Derech Hateva (literally “Nature's Way,” and used figuratively to refer to the natural course of events) seeks to reacquaint Jews with the land that was the birthplace of Judaism. Speaking about its largest program, the Israel Trail Teen Adventure for American and Israeli teens, Derech Hateva’s founder and director Yael Ukeles says, "It is very different than the average teen summer bus tour. In small groups, we walk the land like Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Without cell phones or Ipods we connect to the land and to each other. We learn outdoors and leadership skills, with are empowering as they are essentially life skills.
Ukeles, who worked for several hi-tech companies before changing directions and launching Derech Hateva, says she grew up trekking and climbing for personal reasons, but ended up with the realization that such programs were missing from the Jewish community. Pursuing training in “outdoor education,” Ukeles found it challenging to take part in organized courses due to her religious observance. “It was a challenge. Keeping kosher was difficult, but doable, but finding programs that would not hike on Shabbat was nearly impossible.”
“Shabbat had always been such a positive experience and suddenly it became very limiting,” she said. Ukeles decided that there must be others who have sought to take part in such activities, who would gain from an outdoors experience that was open to the Sabbath-observant community.
As a part of her training, Ukeles found a ten-day NOLS (National Outdoor Leadership School) course in wilderness medicine (the course had a break on its sixth day – “I would have gone anywhere that said they were starting out on a Monday,” she recalls).
She went on to found Teva Adventure, which partnered with NOLS with the goal of bringing that programming to the observant Jewish community. Teva Adventure sent its first group, which consisted of six religious young men, to Alaska. The logistical aspects of enabling Sabbath observance in the wilderness were first put to the test on the Alaskan glacier. “It may have been the first time that an eruv [food and a perimeter of poles and wire enclosing an area, allowing Jews to carry on the Sabbath –ed.] was put up with ice screws,” she recalls fondly.
Ukeles decided to replicate the program in Israel. With the help of the Jerusalem branch of the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel (SPNI), Derech Hateva was launched. "I wanted to take what we had learned from the programs in the US to allow participants to gain from these life-changing experiences and also connect them to the land of Israel," she said.
The logistics and halakhic (Jewish legal) challenges of making Shabbat in the middle of the forest are not the only focus of Derech Hateva. The program is part of a growing awareness in the Jewish community of ecological aspects of Jewish tradition, as well as practical applications of the Jewish people’s return to Israel and the responsibilities that engaging in industry and development of one’s eternal homeland entail.
The term Eco-Judaism has been used to refer to the rise in environmental Jewish programming, but Derech HaTeva’s coordinators see it as a loaded term that obscures the central role that environmental awareness and appreciation of nature play in classical Judaism. ”Eco-Judaism is no more Judaism-for-nature-lovers than Talmud is Judaism-for-lawyers or the building of a Sukkah is Judaism-for-carpenters,” says Yannai Kranzler, a Derech Hateva staff member. “King David was never written off as an ‘eco-Jew’ for using nature to inspire him in writing many of his Psalms.
“As Jews, we are mandated to take responsibility for our actions, to understand that what we do has consequences. We are required to be careful not to harm others and ourselves with what we produce and consume. Our relationship with G-d is contingent upon our respect and care for His creations. To be conscious of one’s environment, to be inspired by it, to appreciate, respect and protect that which was given to us - everything from our bodies, to our fellow man to the world around us - is therefore a primary religious pursuit. The term ‘eco-Judaism’ is flawed in that by separating ecology from Judaism, it implies that this sense of accountability is somehow separate from the essence of the Jewish people and Torah.”
Batel Meshel, who guided one of the groups on last summer's teen program (which was rerouted down south due to the war), says the program “teaches people about the environment around them using their five senses – fixed with Jewish goggles.” She teaches the participants the principles of “leave no trace” – meaning minimum-impact camping, using Jewish textual sources.
Meshel became involved in Derech Hateva after hearing Ukeles lecture at the Simchat Shlomo yeshiva’s Eco-Activist Beit Midrash program, located in Jerusalem’s Nachlaot neighborhood. She now helps coordinate the Israel Trail Teen Adventure (ITTA), the month-long backpacking, hiking, biking and volunteer program along the Israel Trail (shvil Yisrael) taking place each summer.
The response to the program has exceeded organizers’ expectations. “When I read participants’ comments about Derech Hateva programs I am amazed,” Kranzler says. “When teenagers speak about ‘living Judaism, not just learning it,’ as one participant commented, or arriving at the understanding that they can ‘achieve anything when they put their mind to it,’ as did another, you know that something different and special is going on here.”
Ukeles says that participants have conveyed two central realizations following their encounter with nature. “There is the experience of how big G-d is, and the realization that you can make Shabbat anywhere,” she says.
Though the program is is mostly English-speakers, is has local projects for Israelis as well. One is a year-long program for young people from development towns called Kehilat Natan (in memory of JJ Greenberg), which is funded by donors. Eight children from Maalot and Netivot received full scholarships to attend the summer program last year and initiated projects in their communities throughout the year to convey the values they gained from the trip. This year will continue the project and include immigrants from Ethiopia as well.
Ukeles still sees a long road ahead. “I am concerned about our world from both a Jewish educational and environmental perspective,” she says. “The Jewish religion is so completely connected to the natural world, but it has become so urbanized. It is hard to talk about G-d in the classroom. But it is hard not to talk about G-d outdoors. Getting outside reminds people of some central lessons: That we shouldn’t give up because we are stronger than we think, that we can and must fix that which is broken and at the same time that we do not control everything and that that is OK. That is where faith comes in.”
Derech Hateva runs programs aside from the Israel Trail Teen Adventure (for Israeli and American teens) with yeshivas and seminaries, as well as during holiday vacations. Other custom and modular programs are tailored for visiting US high schools and other tours and groups, including a post-Birthright program. This summer's teen program will feature both religious and multi-denominational male and female groups.
For more information, email programs@derechhateva.org