In last Sunday’s New York Times Magazine’s Green Issue, Michael Pollan asked the question that tugs at the anxious heartstrings of every environmentalist, “why bother?” “What’s the point of living green?” he asks - planting a garden, turning down the thermostat, and carrying a reusable mug if:

“I know full well that halfway around the world there lives my evil twin, some carbon-footprint doppelgänger in Shanghai or Chongqing who has just bought his first car (Chinese car ownership is where ours was back in 1918), is eager to swallow every bite of meat I forswear and who’s positively itching to replace every last pound of CO2 I’m struggling no longer to emit.”

Moreover, what good are these personal lifestyle choices if our businesses and governments continue to spew chemicals into rivers and give tax incentives to commodity crop farmers and SUV-makers? The answer, Pollan suggests (calling upon the infinite wisdom of farmer-activist, Wendell Berry) is: because together, we can change the world.

Pollan says: “The climate-change crisis is at its very bottom a crisis of lifestyle — of character, even. The Big Problem is nothing more or less than the sum total of countless little everyday choices, most of them made by us (consumer spending represents 70 percent of our economy), and most of the rest of them made in the name of our needs and desires and preferences.”

No doubt, Pollan’s tone is reminiscent of 70’s activism - the “If only everyone did their part, the world would be full of sunshine” idealism that has (perhaps rightfully so) been all but dismissed in our cynical 21st century context. But the times they are a’different. Green living is riding a tidal wave these days. Riding a bike to work, switching to CFL lightbulbs, eating organic (or even being vegetarian, as Pollan surprisingly suggests) is no longer just the stuff of a hippie fringe culture. It has, for better and for worse, hit the mainstream in America. For the first time in recent history, we have a decent shot of tipping public consciousness and action scales towards numbers that really make a difference. We have a shot of getting to a point where:

“Driving an S.U.V. or eating a 24-ounce steak or illuminating your McMansion like an airport runway at night might come to be regarded as outrages to human conscience. Not having things might become cooler than having them. And those who did change the way they live would acquire the moral standing to demand changes in behavior from others — from other people, other corporations, even other countries. “

All this hopeful talk - well, it gets me very excited - but it also got me thinking about counting the omer - the Jewish tradition of orally acknowledging the days between Passover and Shavuot. (This practice derives from the Torah commandment to count forty-nine days beginning from the day on which the Omer - a sacrifice containing an omer-measure of barley - was offered in the Temple in Jerusalem, up until the day before an offering of wheat was brought to the Temple on Shavuot.)

Pollan, of course, does not make an explicit connection between green living and counting the omer in his article (though he does suggest that everyone should observe the Sabbath - one day a week [of abstaining] completely from economic activity: no shopping, no driving, no electronics.” But the connection is there. Just go with me for a minute.

Another rebbe of mine, Hazon’s Executive Director, Nigel Savage, loves counting the omer. He makes an explicit point of doing so every year. Even more so, he likes to talk about the how counting the omer offers a chance to meditate on different types of freedom: freedom from and freedom to.

He says:

Eating matzah on Pesach reminds us of all the things we want to be free from: oppression, slavery, stuff. Shavuot, the time of the giving of the Torah, represents our freedom to limit choices, freedom to restrain ourselves, freedom to self-obligate. Freedom to eat bread, and to choose how to enjoy the abundance and choices available to us.

In other words, Shavuot reminds us of our freedom to limit ourselves - to make choices, to (like the beer commercials like to say) “Enjoy responsibly.” I think this Shavuot mindset exactly mirrors what Pollan means when he urges us to “rip up our lawns and plant gardens,” to stop being paralyzed by fear and to understand our own power - our own radical freedom - to make a difference.

So, as we count the omer towards Shavuot, my blessing and hope is that we all find ways to realize our freedom to bother - and, yes, to change the world.