I arose early on that Yom Kippur morning, dressed, grabbed my tallit, and walked from my student dorm in Rehavia near the President’s House to the Kotel (the Western Wall) in Jerusalem. As I approached the Jaffa Gate at about 6:30 am, suddenly, disturbing the quiet of Jerusalem on the holiest day of the year, 3 American-made phantom jets flew south over the Old City. I was stunned and wondered what this was about. I would learn a few minutes before 2 pm that afternoon as the sirens blared throughout the country that Israel was at war. Every able-bodied Israeli soldier was called to the two fronts in Sinai and the Golan Heights. The BBC reported that 1300 Syrian tanks had crossed the border and Egyptian forces had crossed the Bar Lev line in the Sinai.

2,656 Israelis lost their lives and 11,656 were injured in defense of the State of Israel on that day and during the ensuing three weeks. Though Israel won the war on the battlefield, the Yom Kippur War was a disaster and turning point for the Jewish State. It was unclear as the war progressed to Israel’s top political and military leadership whether the Jewish State would survive.

48 years ago seems as yesterday for me. At the time, we in Israel had no idea what was going on. We would learn much after the fact, and today an article appeared in Haaretz that explains even more about what PM Golda Meir and her closest colleagues were thinking in real time based on recently released records. You can read about it here.

Zichronam livracha – May the memory of all who died be remembered for a blessing.

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.MAGAZINE-kippur-war-docs-reveal-the-egyptian-spy-who-saved-israel-and-golda-s-soviet-fears-1.10271500?utm_source=mailchimp&utm_medium=content&utm_campaign=haaretz-news&utm_content=0cc06f2daf

As I reflect back on my teen years in the 1960s, I struggled mightily then to make sense of what it meant to be an American in light of the assassinations of JFK, MLK, and RFK, the civil rights movement, the rise of Black power and identity politics, Vietnam and the draft, college demonstrations, the drug culture and free sex, the ’68 Chicago Democratic National Convention, Nixon’s election, and McGovern’s electoral disaster, the deep divisions between the ethos of the GI generation and us Boomers, and between the political left and right. Those were hard times. Today, it feels no different. I’ll spare you the list of events over the last two decades. You’ve lived them as have I.

A recently published book by The Atlantic journalist George Packer called Last Best Hope – America in Crisis and Renewal asks how we got where we are today and how we can get out of it. He begins by characterizing four American narratives that increasingly have divided and alienated Americans one from another: “Free America,” “Smart America,” “Real America,” and “Just America.” He posits the view (citing Walt Whitman, Alexis De Tocqueville, and Bayard Rustin) that we have to reclaim “Equal America” as the guiding idea of our national identity – moral equality, civic equality, and equality of opportunity.

“Free America…draws on libertarian ideals, which it installs in the high-powered engine of consumer capitalism” with an attitude of “don’t tread on me.”

“Smart America …welcomes novelty and relishes diversity. They believe that the transnational flow of human beings, information, goods, and capital ultimately benefits most if not all people around the world….Smart America values a meritocracy, credentials and expertise, and is cosmopolitan.”

“Real America…is the authentic heart of democracy and beats hardest in common people who work with their hands.”

“Just America…sees a straight line that runs from slavery and segregation to the second-class life so many Black Americans live today – the betrayal of equality that has always been the country’s great moral shame, the dark heart of its social problems.”

All four narratives, Packer explains, “are driven by a competition for status – the consequence of this broken promise [of equality] – that generates fierce anxiety and resentment…. In Free America the winners are the makers, and the losers are the takers who want to drag the rest down in perpetual dependency on a smothering government. In Smart America the winners are the credentialed meritocrats, and the losers and the poorly educated who want to resist inevitable progress. In Real America the winners are the hardworking folk of the white Christian heartland, and the losers are the treacherous elites and contaminating others who want to destroy the country. In Just America the winners are the marginalized groups, and the losers are the dominant groups that wanted to go on dominating.” (p. 139)

Packer describes well the multiple crises facing America today. He presents the four narratives, explains how each developed and the cross-over effects of one or more, and critiques them all thereby laying the groundwork for his prescription for “Equal America.”

I found the 210-page book enlightening – at times uplifting – and I recommend it. For a thoughtful and critical review, read William Galston of the Brookings Institution in The Washington Post – “The Search for balance among four Americas” (June 11, 2021).

 

Should the Democrats in Congress fail to pass both the $1 trillion infrastructure bill and some facsimile of the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill, it will be a disaster not only for the Biden Presidency but for the nation and our democratic traditions. Yes, the reconciliation bill is large, but those who crafted the bill indicate that it is fully paid for through tax increases on large corporations and the wealthiest Americans who have not paid their fair share. The benefits that the reconciliation bill could bring are substantial to middle-class Americans in the areas of health care, early childhood education, college tuition, and more, and for everyone in fighting climate change.

For us American citizens sitting in the bleachers watching hour by hour Congressional Democrats making their sausage, their struggle to get an agreement is not only frustrating but disheartening because the consequences of their failure to get a deal are huge. Though there’s no guarantee that Democrats will retain majorities in the House and Senate in the 2022 elections if both bills pass, it is guaranteed that they will lose one or both houses if they fail. The Trump Republicans are counting on it and if Dems lose the House, the majority Trumpites will get nothing positive done. They’ll initiate all kinds of stupid investigations and take stupid votes such as impeaching Biden just because they can.

Personally, I want to see the $3.5 trillion package pass in tact. Realistically, that isn’t going to happen. So, now is the time for Democrats to swallow hard and do what they must – compromise. The $1.1 trillion infrastructure bill has already cleared the Senate with bi-partisan support, and House progressive members say they’ll pass it too as long as the second bill accompanies the first.

Taking a step back, it’s best we remember that the Democrats (progressives and moderates) are not the villains here. There are NO Republicans expected to vote for the second large bill. Yet, one or the other (progressives or moderates) can become villains if in the end they insist on their way or the highway. Allowing this huge legislative effort to fail based on “principle” means that in 2022 Trump Republicans will win one or both Houses of Congress setting up a potential return of Trump into the Oval in 2024.

Compromise is now what is required. Any fair compromise means that each side walks away both happy and unhappy. The great legislators in our era, such as Senator Ted Kennedy and Congressman Henry Waxman, approached their work driven always by principled vision on the one hand and pragmatic realism on the other. Henry once said to me in the middle of the Obamacare debate that it was important to remember not to “let the perfect be the enemy of the good.” Both Kennedy and Waxman, at the end of every legislative battle, were content to accept as much as they could and then, in subsequent years, seek improvement on what they had already accomplished. Their records of legislative success over decades are second to none. Their pragmatic realism is what Democrats need now.

Thankfully, Speaker Pelosi and Leader Schumer are masters of the House and Senate. Consequently, I still have hope that they will succeed (today?) in shepherding these bills forward to the President’s desk for signature.

Here are two apt quotes on the importance of compromise from two Jews who lived nearly 2000 years apart:

“It is meritorious to compromise.” -Rabbi Joshua ben Korcha, Talmud, Sanhedrin 6b

“The opposite of compromise is not pride or integrity or idealism. The opposite of compromise is fanaticism and death.” -Amos Oz, Dear Zealots – Letters from a Divided Land (New York: Mariner Books, 2019)

I am bound not to quote anyone who writes on a restricted rabbinic list serve on which 2300 Reform rabbis internationally discuss matters large and small, religious and mundane, lofty and pragmatic. However, a recent posting elicited a great deal of response about which I want to say a few words while, at the same time, holding to the confidentiality agreement.

One colleague asked what we all thought she ought to say and do concerning her adult son-in-law who is anti-vaccine and an 8^th grade teacher where the local hospitals’ ICUs have been overwhelmed by people fighting for their lives against Covid. (I changed a few of the details to protect this colleague’s identity).

Some of my colleagues argued from philosophy; others from the position of parenting adult children and their partners; and others from the position of autonomy (a high value in liberal Judaism) and social responsibility (a high value in Judaism generally).

The old story of the acceptability of a man drilling a hole under his seat in a boat thus allowing water to enter the craft and eventually sink it and then defending his action because the hole is under his seat and no one else’s is obviously appropriate to this conversation and to the many mandates for vaccination of federal and some state workers, those in large companies, many school districts, religious houses of worship, and in Israel’s Haredi and Arab communities.

One colleague put it right when he responded to another colleague who called this conversation “complicated.”

“It is not at all ‘complicated’ in any ethical system I know of” she wrote. “Society has the right to limit the freedom of its members to protect the public. Sometimes it may be difficult to determine where to grant license and where to apply limits to personal conduct, but not on the question of the value of human life.”

The problem in America today regarding vaccines and masks has nothing to do, ultimately, with autonomy and personal freedom, and everything to do with POLITICS (ala Trump and his sycophants) that are distorting morality and social responsibility and threatening people’s lives. It’s an entire other issue in Israel’s Haredi and Arab communities. But, in all of them, we are each other’s keepers and those government, business, educational, and religious leaders who require proof of vaccine for entry and participation in employment and social spaces are our best guarantors of freedom and life because everyone who dies or is disabled from this pandemic because of rigidity, ignorance, or refusal to get the vaccination risks losing everything.

Also posted at the Times of Israel – https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-600-pound-elephant-anonymous/

Since the 1967 Six-Day War when Israel conquered all of Jerusalem from Jordan including the Old City, then General Moshe Dayan made an agreement with Jerusalem’s Muslim authority (The Waqf) on behalf of the State of Israel that no Jewish prayer services would be allowed on the Temple Mount.

The Temple Mount is the holiest site in all of Judaism. The 37-acre platform built by King Herod on which he reconstructed the 2^nd Jerusalem Temple in the first century BCE now houses the Islamic Dome of the Rock, a magnificent Byzantine structure (built in 691–92 CE) over the site that legend teaches Mohamed rose to heaven. Only meters away is the Al Aqsa Mosque (i.e. “The Southernmost Mosque”), the third holiest Islamic shrine after Mecca and Medina.

Israeli authorities understood in 1967 that for Israel to allow Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount could spark an international conflagration with the Muslim world of nearly two billion faithful. The rabbis of yore argued from a religious perspective that it was sacrilegious for any Jew to set foot on the platform out of the fear of stepping onto what was once the Holy of Holies, the Inner Sanctum of the Ancient Temple, a space forbidden to every Jew except the Jewish High Priest on the afternoon of Yom Kippur.

The agreement between Israel and the Waqf has held since 1967, but the arrangement has given way recently to something entirely new and potentially very dangerous, so reports Anshel Pfeffer of Haaretz in his piece In Jerusalem’s Holiest Site, These Modern Pilgrims Are Playing With Fire (September 14, 2021).

I was stunned by what Pfeffer revealed, and I worry that, as his article’s title warns, these Jewish religious pilgrims are indeed playing with fire. Though the Waqf seems to know that Jews are praying on this Muslim (and Jewish) sacred site and is saying nothing about it (so far), the more it becomes known that Jewish prayer is taking place there the greater will be the risk that more and more Jews will flock to join in thus stoking more Muslim-Jewish violence in an already highly fraught chaotic political cauldron between Jews and Muslims, Israelis and Palestinians in the city of Jerusalem.

“For the sake of peace” (a high Jewish virtue – mipnei darchei shalom), Jewish prayer there should cease immediately and the Israeli-Waqf agreement be reaffirmed. That said, something unique in the Jewish world is actually happening in a quiet section of the large platform that should be repeated in more traditional sites, such as at the Western Wall, in Israel generally, and around the Jewish world.

Individual prayer is taking place there that includes a wide variety of Jews, religious and non-Orthodox, men and women. They pray respectfully alongside each other without apparent judgement of one another. They do not hold prayer books, or carry Torah scrolls, or offer divrei Torah. They pray using apps on their cell phones twice a day (morning and afternoon), don’t shuckle in their davening, and keep their voices to a whisper so as not to attract undue attention.

Borrowing some of their language cited by Anshel Pfeffer in Haaretz (link below), I offer a poetic reflection that I hope evokes the spirit and consequences of what these Jews are doing upon the ruins of the ancient Beit Ha-Mikdash and contemporary “Noble Sanctuary.”

“At the window of yearning / Standing quietly / A smattering of Jews visit God / Speaking blessings in muted tones / Reading from their cell phones sans prayer books / Touching sanctity devoid of religious judgement / Against other religious streams / Risking massive inter-religious conflagration / Where once a massive building stood / A sacred palace of peace.”

Seems innocent enough when considered out of context, and the motives of these Jews may be quite pure. But the consequences of their continuing to pray on this hotly contested symbolically loaded piece of earth are frightening.

See Anshel Pfeffer’s article – https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.HIGHLIGHT.MAGAZINE-in-jerusalem-s-holiest-site-these-modern-pilgrims-are-playing-with-fire-1.10209633

The blog was also published at the Times of Israel – https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/at-the-window-of-yearning-a-frightening-threat/

I did not know Ida Nudel personally, but I got my start as a Jewish activist in 1970 through the Bay Area Council on Soviet Jewry (San Francisco) that was among the first organizations in American Jewish life fighting on behalf of the right of Soviet Jews to emigrate to Israel (or America). As a 20 year-old, the names of Natan (nee Anatoly) Sharansky and Ida Nudel were the inspiration of our activism in America. I was privileged to meet Sharansky a number of times, but never Nudel – but I knew her story and am quite certain that she will go down in Jewish history as one of our most courageous and storied leaders.

Zichrona livracha – May her memory be a blessing.

timesofisrael.comFormer refusenik and Soviet Jewish activist Ida Nudel dies at 90Known as ‘Guardian Angel’ for humanitarian work on behalf of Zionist prisoners held in Soviet Union, Nudel moved to Israel after receiving the exit visa she spent years pursuing

Note: This prayer was first written and posted on the 10^th anniversary of 9/11 in 2011.

Eternal God, / Source and Creator of Life; / From the depths we have called to You / and we call to You again for courage, strength, and wisdom on this 20^the year anniversary of our nation’s tragedy.

Grant us courage to confront our enemies. / Comfort those who stand alone without spouse, parent, brother, sister, or friend. / Open our hearts to them and to the children orphaned. / Enable us to love more deeply all children who suffer. / Accept with mercy our prayers of healing on behalf of the families of the victims / and on behalf of the first responders who became ill at Ground Zero and who eventually died as a consequence.

Despite the horror and tragedy of 9/11, / our country remains a shelter of peace, / a symbol of freedom / a beacon light of compassion and justice / to the downtrodden and oppressed of the world.

Strengthen the hands of our people to defend this country / and our common values of freedom and justice. / Inspire our leaders and diplomats / to act wisely and to pursue peace everywhere in the world.

May we teach our children to learn and to think, / to consider and to reason, / to be courageous in thought and in deed, / and to nurture hearts of wisdom / that they may do battle against fear, hatred and bigotry / using weapons of the spirit and loving hearts.

We offer our prayers / on behalf of our country and government, our President and judiciary, / our officials and institutions, our soldiers and citizens, / upon all who faithfully toil for the good of our country, / to preserve democracy in our land, / to advocate for civility between adversaries, / and to treat every human being as infinitely worthy and dignified / by virtue of being created b’Tzelem Elohim, in the Divine image.

Bestow upon us all the blessings of peace, / and may we live to see the day / when swords will be converted into plowshares / and nations will not learn war anymore. / Amen!

By Rabbi John L. Rosove, Senior Rabbi Emeritus, Temple Israel of Hollywood, Los Angeles, CA

Posted originally in The Times of Israel – see https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/a-prayer-in-memory-of-the-victims-of-september-11/

When I studied the History of Art as an undergraduate, I recall a drawing (I don’t remember the artist) of a “Scapegoat” surrounded by fumes, and Aaron, the High Priest, sending it off alone into the desert. The ritual is found in the traditional scriptural reading in synagogues on Yom Kippur morning (see Leviticus 16:10, 21-22).

It was a powerful image showing how a hapless goat was believed to absorb and carry away the transgressions of an entire people thereby leaving the community relieved of its sins and guilt. This transference was affected through the hands of the High Priest that gathered and held all the people’s character flaws, destructive sinful obsessions of jealousy, envy, pride, lust, egotism, rage, revenge, cynicism, and guilt. The innocent goat was exiled to a place called Azazel (now understood to be the Kidron Valley just south of Jerusalem’s Old City walls) and is the origin of the notion of “scapegoating” a despised “other,” a phenomenon, of course, not at all based on the character of the innocent “other” but rather on the projection and transference of the community’s evil inclinations.

In the rabbinic period that formally began after the destruction of the 2^nd Jerusalem Temple in 70 CE, the rabbis taught (based on the moral preaching of the biblical prophets) that greater moral, psychological, and spiritual accountability was required to effect change and bring about societal renewal. They taught that the most constructive and effective ways for the community and individuals to cope with and transcend their negative drives and emotions include a return to God, Torah, community, and self (t’shuvah), self-judgment (shifut atzmi), forgiveness (s’lichah), memory of the virtues of our forebears (zich’ronot), fasting (tzom), various other kinds of physical self-denial (hach’chashah atzmit), deeds of loving-kindness (g’milut chasadim) and simply loving others (ahavah) by virtue of the religious truth that all human beings are created in the Divine image (b’tzelem Elohim) and thus embody infinite value and worth. Those who take seriously these principles and virtuous behaviors clean the moral grime away covering the soul, heretofore existing in darkness, to shine into the world and for our people to become a light to the nations (or lagoyim – Isaiah 60:3).

In Ray Bradbury’s complex allegorical tale of good and evil, Something Wicked This Way Comes (the title’s origin derives from Shakespeare’s Macbeth – Act IV, Scene I – in a phrase spoken by a witch who knows something bad is coming because there’s a tingling sensation in her thumbs), the author describes the disappearance and re-emergence of “an old almost forgotten dog,” reminiscent of the Levitical scapegoat:

“Some time every year that dog, good for many months, just ran on out into the world and didn’t come back for days and finally did limp back all burred and scrawny and odorous of swamps and dumps; he had rolled in the dirty mangers and foul dropping places of the world, simply to turn home with a funny little smile pinned to his muzzle. Dad named the dog Plato, the wilderness philosopher, for you saw by his eyes there was nothing he didn’t know. Returned, the dog would live in innocence again, tread patterns of grace, for months, then vanish, and the whole thing start over.” (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1962, pages 78-79)

Both Leviticus and Something Wicked assume the existence of a harsh, corrupt, cynical, morally-disheartening, and soul-crushing world against which humankind must cope to morally survive and renew itself. I need not detail the evidence nor the pain experienced by so many this past year. They are far too numerous to list. Much of it, of course, is human induced and consequently we bear the responsibility of our actions and inaction. The hapless scapegoat and the bruised wandering dog are concrete reminders that humankind is far from adequately evolved emotionally, psychologically, morally, and spiritually, and that we individuals, the Jewish community, and humankind have a long way to go to responsibly purge ourselves of our destructive obsessions, impulses, and actions.

The High Holidays, thankfully, arrive annually to reengage us (if we haven’t been doing so throughout the year) in the necessary inner restorative work that enables the full flowering of the virtues of humility, appreciation, generosity, justice, kindness, love, and peace. May these Ten Days of T’shuvah (return, turning) and Yom Kippur be a time of reflection, self-criticism, commitment to do better, and renewal.

G’mar chatimah tovah.

This blog was originally posted at The Times of Israel – https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/a-goat-and-an-old-almost-forgotten-dog/

There is much for us to think about individually and as a Jewish community this High Holiday season. Our world is in turmoil, Covid threatens too many people’s lives and health, the climate is demonstrably more and more threatening to life on earth, American political polarization, economic disparities, bigotry, and racial tensions threaten our democracy, Israel has yet to adequately address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and people everywhere are seeking wisdom to help them manage their lives and cope with the manifold challenges we face. All this inspired me to share the words of the Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai, and the Talmudic sages Ben Zoma, Rabbi Ilai, and Hillel. I hope that their words hold meaning for you.

[1] The Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai always inspires me. He wrote of the spirit of renewal, one of the central themes of the upcoming High Holiday season:

“From the place where we are right / Flowers will never grow / In the spring.”

These simple three phrases suggest that humility is essential to natural and human growth and that the other virtues are dependent upon it.

I offer three more short passages from Talmudic literature that speak of virtues cherished in Jewish tradition and worthy of our consideration as we enter into the New Year.

[2] “Ben Zoma said:

“Eizeh hu chacham – Who is wise? Ha-lomed mi kol adam – The one who learns something from every other human being.

Eizeh hu gibor – Who is strong? Ha-kovesh et yitzro – the one who subdues his/her evil inclination.

Eizeh hu ashir – Who is wealthy? Ha-sameiach b’chelko – The one who is satisfied with his/her portion.

Eizeh hu m’chubad – Who is honored? Ha-m’chabed et ha-briyot – The one who honors others.” Mishna Avot 4:1

Commentary:

Ben Zoma’s answers to his questions (Who is wise? Who is strong? Who is wealthy? Who is honored?) are the opposite of what we might expect.

Wisdom depends not on being the smartest person with the highest IQ in the room, but on developing high emotional intelligence that begins with humility so as to be able to learn something new in the interaction with every person we encounter, young or old, wise or simple, wealthy or poor, friend or foe, of high or low station.

Strength isn’t determined by physical brawn, but by our ability to control our anger, lust, craving, and desire.

Wealth is not measured by the accumulation of more and better material things, but by how satisfied we are with whatever we possess.

Honor is not attained by the striving after position, but by humility before all, and by deference and generosity towards others thus honoring who they are and openly respecting and praising their virtues and accomplishments.

[3] “Rabbi Ilai says: Bishloshah devarim adam nikar: b’koso, u-v’kiso, u-v’ka-aso. V’amri lei: af b’sach’ko – a person is known by three things: one’s cup, one’s wallet, and one’s anger. Some say: one’s enjoyment of life (i.e. how a person spends one’s leisure time). Talmud, Eruvim 65a

Commentary:

A person’s nature, values, and integrity are measured and observed when he/she drinks too much liquor or abuses other mind-altering substances (koso –“cup”), by one’s integrity in business and honesty in every day financial affairs, and generosity towards others (kiso –“wallet”), how one controls one’s emotions (ka-aso –anger), and some say how one spends one’s leisure time (sach’ko – fun time).

[4] “A man came before Hillel and asked to be converted. Hillel said – Da-alach s’nei l’chav’rach la ta-aveid – That which is hateful to you do not do to another – zo hi kol haTorah kulah – that is the entire Torah – v’idakh peirusha hu, zil g’mor – and the rest is its interpretation. Go study.” Talmud, Shabbat 31a

Commentary:

The so-called “Golden Rule” is a variation on three words in the central verse in the central book of the five books of Moses – Leviticus 19:18 – “V’ahavta l’reiacha kamocha!” “You shall love your neighbor as you love yourself” because like him/her, “I” (the Holy Creator) created you in the Divine image.” (Genesis 1:27)

A prayer for the New Year 5782

May each of us, the people we love, all those in our friendship and collegial circles, and in our wider Jewish community be healthy and strengthened in our communal and individual resolve to grow, confront challenge, be creative, relevant, and productive on behalf of others. May our liberal Jewish and progressive Zionist values guide us in confronting injustice and hardship and in promoting human dignity and human rights. And may our people in Israel and around the world know safety and peace.

L’shanah tovah u-m’tukah – A good and sweet New Year to you all.

This blog also appears at The Times of Israel – https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-wisdom-of-4-sages-and-a-blessing-for-the-new-year/

In today’s NY Times “Sunday Review” cover story by Abraham Lustgarten, an environmental reporter for ProPublica, he reviews the dramatic effect of climate change on the stunning loss of water in the Colorado River and what it means in the not-too-distant future for the Western United States, agricultural production for the entire country, and meat sales in the Middle East and Asia.

Lustgarten’s article is long (2300 words) and I usually resist reading anything so hefty. But the photographs are stunning and the story is so disturbing that I read through to the end. I encourage you to do the same, but for those faint-of-heart and, like me, disinclined to read very long articles, here are Lustgarten’s salient points with suggested solutions that will take a massive reordering of society in order to address climate change on the one hand and water consumption on the other.

As we move into the High Holiday season beginning on Monday evening, September 6^th, with Rosh Hashanah, we will celebrate the created world as we look inward, become more self-critical, and strive to evolve into more conscientious moral beings.

A Midrash to the Book of Ecclesiastes (8:28) clarifies our directive vis a vis the created world:

“In the hour when the Holy One, blessed be God, created the first human being, God took the person and let him/her pass before all the trees of the Garden of Eden, and said to the person: See my works, how fine and excellent they are! Now all that I have created, for you have I created it. Think upon this, and do not corrupt and desolate my world; for if you corrupt it, there is no one to set it right after you.”

What follows are Lustgarten’s most important points:

• Lake Mead, a reservoir formed by the construction of the Hoover Dam in the 1930s, is one of the most important pieces of infrastructure on the Colorado River, supplying fresh water to Nevada, California, Arizona and Mexico. The reservoir hasn’t been full since 1983. In 2000, it began a steady decline caused by epochal drought. In 2015, the lake was just about 40 percent full.
• For years, experts in the American West have predicted that, unless the steady overuse of water was brought under control, the Colorado River would no longer be able to support all of the 40 million people who depend on it.
• Like the record-breaking heat waves and the ceaseless mega-fires, the decline of the Colorado River has been faster than expected. This year, even though rainfall and snowpack high up in the Rocky Mountains were at near-normal levels, the parched soils and plants stricken by intense heat absorbed much of the water, and inflows to Lake Powell were around one-fourth of their usual amount. The Colorado’s flow has already declined by nearly 20 percent, on average, from its flow throughout the 1900s, and if the current rate of warming continues, the loss could well be 50 percent by the end of this century.
• Earlier this month, federal officials declared an emergency water shortage on the Colorado River for the first time.
• The Colorado River provides water for the people of seven states, 29 federally recognized tribes and northern Mexico, and its water is used to grow everything from the carrots stacked on supermarket shelves in New Jersey to the beef in a hamburger served at a Massachusetts diner. The power generated by its two biggest dams — the Hoover and Glen Canyon — is marketed across an electricity grid that reaches from Arizona to Wyoming.
• The Census Bureau released numbers showing that, even as the drought worsened over recent decades, hundreds of thousands more people have moved to the regions that depend on the Colorado.
• Phoenix expanded more over the past 10 years than any other large American city, while smaller urban areas across Arizona, Nevada, Utah and California each ranked among the fastest-growing places in the country. The river’s water supports roughly 15 million more people today than it did when Bill Clinton was elected president in 1992.
• Since about 70 percent of water delivered from the Colorado River goes to growing crops, not to people in cities, the next step will likely be to demand large-scale reductions for farmers and ranchers across millions of acres of land.
• California’s enormous share of the river, which it uses to irrigate crops across the Imperial Valley and for Los Angeles and other cities, will be in the cross hairs when negotiations over a diminished Colorado begin again.
• New Mexico, Colorado, Utah and Wyoming will most likely also face pressure to use less water.
• With the building of the Hoover Dam to collect and store river water, and the development of the Colorado’s plumbing system of canals and pipelines to deliver it, the West was able to open a savings account to fund its extraordinary economic growth. Over the years since, those states have overdrawn the river’s average deposits.
• Leaders in Western states have allowed wasteful practices to continue that add to the material threat facing the region. A majority of the water used by farms goes to growing nonessential crops like alfalfa and other grasses that feed cattle for meat production. Much of those grasses are also exported to feed animals in the Middle East and Asia.

Water usage data suggests that if Americans avoid meat one day each week they could save an amount of water equivalent to the entire flow of the Colorado each year, more than enough water to alleviate the region’s shortages.

• Ranchers often take their maximum allocation of water each year, even if just to spill it on the ground, for fear that, if they don’t, they could lose the right to take that water in the future.
• About 10 percent of the river’s recent total flow evaporates off the sprawling surfaces of large reservoirs as they bake in the sun. Last year, evaporative losses from Lake Mead and Lake Powell alone added up to almost a million acre feet of water — or nearly twice what Arizona will be forced to give up now as a result of this month’s shortage declaration. These losses are increasing as the climate warms.

What to do about this?

• Over the years, Western states and tribes have agreed on voluntary cuts, which defused much of the political chaos that would otherwise have resulted from this month’s shortage declaration, but they remain disparate and self-interested parties hoping they can miraculously agree on a way to manage the river without truly changing their ways.
• For all their wishful thinking, climate science suggests there is no future in the region that does not include serious disruptions to its economy, growth trajectory, and perhaps even quality of life.
• The uncomfortable truth is that difficult and unpopular decisions are now unavoidable.
• The laws that determine who gets water in the West, and how much of it, are based on the principle of “beneficial use” — generally the idea that resources should further economic advancement.
• But whose economic advancement?
• Do we support the farmers in Arizona who grow alfalfa to feed cows in the United Arab Emirates?
• Or do we ensure the survival of the Colorado River, which supports some 8 percent of the nation’s G.D.P.?

• Water levels in Lake Mead could drop by another 40 vertical feet by the middle 2023, ultimately reaching just 1,026 feet above sea level — an elevation that further threatens Lake Mead’s hydroelectric power generation for about 1.3 million people in Arizona, California and Nevada. At 895 feet, the reservoir would become what’s called a “dead pool”; water would no longer be able to flow downstream.
• Fantastical and expensive solutions that have previously been dismissed by the federal government — like the desalinization of seawater, towing icebergs from the Arctic, or pumping water from the Mississippi River through a pipeline — are likely to be seriously considered.
• None of this, however, will be enough to solve the problem unless it’s accompanied by serious efforts to lower carbon dioxide emissions, which are ultimately responsible for driving changes to the climate.