he said the environmentalists should be trying to reach out to observant Jews instead of running campaigns that turn them away.

"People in the green movement who have an agenda have unfortunately made it anti-religious," Lau said. "This makes religious

people think incorrectly that anything environmentalist is against them. The damage ends up being a thousand times the benefit. Tikkun olam [fixing the world] must be done by adding more light and not by adding more darkness."

The Jerusalem Post

There are many many more people than they who celebrate Hanakah who light candles daily. If the candles are messing with the earth's atmosphere...we should probably regulate the use of them like we have so many other industries that impact the general health of Americans i.e. emissions testing for automobiles, secondhand smoking, asbestos, lead...I could go on. But honestly we put more effort into regulating faith-based efforts around the world. Leave them alone!