Global Warming continues to be in the news. This time it's Hanukkah that's under attack.
The Jerusalem post reported yesterday on an Israeli environmental group going after Hanukkah candles.
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 Hanukka 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.
"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."
Some people worry about the stupidest things. Soon other environmental groups will get the idea to ask churches to light one less Advent candle. Then they'll be picketing outside the Yankee Candle Company's headquarters, then going after campers and their bonfires, fires in fireplaces, outdoor grills, and who knows what else...
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."
Environmentalists will extinguish the flames of everybody's soul if you give them the chance.
3 comments:
I heard about this today, and it occurred to me that if God were environmentally sensitive, he would have let the Maccabees lamp burn out on the first day to keep it from spewing seven more days worth of hydrocarbons into the atmosphere.
Charlie,
Hard to believe God cared so little for the environment. ;o)
"Environmentalists will extinguish the flames of everybody's soul if you give them the chance."
What a great line, I love it!
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