Theology, Tradition and Wisdom

What We Have: Jewish Theology, Tradition and Wisdom

In the multi-faceted Jewish world, there are diverse understandings of Jewish theology, law and practice. The task of articulating a Jewish environmental ethic that speaks across denominational differences is therefore a challenging one. It requires drawing upon commitments and vocabulary that are shared by as many contemporary Jews as possible.

We define four categories of environmental resources in the Jewish tradition.

• Theology
• Central practices - everyday practice that should either be seen in a new light or remembered in its original context
• Traditional Practices that directly address our relationship to the natural world
• General Jewish Values that support sustainability

• Theology

The first two chapters of Genesis, arguably the most central and well-known of Jewish texts, teach a creation theology that provides a strong grounding for environmental responsibility. We learn there that, according to the Torah, Creation is good and reflects the plan of a Divine consciousness, diversity in creation is to be cherished, and human beings are charged with the responsibility of actively maintaining and conserving life on earth. 

These chapters of Genesis have been frequently cited by writers on Jewish ecology to show that
we are God's caretakers for the earth. Our job is to cultivate the natural world and enhance its capacity to support life. God created Adam and placed him in the Garden of Eden "to work it and conserve it." (Genesis 2:15.)

An often-quoted midrash says: When God created Adam, God led him around all of the trees in the Garden of Eden. God told him, ‘See how beautiful and praiseworthy are all of my works. Everything I have created has been created for your sake. Think of this and do not corrupt the world; for if you corrupt it, there will be no one to set it right after you.' (Ecclesiastes Rabbah 7:13.)

Destroying the conditions for much of life on earth violates this duty of stewardship. It is from these beginnings that Judaism has evolved the notion of a religious responsibility for humans to care for creation. 

• Central Practices

Some of the central practices of Jewish tradition relate to cherishing and protecting the natural environment. Often they are hidden in plain sight in the daily rituals that define Judaism.

1. Shabbat: We need to recover the ecological value of Shabbat as a day to step back from the act of creation: manufacturing, shopping, flying, driving, and technological manipulation. The ability to set limits on human exploitation of the world is a crucial check on environmental destruction which Jewish tradition possesses, and which the global consumer culture generally lacks. For Jews who currently observe Shabbat, their observance can lead to a deeper sense of Shabbat’s ecological significance. For Jews who do not currently keep Shabbat in a halakhic sense, there is an opportunity to explore aspects of Shabbat observance, as an ecological value.  

For the broader global community, the model of Shabbat is useful in demonstrating how to live – if only for one day a week – without consuming. If every resident in a major city chose one day of the week to refrain from driving, there would be immediate improvement to the city’s congestion, local air quality, and carbon emissions.  

2. Kashrut: We need to recover the ecological value of kashrut. Judaism has evolved a detailed system of laws governing what is fit for us to eat. While some of the original reasons for the Kashrut laws are today opaque, it is clear that part of the motivation was to cause the animals that we eat the minimum of suffering, (see e.g. Maimonides Guide of the Perplexed, Book 3, Chapter 48) and to treat them with a dignity that recognized our interconnectedness with them.

Today, our understanding of kashrut- what is fit for Jews to eat should be challenged to expand. The system of food production contributes between 25% and 37% of all United States greenhouse gas emissions . Eating is the one thing we all do that has the most far-reaching, negative ecological consequences.

Kashrut can consider whether produce that is grown at the cost of huge ecological damage, food that travels thousands of miles to reach us, factory farmed animals that are raised in great cruelty are fit to eat. We seek to build upon, but, paradoxically, also to move beyond the concept of eco-kashrut, that was coined in the 1970's. "Eco-kashrut" suggests that the ecological destructiveness of our food choices is a fringe concern lying outside the purview of mainstream Kashrut itself. Today we need to question this notion. The often destructive nature of industrial food production challenges both ordinary Jews and halakhic decision makers to consider whether and how kashrut should take account of these new realities. 

3. Berakhot: Blessings are the tradition’s way of enabling us to express gratitude. The blessings can be understood and practiced as a system of engendering mindfulness towards the gifts of Creation. When I say a food blessing I pause and consider the origin of the food item before me at least to the extent of identifying whether it grew on a tree, in the ground or in the sea. It is but a small step to extend that moment of awareness to reflecting on the circumstances under which the food was grown, whether in a way that nurtured the earth, or harmed it, whether in a manner that respected the creature that I am about to eat, or that abused it. In that way, nurturing awareness can lead to change. 

[[if you say grace, pray for healthy food for you and the planet. – Food Inc.]]

4. Shema: The Shema is the best known of Jewish prayers. It bears profound ecological meanings. The first line is an affirmation of the unity and interconnectedness of all things (Deuteronomy, 6:4). The second paragraph is a statement that if we live well in relation to our natural environment, our surroundings will treat us well and vice versa. (Deuteronomy 11:14-17). Although these passages have particularly Jewish significance, in an era of global climate change, they clearly have universal ecological lessons to teach as well. These aspects need to be re-emphasized and taught.

• Traditional Practices for the Natural World

A.  Shmitta: The Shmitta (Sabbatical Year) is the practice of letting the land rest one year in every seven. During the Shmitta Year, as described by the Bible, agricultural work in Israel stops. People eat whatever grows on its own in the fields, and everyone, rich and poor alike (and animals too) may come and take from its produce.  Shmitta acknowledges that the Earth is not raw material to be exploited for profit with maximum efficiency but as a gift to be used for the common well-being.

In Israel, Shmitta is practiced (though in an attenuated form) to this day. In the US, Shmitta Project, a Hazon and Jewish Farm School program, has begun the work of reapplying Shmitta in a post-industrial world. The biblical practices of Shmitta addressed both people’s relationship to the land – through not planting - and to each other – through the forgiveness of loans, we should develop new means of honoring both.

• Bal Tashchit: Wasteful misuse of the world's resources. The prohibition is found in Deuteronomy (20:19-20), “When in your war against a city you have to besiege it for a long time in order to capture it, you must not destroy (bal tashchit) its fruit trees. . . You may eat of them but you must not destroy the fruit trees.” Later Jewish thinkers explained that bal tashchit applies to any pointless destruction of resources. We need to reconsider and reapply rabbinic sources which teach that consuming more resources than necessary to achieve a particular human purpose may be Ba'al Tashchit (e.g., Talmud Shabbat 67a, 140a).

• Laws of Neighbors: A sophisticated detailed body of Jewish law, Hilkhot Shekeinim, laws of neighbors deals with our responsibility for pollution damage that we cause. For example, there is no presumptive right to cause pollution that damages another's health, however long we've been doing it. (Bava Batra 23a) This is relevant to carbon emissions, which the industrialized world has produced for two hundred years without understanding the damage they cause. Today these laws need to be extrapolated from their original local context, in order to provide guidance for our very different, global and interconnected world.

• Tzar Balei Hayim: The Torah prohibits inflicting emotional or physical pain on animals. For example, if on your way, you happen upon a bird's nest in a tree or on the ground, with baby birds or eggs in it, do not take the mother with her young. Drive away the mother and take only the young. This way you will live a long life. (Deuteronomy 22, 6-7). Nachmanides explains that the crime here is that by catching the mother and young together one is taking a step towards the animal's extinction. This Mitzvah is, at root, a directive not to extinguish natural species, but to preserve biodiversity. At the current rate, up to 30% of the world's species may be extinguished because of climate change.

• General Jewish Values that support Sustainability

1.   Mitzvah and Halacha:  The notions of mitzvah and halacha as self maintained modes of best behavior are profoundly relevant to the environmental challenge of transforming societal behavioral norms. We have all seen the lists of "50 or 100 ways you can help save the planet" by changing personal and domestic behavior. Traditional Jews are intimately familiar with the practice of detailed self-discipline in everyday life.  We need to bring this wisdom and discipline to the task of sustainable living.

• Tzedek, Justice: The commandment of Tzedek, tzedek, tirdof, (Deuteronomy 16:20) pursuing justice, pertains to the environment as well. The poor and vulnerable in the US and the world over are disproportionately affected by all forms of environmental degradation.  Pursuing justice means advancing solutions to global sustainable development. 

• Brit, Covenant and Our Children: The central Jewish concept of Brit, covenant, teaches that the ethical purpose of one’s life stretches beyond one’s limited existence, both in time and in space. Judaism is a multi-generational project. We lovingly invest in our children. The Talmud teaches, "Whoever teaches their children Torah, it is as if he had taught his children and children's children until the end of all the generations." (Kiddushin 30a) We are each a link in a chain that stretches from Sinai to the end of time. It is immoral for us to ruin the world that our children will inherit, for the sake of our current consumption. Furthermore Brit teaches that we are not just individuals. We are interdependent on all levels, and nowhere is that more manifest than in the environment. The notion of an individual prospering alone is distinctly un-Jewish. We need to reassert that our well being can only be secured collectively.

• Tikkun Olam: Fixing the World, repairing what is broken, has been adopted as a cardinal modern Jewish value. The phrase itself is over 1500 years old, dating back to the "aleinu" prayer. Though Tikkun Olam's application to social justice and the environment is relatively recent, it has acquired profound resonance in the contemporary Jewish world. 

• Crisis, Adaptation and Hope: Judaism has more than once adapted itself to overcome crises that threatened its very continuation. We need to recognize what Jewish tradition can teach about adaptation in the face of impending ecological crisis. More so than anyone else we have stared down destruction and emerged with hope. Regardless of our current situation, hope that we can make the world a better place is a basic Jewish value.

• Pikuach Nefesh, Saving life: Climate change is a serious threat to human life. Already, climate change has contributed to increased fatalities through droughts and floods. Over the coming century it is projected to threaten the lives of tens of millions. Through the archetypal commandment to build a protective parapet around your house, the Torah commands us to take scrupulous precautions to protect and save human life. (Deuteronomy 22:8)

• T’chum Shabbat and New Urbanism: Traditional Jewish communities have always been compactly organized. The prohibition against traveling and against walking more than 2000 amot (about 1000 Metres) beyond the city limits on Shabbat makes it essential for observant Jews to live within walking distance of key institutions: school, synagogue, mikveh (ritual bath) etc. This is a powerful model for the New Urbanism which seeks to build compact, green, walkable cities to reduce suburban sprawl and emissions from transport.

Where We Are: What is Going on in The Jewish Community Now

Since the late sixties, rabbis, Jewish thinkers and activists have been drawing connections between Jewish teachings and environmentalism. Today there is a plethora of initiatives in the Jewish community exploring and deepening the connection of Jewish tradition to the environment.

In the US, Hazon has expanded its research and teaching on Judaism and the environment through the recent work of its rabbinical scholars, Rabbis Steve Greenberg and Yedidya Sinclair. Canfei Nesharim has produced a stream of high quality articles. JTS and COEJL held an academic seminar on Judaism and the environment in March 2009. Significant books on the subject have been authored by Jeremy Bernstein, Ellen Bernstein and Rabbi Arthur Waskow, among others. A book of academic essays appeared in the Harvard Divinity School series on World Religions and Ecology.

In Israel, the past three years have seen a dramatic proliferation of study and research around Judaism and ecology. They include Rabbi Dov Berkovitz's Halichot Olam Bet Midrash, the Eco-Bet Midrash at Simchat Shlomo, Teva Ivri, and Jewish Climate Initiative's work on framing climate change as a Jewish issue.

These projects taken together are significantly expanding Jewish textual and traditional engagement with the environment and sustainability. They are beginning to move Judaism and the Environment from being a sub-speciality of Jewish thought into the mainstream. However, much more remains to be done.  To the best of our knowledge there is no standing research program in Judaism and the Environment at any leading yeshiva, university or rabbinical school, and the issue has not, so far, engaged the sustained attention of the Jewish people's best philosophical and halakhic minds

Vision for the Next Generation: Theology, Tradition and Wisdom

In the second half of the twentieth century, the tumultuous events of the Shoah (Holocaust) and the foundation of the State of Israel triggered an outpouring of Jewish philosophy and theology that aimed to interpret these unprecedented historical eruptions. Thinkers including Rabbis Joseph Soloveitchik, Abraham Joshua Heschel, Eliezer Berkovitz, Yitz Greenberg, David Hartman, Emil Fackenheim and Avivah Zornberg strove to find meaning in these new circumstances from within the matrix of traditional Jewish sources. In the process they helped engender far-reaching transformations in Jewish identity, affiliation and practice.

Today we argue that a similar investment of Jewish intellectual creativity is required to respond to the dramatic and unprecedented circumstances of the twenty first century ecological crisis. Just as late twentienth century Jewish Thought helped Jews to meaningfully interpret and respond to the historical upheavals of the Shoah and the foundation of Israel, so too, early twenty first century Jewish Thought must do the same for our ecological upheavals. Beginning from the valuable resources identified above, the challenge is to evolve a theological and spiritual worldview from which will flow a renewal of Jewish practice that responds meaningfully to the crisis and orients Jews to the contemporary reality.

Some of the central tasks that need to be addressed include:

• Formulating a Creation Theology rooted in an ecological perspective.
• Articulating a philosophy of sustainable consumption for Jewish communities that incorporates a vision of our interconnectedness with the world and all its inhabitants.
• Articulating a Jewish theology of climate change responding to the unprecedented circumstances in which human beings are a significant factor affecting the weather.
• Formulating a theology and ethic of global responsibility that accounts for the fact that all of our actions affect everything in the world for better and worse
• Renewing and recovering the ecological meaning in central Jewish practices. The task, in many cases, is to remember and revitalize the meaning of insights and teachings which have been forgotten or neglected.
• Stimulating scholars and halakhic decision makers to respond to issues of sustainable consumption and waste of natural resources by using and developing the tools of Jewish Law.  

   
Our vision for the next generation is that the Jewish people's best thinkers and scholars will lead a large-scale and concerted effort that responds to the ecological crisis by renewing Jewish theology, spirituality and practice and begins to engender significant changes in consciousness and behavioral norms. By 2015, this effort will have helped place the Jewish People at the forefront of the global drive for sustainability.

Theology, Tradition and Wisdom Goals for Generational Change: September 2015

Based on the vision, the goal for 2015 is to move ecological thought to the center of Jewish theology and practice. Specific goals towards realizing this include:

• Founding a Global Center for Jewish Ecological Thought in Jerusalem.
• Establishing several programs in Jewish Ecological Thought at leading rabbinical schools and University Jewish Studies Departments.
• Formulating a renewed theology and halakhic practice of Shmitta in advance of the 2014-15 Shmitta year.