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“LO TOHU V'RAH-AH LASHEVET YIT-TZEE-RAH-GOD DID NOT CREATE THE WORLD IN ORDER THAT IT MIGHT BECOME A WASTE; GOD FORMED IT FOR HUMAN HABITATION.” (lSAIAH 45:18)
When Moses was given the charge to liberate the Hebrews from Egyptian bondage, God spoke with Moses and said, “Moses, I have good news for you and bad news for you. The good news is that you will free the Israelites, you will split the Red Sea in half, Pharaoh and his host will drown in the closing sea, you will lead the Children of Israel through the desert for forty years, and the Israelites will collect manna for food as they travel. The bad news is that you will be responsible for the environmental impact statement!”
We may laugh at this fantasy, but the fact of the matter is that everything we do has some consequence for the environment, whether intended or unintended. Because resources of fresh air, clean water, minerals, plant and animal life seem unlimited, we have taken these precious gifts for granted and have not always been good stewards of the earth. NASA scientists, James Lovelock (1988) theorized that the Earth is a living organism; he harkened back to mythology to express the interconnectedness of all living things. Utilizing the mother-goddess, Gaia, the metaphoric embodiment of the fruitful earth and giver of life and fertility to plants, animals, and human beings, Lovelockís Gaia Hypothesis posits that Gaia is the total planetary being. Gaia properties cannot be discerned by simply studying an individual specie or organism. All things are interconnected.
The Gaia Hypothesis states that “the temperature, oxidation, state, acidity, and certain aspects of the rocks and water are kept constant, and that this homeostasis is maintained by active feedback processes operated automatically and unconsciously by the biota, a collection of all processes and individual living organisms.”
If we believe that the earth must maintain a homeostatic level to sustain life on earth, then we are forced to conclude that rising sea levels, more rain/less rain and increasingly disruptive and unusually destructive weather patterns of floods and droughts, deteriorating public health, agricultural displacement, wildlife and aquatic ecosystem disruptions may well be the result of increasingly larger releases of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, and other products of the industrial revolution and vastly increasing and over consuming populations.
It has not always been easy to form coalitions that would join together to join together in the care of the earth. It has, for example, taken the faith and environmental communities some decades to overcome mistrust that once defined their relationships. Ambivalence by the environmental community toward religion was centered in its belief that religion was primarily concerned with otherworldliness. Furthermore, the belief that Genesis 1:28, the command for human beings to subdue the earth and have dominion over all living things, provided a religious justification for subjugation of nature and empire building, and heightened that distrust. Environmentalists frequently wrote off religion as an ally because they saw the Judeo-Christian tradition as responsible for elevating human beings and devaluing nature. Religion was viewed as being centered on the attitude: who needs to focus on trees when issues concerning the poor and weak are so pressing.
Conversely, some religious leaders viewed environmentalism as the province of science, and further feared that such activism would be construed as New Age pantheism and nature worship, a charge countered by the response that people worship the Creator and not the creation. Ambivalence by the faith community toward the environmental community often on the charge that environmentalists viewed nature as something to be controlled and even created.
However, accompanying disillusionment with science and technology has been an increased interest in spirituality among members of the environmental community. Furthermore, there is recognition that any successful effort must include mainstream participants. If the environmental movement is viewed only as a bunch of “tree huggers,” it looses credibility.
The chagim ou zímanim, the three biblically mandated festivals, Sukkot (fall thanksgiving harvest), Passover (spring planting) and Shavuot (late spring barley harvest provide worshipper with a personal opportunity to connect with the rhythms of the agricultural cycle that have been an important component of Jewish tradition. For example, the practice of leaving the land fallow of every seventh year and releasing all debts, termed in Hebrew as shmita and yovelósabbatical and Jubilee years, is a period in which “The Land must not be sold beyond reclaim (Leviticus 25:23-24).”
Six years you may sow your field and six years you may prune your vineyard and gather the yield. But in the seventh year the land shall have a Sabbath of complete rest, a Sabbath of the Lord: you shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard. You shall not reap the aftergrowth of your harvest or gather the grapes of your untrimmed vines; it shall be a year of complete rest for the land (Leviticus 25:3-6).
The new term “eco-kosher” is being applied to food raised in an environmentally responsible way. Care for the environment and social justice are interwoven. And this care is extended to the animal world as well. Tzaíar baíale hayyim is the Hebrew term given to special consideration for animals, the prohibition from needlessly causing unnecessary pain to animals. For example, it is forbidden to muzzle an ox that is threshing grain, human slaughter is a necessity, and two animals of different strength may not be yoked together. If an animal has stumbled and fallen on the road, his predicament may not be ignored (Deuteronomy 25:4).
We Jews who teach our children about the passage from slavery to freedom, from winter to spring, from oppression and exile to liberty and native land must also instruct our children that they are stewards, guardians, and protectors of our God-given mother earth. Judaism is a tradition that holds each human being, each creature, each little corner of the planet to be sacred. Our hallowed writings are replete with statements emphasizing the value we place on life and the fact that there are limits to unacceptable human behavior. The Talmud reminds us that Adam, the first human being, was created as a single being to demonstrate that he was a progenitor of an entire world of successive generations. If he or any creature does not survive, many potential worlds are destroyed. When the last creature of a species dies, it cannot be recreated; there can be no replacement. Thus, after the completion of creation, rabbinic legend declares that God said to Adam the first man: “See My world, how beautiful it is. Do not corrupt or destroy it for if you do, there will be no one to set it right after you” (Koheleth Rabbah 7.13).
Many religious traditions demand respect for Godís creation. Though each may have its own terminology for the stewardship or guardianship of plant and animal kingdoms, the newly minted term, eco-reverence expresses the relationship of the faith community with nature. Eco-reverence is best characterized by the levitical authorís comment: “the land is Mine, you are My tenants” (Leviticus 25:23). As tenants, temporary residents, we have a responsibility to return the premises to the Landlord exactly as we found them, if not just a bit improved.
Judaism utilizes the Hebrew term bal taschit for eco-reverence. Contained in this term is the warning against wanton destruction of the environment because creation is viewed as an ongoing process in which God and human beings are considered co-partners in safeguarding its riches. Nineteenth century rabbi, Samson Raphael Hirsch summarized the principle of bal taschit:
“Do not destroy anything!” This is the first and most general call of God to humanity, which is the result of the realization that human beings are the masters of the earth. Thus, God warns that if you destroy any of His creations, at that moment you lose your humanity, ceasing to be a human being and becoming instead an animal without rights to the world of nature. All of nature has been lent to humanity and as soon as this gift is used unwisely, you sin against Godís world and Godís property. Thus, God is the advocate for the greatest and the smallest of all creatures and urges protection against the presumptuousness of humanity.
The Torah demands protection of the environment, noted in this comment in Deuteronomy (20:19): “When in your war against a city you have to besiege it a long time in order to capture it, you must not destroy its trees, wielding the ax against them. You may eat of them, but you must not cut them down.” By extension, Ismar Schorsch, chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary, further developed the importance of the sacred in nature in these powerful terms: “To destroy trees wantonly is an act of disbelief, an affront to the Creator. The phrase assumes a link between faith in God and reverence for nature. Without a sense of the sacred, there are no limits to human behavior; everything is subject to human assault.”
The story is told of two men who once fought over the same piece of land. Though each claimed ownership, they agreed to put the matter before a judge. The wise man listened but could not render a decision. Finally he said, “Since I cannot decide to whom this land belongs, let us ask the land.” The wise man put his ear to the ground, then he straightened up and revealed the decision of the earth. “Gentlemen,” he stated, “the land says that it belongs to neither of youóbut you belong to the land.” (Rabbi Ezekiel Landau of Prague)
I conclude with the powerful comment of the prophet Isaiah (45:18): “God did not create the world in order that it might become a waste, God formed it for human habitation.” When considering the environment and the impact that global warming has on it, we need to take these words close to our hearts. In the Jewish liturgy, a morning prayer refers to God in Hebrew as pokeah ivrimóthe One who opens the eyes of the blind. Our effort must be one to open our eyes, to not only look, but to see that we must make every effort not to be among those that would despoil and utilize the treasures of the earth without any regard for the next tenants. It is our responsibility to cherish Godís earth as responsible stewards for all that God has created.
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