S3K Leadership Network member Rabbi Andy Bachman has launched an interesting discussion on the Brooklyn Jews weblog (here and here) about environmentally-friendly synagogues. He asks, “can a one hundred year old building be made environmentally efficient?” and goes on to conclude in the 2nd post that

…It"s a matter of course that Jewish communities, moving well into this century knowing everything we know about the state of energy in the world, may have an ethical obligation to create sacred structures on these principles.

This discussion relates closely to an upcoming S3K initiative, the Los Angeles Sacred Space Project, an action-research study of three spiritual communities undertaking significant construction and/or renovation over the next year. One community is rebuilding its sanctuary, another will be sharing worship and office space in a yet-to-be constructed building, and a third is reconstructing much of its campus. Clearly, each of the projects has components that potentially could be green. Thanks to Andy’s prompting, we’ll be putting the issue on the table for discussion.

Maybe it isn’t easy being green — but who said the sacred was easy?

UPDATE: Andy continues the conversation with an update here. And I forgot to mention a key part of our project — we will be working with Richard S. Vosko, an long-time friend of S2K/S3K who is a leading consultant on worship environments. As he writes in his philosophy, “sensitivity to ecological …factors cannot be overlooked.”

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