Jewish tradition meets sustainability: Pittsburgh synagogues go solar
'Make certain that you do not ruin and destroy My world, for if you destroy it, there will be no one to mend it after you'
Stopping the sun is a rare feat. Harnessing its power is a bit more manageable. Across western Pennsylvania, several synagogues are exploring the latter in hopes of reducing costs and greening operations.
Beth El Congregation of the South Hills is beginning work on a solar panel-related project. The suburban synagogue was recently named one of seven nationwide recipients of a grant from Jewish Solar Challenge. The organization, which provides financial support for solar panel installation, announced that Beth El was among those to split a sum totaling $318,000.
According to JSC, five awardees received a max $50,000 matching grant.
Beth El representatives declined to disclose the amount received; instead, they described their pleasure of being included among recipients.
“We are thrilled,” Lynda Abraham-Braff, Beth El’s president, said. “A lot of work went into this.”
Chris Benton, the congregation’s executive director, agreed, and said the solar panels are “part of an ongoing initiative” to green the building.
Nearly two miles down the road from Beth El, Temple Emanuel of South Hills is beginning a similar project.
For months, Temple Emanuel’s Senior Rabbi Aaron Meyer has assisted lay leaders in exploring and finalizing greening initiatives.
“We are under contract to install a 250,000 kilowatt hour system, which is the equivalent of 25 average family homes per year, that will offset 87% of Temple’s annual electricity costs,” Meyer said. Installation requires an upfront cost of about $450,000; once that sum is covered, however, the panels are “expected to continue producing up to 85% of their original capacity and generate $1.4 million or more for the organization.”
Meyer sees the move to solar as not only fiscally savvy but aligning with several Jewish values, including bal tashchit (do not destroy) and l’avda ul’shamra (to till it and to tend it).
The two eco-friendly concepts derive from the Torah.
Deuteronomy 20:19 notes that if, when laying siege to a city, the endeavor takes a prolonged period of time, “you must not destroy its trees…you may eat of them, but you must not cut them down.” The following verse continues the theme by clarifying that only non-food bearing trees may be destroyed.
Rabbinic literature affords myriad explanations for the ordinances, but Meyer sees a tie-in to the Torah’s imperative to protect the earth.
Genesis 2:15 states that God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden “to till it and to tend it.”
“I think that we have an obligation to be part of the world, and to ensure that we leave it for future generations in a way at least as good as we found it,” Meyer said.
That responsibility stems from a partnership referenced by the first biblical verses, he continued.
Genesis 2:7 employs similar Hebrew words (ha’adam and ha’adamah) when noting that God formed the man from the dust of the ground.
For millennia, rabbinic literature has stressed the ethical responsibility of conservation, Meyer said.
Kohelet Rabbah, an aggadic interpretation of Ecclesiastes compiled around the 7th century, states that after God created the first human, “He took him and showed him all the trees in the Garden of Eden, and He said to him: ‘See My creations, how beautiful and exemplary they are. Everything I created, I created for you. Make certain that you do not ruin and destroy My world, for if you destroy it, there will be no one to mend it after you.”
Congregations can make multiple arguments for installing solar panels or adopting other eco-friendly projects, and for Temple Emanuel, “We do see it as an expression of our Jewish values,” but there’s another rationale, Meyer said. “I think there’s also a tremendous educational opportunity.”
After the solar panels are installed, a screen will be placed near the synagogue’s entrance.
“Anyone coming into Temple will be able to see the panels in action and think about how they might take similar steps in their own homes,” Meyer said.
Robert Gleiberman, executive director of Congregation Beth Shalom, said he’s happy that the Squirrel Hill-based synagogue installed solar panels in 2021.
“They are a wonderful thing to have, to be more green and to do our part in the community and the world,” he said.
Beth Shalom undertook the eco-friendly project in tandem with fixing its leaky roof.
At the time, costs for the panels and installation ran about $240,000.
Switching to solar was a way of curbing energy expenses that climbed to nearly $70,000 per year, former board member Bruce Rollman previously told the Chronicle.
Gleiberman recently ran the numbers.
“As far as saving money on power, we know that we are,” he said. “We don’t really know how much that is. We just know that we’re saving money.”
Several factors — including fluctuating energy prices — make the math a bit cloudy. The clearer point is Beth Shalom’s take on solar panels, he continued.
“We’re happy to have them. And we’re going to explore, in the future, spots in the building where we can add more.” PJC
Adam Reinherz can be reached at areinherz@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.
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