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Nature in the Sources of
Judaism
Hava
Tirosh-Samuelson
INTRODUCTION
 LONG
WITH CHRISTIANITY, JUDAISM has been indicted as one cause of our current
environmental crisis. In his famous essay, Lynn White Jr. alleged that the
anthropocentrism of the Judeo-Christian tradition “made it possible to exploit
all nature in a mood of indifference to the feelings of natural objects.”1
According to White, the biblical command “to fill the earth and subdue it”
(Genesis 1:28) is the proof that the Judeo-Christian tradition puts
humans above the rest of creation and regards all other forms of life as
subordinate. The many environmentalists who endorsed White’s views have thus
charged that Judaism and Christianity are directly responsible for the kinds of
human conduct that have brought about the depletion of the planet’s natural
resources.
Christian thinkers have
arisen to defend Christianity against this challenge, thereby articulating a
Christian-based environmental ethics.2
The Jewish response to White’s charges emerged at the same time, but
environmentalism has generally remained a marginal concern of Jewish thinkers.3
In the second half of the twentieth century, the physical and spiritual
survival of the Jewish people, rather than the survival of the planet, have
been paramount for Jews.
Nonetheless, since the early
1980s a small group of Jewish environmental activists, educators, religious
leaders, and theologians have placed clean water, nuclear waste, biological
diversity, climate change, and sustainable development on the Jewish agenda.4
As a result of their efforts, the Jewish ideal of tikkun olam (“repair
of the world”), the Jewish passion for justice, and the Jewish ethics of
responsibility have been extended to the physical environment in an attempt to
protect humans and other species from environmental degradation. The Jewish
environmental movement has yet to produce a systematic environmental ethics and
philosophy, but it has already made a cogent case that Judaism can inspire
sound environmental policies and that Jewish religious life can be enriched
through sensitivity to ecological concerns.5
The very existence of a Jewish
environmental movement suggests that the blame for the current environmental
crisis cannot be simply placed at the door of Judaism or the so-called
Judeo-Christian tradition. A much more nuanced and informed discussion is
needed in order to do justice to the diversity of attitudes toward the natural
world in the religious sources of Judaism and in the history of the Jewish
people. The Jewish tradition, this essay argues, can be part of the solution to
the current environmental crisis, because its deepest religious beliefs are
consistent with environmental protection. However, it would be a mistake to
assume that Judaism is “environmentally correct,” or to treat the Jewish
sources apologetically.6
An honest examination of the Jewish tradition does suggest that Judaism harbors
a genuine tension in regards to nature that can be traced to the relationship
between two of Judaism’s central beliefs: the belief that God created the
universe, and the belief that God’s will was revealed to Israel in the form of
Law, the Torah.7
This essay highlights the dialectical relationship between the doctrines of
creation and revelation in the Jewish tradition. It argues that while the
beliefs of the Jewish tradition are consistent with environmental protection,
the Jewish understanding of the place of humans in the created order conflicts
with some convictions of secular environmentalists.
CREATED WORLD VERSUS REVEALED WORD
Judaism is grounded in the belief that God is the
sole creator of the universe. How exactly God brought the universe into
existence remains beyond the ken of human knowledge, but that the world as we
know it through our senses can teach us something about the creator is taken
for granted in the Jewish tradition. The doctrine of creation facilitates an
interest in the natural world that God brought into existence. In fact, the
more one observes the natural world, the more one comes to revere the creator,
because the natural world manifests the presence of order and wise design in a
world in which nothing is superfluous.8
Psalm 19:1 expresses this point poetically: “the heavens are telling the glory
of God / and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.” Psalm 147 (vv. 7–9; 16–18)
illustrates how human awareness of the regularity of nature leads to
thanksgiving, while according to Psalm 148 (vv. 8–10), all of creation is
engaged in praising God and recognizing God’s commanding power over nature.
Awareness of nature’s orderliness, regularity, and beauty, however, never leads
the Psalmist to revel in nature for its own sake. In the Psalms, as in the rest
of the Jewish tradition, nature is never an end in itself. It always points to
the divine creator, who governs and sustains nature.9
Although the details of the
creative act remain inscrutable, the act itself is broadly understood to be one
in which God willfully imposed order by separating the heavens from the earth,
dry land from water, animate from inanimate things, the human from other
animals. In Scripture and in post-biblical Judaism, the act of establishing
boundaries serves as the rationale for the distinction between the sacred and
the profane, the permitted and the forbidden. Thus the prohibitions on mixing
different seeds in the same field, the interbreeding of diverse species of
animals, the wearing of garments of mixed wool and linen (Lev. 19:19; Deut.
22:11), and the differentiation between clean and unclean foods are all traced
back to the setting of boundaries at the moment of creation.10
The emphasis on orderliness of creation explains why in Judaism we do not find
glorification of wilderness (so cherished by the environmental movement), and
why the cultivated field is the primary model for the created universe in the
Bible.11
Humans are commanded by God to cultivate the earth as a way to preserve and
care for what ultimately belongs to God.
The Jewish tradition affirms that
God created an orderly world and that God continues to sustain the world
through benevolent care and attention to the needs of its inhabitants. Even
miracles, in which God directly intervenes in the created order, are understood
to exhibit both the orderliness of God’s creation and God’s control over the
created order.12
The greatest miracles of all, however, are to be found not in the natural world
but in the way God operates in human history, especially in the history of the
Chosen People. Divine intervention in human affairs, culminating in the
revelation of the Torah at Sinai, is the utmost expression of God’s creative
power and benevolence. Yet it is this revelation of God’s will that posits the
Torah of God as above and beyond nature.
In the created order, the human
being is given a privileged place. The human species alone was created “in the
image of God” (zelem elohim) (Gen. 1:26), even though the human
species was also fashioned from the dust of the earth to which the human
returns at death. The precise meaning of creation in the divine image was
debated by Jewish theologians in the Middle Ages. The rabbis made it clear that
the superiority of human beings over other animals does not entail a license to
subdue and exploit. Rather, creation in the image of God entails human
responsibility for the whole of creation. Midrash Ecclesiastes Rabba 7:13
expresses human responsibility toward nature as follows: “the Holy Blessed One
took the first human and passing before all the trees of the Garden of Eden
said: ‘See my works, how fine and excellent they are? All that I created, I
created for you. Reflect on this and do not corrupt or desolate my world; for
if you do, there will be no one to repair it after you.’” This Midrash makes
clear that humans must neither be indifferent to nature nor bring about its
destruction; they must protect nature through their own effort, thereby
becoming partners of God, although not co-creators.13
In other words, the belief that the world and all things in it belong to God is
consistent with the notion of human stewardship over the earth, which in turn
can be translated into conservationist policies.14
Precisely because the natural world is God’s creation, the value of nature in
Judaism cannot be simply utilitarian: the natural world does not belong to
humans, but to God, and the world was created not for the sake of human needs,
but for God’s sake. On the basis of Isaiah 43:7 the rabbis expressed this point
succinctly when they stated that “Whatever God created, He created for His own
glory” (Avot 6:12; Yoma 38a).
Whereas the doctrine of creation
evokes awe and reverence toward the natural world, the belief that God revealed
God’s will in the form of Law to Israel assumes a certain distance between the
believer and the nonhuman natural world (even though the doctrine does not
entail such distance). From the priestly reforms that produced the Book of
Deuteronomy, through the Pharisaic interpretation of Judaism during the Second
Temple, and into the rabbinic Judaism of the Talmudic period, Judaism treated
the Torah as the sacred medium for communication between God and Israel. The
framers of Judaism called on all Jews to make the Torah the exclusive object of
love, devotion, and veneration. To worship God, Israel should study the Torah
and behave according to its commandments as expounded by the authoritative
interpreters of the Torah, the rabbinic sages and their heirs through the
generations. In rabbinic Judaism, then, the exclusive study of the Torah and
the acts that follow from it stand in some tension with the worship of nature.
Mishnah Avot 3:7 summarizes the tension between the life of the Torah and the
appreciation of nature when it states in the name of Rabbi Jacob: “he who
travels on the road while reviewing what he has learned, and interrupts his
study and says: ‘How fine is that tree, how fair that field’! Scripture regards
him as if he committed a grave sin.” The admiration of nature, then, distracts
the believer from devotion to God’s revealed Torah, which the teachers of
Judaism regarded as the sole preoccupation of the ideal Jew.
Rabbinic Judaism views the world
that God had created as good, but the world itself is neither perfect nor holy.
To become perfect and holy, the created world requires the intentional acts of
humans, who follow God’s commands by performing prescribed rituals. Through
observance of religious rituals, the recipients of divine revelation consecrate
themselves and the natural order, and thereby enter into an intimate
relationship with God.
The notion that nature can be
sanctified through human acts thus bridges the gap between the doctrines of
creation and revelation. By the second century B.C.E., we find the notion that
God’s wisdom, manifest in the orderliness of the universe, coincides with the
primordial, preexistent Torah, which served as a blueprint for the creation of
the world. As we shall see below, medieval philosophers and Kabbalists would
explore the correspondence between the Torah and the created world. But already
in rabbinic Judaism, the revealed Torah (both written and oral) was understood
to complete and perfect the created world. It is through the revelation of
God’s will, as interpreted by the authoritative tradition, that one can know
how to conduct oneself in the world, including behavior toward the physical
environment.
Rabbinic Judaism posed an
elaborate program for the sanctification of nature. In daily prayers, the
Jewish worshipper sanctifies nature by expressing gratitude to the Creator “who
in his Goodness creates each day.” The prayers recognize the daily changes in
the rhythm of nature—morning, evening, and night—and recognize the power of God
to bring these changes about. Similarly, the blessings that Jews are required
to utter when they witness a storm or observe a tree blossoming bear witness to
God’s power in nature. Even more poignantly, the observant Jew blesses God for
the natural functions of the human body and for the food that God provides to
nourish the human body. By means of these blessings, all acts from which the
worshipper derives either benefit or pleasure are consecrated to God. To act
otherwise is considered a form of theft.15
A Jewish life punctuated by
blessings is thus not divorced from events in nature and involves the natural
functions of the human body. Yet it is the consecration of the natural order to
God that endows all activities with proper religious meaning.
THE SANCTIFICATION OF NATURE—THE COVENANTAL MODEL
The Jewish tradition views the giving of the Torah to the
people of Israel as a historic event that established an eternal covenant
between God and Israel, the Chosen People. The covenant expresses the
unconditional free love of God and Israel for each other and the mutual
obligations that flow from it, including obligations toward the earth. These
obligations are best seen in regard to the land of Israel, the paradigm of
proper management of the earth in Judaism. Given by God to the people of
Israel, the land of Israel is viewed as collateral in the eternal covenant. To
ensure that God’s land flourishes, the people must observe God’s commands. When
Israel conducts itself according to the laws of the Torah, the land is abundant
and fertile, benefiting its inhabitants with the basic necessities of human
life—grain, oil, and wine. But when Israel sins, the blessedness of the land
declines and it becomes desolate and inhospitable (Lev. 26:32; Deut. 11:13–21).
When the alienation from God becomes egregious and injustice overtakes God’s
people, God removes them from the land of Israel. The flourishing of the land
and the quality of the people’s life, then, are causally linked, and both
depend on obeying God’s will. The proper management of the land of Israel
illustrates the close link between the sanctification of space, time, the human
body, and social relations in Judaism.
Sanctification of Space
The various land-based commandments in the Bible express
the belief that “God is the owner of the land of Israel and the source of its
fertility, while the Israelites working the land are God’s tenant-farmers. The
tenants are obligated to return the first portion of the land’s yield to the
owner in order to insure the land’s continuing fertility and the farmer’s
sustenance and prosperity.”16
Accordingly, the first sheaf of the barley harvest, the first fruit of produce,
and two loaves of bread made from the new grain are to be consecrated to God.
In the Mishnah (codified about 200 c.e.) these gifts are to be made only from
produce grown by Israelites in the land of Israel, in contrast to all other
cereal offerings and animal offerings, which may be brought to the Temple also
from outside the land (Mishnah Men. 8:1; Mishnah Parah 2:1). Some of the
consecrated produce is to be given to the priests and Levites, whereas others
are to be eaten by the farmer himself.
Scripture likewise regulates the
cultivation of trees. Leviticus 19:23 commands: “When you come into the land
and plant all kinds of trees for food, then you shall regard their fruit as
forbidden.” During the first three years of growth, the fruits of newly planted
trees or vineyards are not to be eaten (orlah), because they are
considered to be God’s property. Deuteronomy 20:19 articulates the principle of bal
tashit (literally: “do not destroy”) that governs conduct toward
trees during wartime: “If you besiege a town for a long time, making war
against it in order to take it, you must not destroy it in order to take it,
you must not destroy its trees by wielding an ax against them. Although you may
take food from them, you must not cut them down.”17
While this law is undoubtedly anthropocentric, it also suggests that Scripture
recognizes the interdependence between humans and trees, on the one hand, and
the capacity of humans to destroy natural things, on the other. To ensure the
continued fertility of the land, human destructive tendencies are curbed by
Scriptural law. In the Talmud and later rabbinic sources, the biblical
injunction of “do not destroy” is extended to cover “the destruction, complete
or incomplete, direct or indirect, of all objects that may be of potential
benefit to man.”18
Applying the principle to numerous nonmilitary situations, as the Talmud does,
may serve as a useful guideline to prevent all forms of harmful conduct toward
the physical environment.19
While the Jewish tradition places
the responsibility for the well-being of God’s earth on humans, the tradition
is not insensitive to the well-being of nonhuman species. Proper management of
the created order is a human responsibility, and the Torah itself specifies how
humans should take care of other species. Deuteronomy (5:14, 14:21, 22:6,
22:10) requires sensitivity to the needs of animals, and with these verses in
mind the rabbis articulated the principle of tza’ar ba’aley hayim
(“distress of living creatures”).20
Humans are forbidden to cause needless pain to animals, enjoined instead to
exercise mercy. The rabbis prohibited the eating of a meal before giving food
to the animals, and prohibited the purchase of any animal or bird, tame or
wild, unless the purchaser had first made adequate provision for feeding the
animal. The concern for unnecessary suffering of animals underscores the
precaution Jewish law takes about slaughtering animals for human consumption;
all are meant to minimize pain. Though the tradition allows for the
slaughtering of animals fit for human consumption, it forbids a “destructive
act that will cause the extinction of species even though it has permitted the
ritual slaughtering of that species.”21
In short, Judaism prescribes a sensitivity to all of God’s creatures as part of
the command to confer dignity on all things created by God.
Sanctification of Time
Ancient Israel was an agrarian society that lived in
accord with the seasons and celebrated the completion of each harvest cycle by
dedicating the earth’s produce to God. Yet already in the Bible the
agricultural festivals were given a different meaning when they were situated
in the linear, sacred history of the Jewish people and its covenantal
relationship with God. For example, Sukkot (Feast of Booths) originally
celebrated the end of the summer harvest and the preparation for the rainy
season in the land of Israel; it was later associated with the redemption of
Israel from Egypt. In Leviticus 23:42 Israel was commanded to dwell in booths
for seven days so “that your generations may know that I made the people of
Israel dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt.” Removed
from the protection of their regular dwelling, the temporary booth compelled
the Israelites to experience the power of God in nature more directly and
become even more grateful to God’s power of deliverance. In addition to
dwelling in a sukkah, the Israelites were commanded “to take the fruit of the
goodly tree, palm branches, foliage of leafy trees, and willows of the brook
and you shall rejoice before your God for seven days” (Lev. 23:40). In this
manner, nature became a means for Israel’s fulfillment of the commandment to
rejoice before God. After the destruction of the Temple, the complex rituals of
this pilgrimage festival could no longer be carried out in the Temple.22
Not surprisingly, the rabbis elaborated the symbolic meaning of the sukkah,
viewing it as a sacred home and the locus for the divine presence. They
homiletically linked the “Four Species” to parts of the human body, ideal types
of people, the four patriarchs, the four matriarchs, and to God.23
Nature’s “eternal return” thus received a different historical and ethical
meaning in Judaism.
The ritual transformation of
nature is also evident in another Jewish festival that celebrated the rhythms
of nature. First mentioned in the Mishnah (Rosh Hashanah 1:1), the fifteenth
day of the month of Shevat, which coincides with the beginning of bloom of
almond trees after the period of dormancy during winter, was celebrated as “the
new year for trees.” The celebration apparently originated in the secular
activity of paying taxes on fruit trees, but it received a religious meaning
when the day was interpreted as God’s judgment of trees, analogous to the
judgment of people at the beginning of the Jewish year.24
Interestingly, during the Middle Ages, when the Jews no longer dwelled in the
land of Israel, the festival assumed a new symbolic meaning, with new prayers
and new customs. Fruits grown in the land of Israel were eaten by diaspora Jews
and a special set of Psalms was added to the daily liturgy. The most elaborate
ritual for the holiday was constructed by Kabbalists in the sixteenth century,
for whom the land of Israel was no longer merely a physical place, but rather a
spiritual reality. Modeled after the Passover service, the Kabbalistic ritual
for the “new year for trees” endowed it with the capacity to restore the flow
of divine energy to the broken world. The very fact that for the Kabbalists
everything in the world was a symbol of divine reality facilitated the creation
of new rituals and endowed natural objects with a new spiritual meaning. Nature
was absorbed into the sacred narrative of Judaism.
Sanctification of the Human Body
The covenantal model posited the ideal that Israel must
become “holy, as I the Lord am holy” (Lev. 11:45). To live in the holy land,
the holy people must conduct themselves in a holy manner first and foremost in
regard to their own bodies. The commandments regarding the land ensured the
production of food pure enough for consumption by the people of God. The
production and consumption of holy food was especially important for the
priests, who came into more direct contact with God than ordinary Israelites. A
code of permitted and forbidden foods was established by the priestly class
during the First Temple period and further elaborated by the Pharisees during
the Second Temple period and the rabbinic sages who perpetuated their
traditions. The Pharisees, who began as an exclusive table fellowship, extended
the purity code beyond the precincts of the Temple to the household and the
marketplace, and expected all Jews, and not only those who belonged to priestly
families, to abide by it.25
Over time, the Pharisaic conception of purity would become normative in
Judaism.
In addition to taking extreme
care in the production, preparation, and consumption of food, ritual
cleanliness governed all other aspect of the human body, especially sexual
activity. Detailed laws governed the emission of bodily fluids (such as semen
and blood), and prescribed specific modes of purification for various types of
ritual pollution. Immersion in water and the sacrifice of animals were the
major ritual means of removing pollution. Likewise, all sexual activities were
carefully governed in rabbinic Judaism, in order to assure the purity of the
human body. Only a ritually cleansed body could serve as the proper abode for
the soul, which by the rabbinic period was believed to be a separate,
noncorporeal substance. At death, it was believed, the body and the soul were
separated: whereas the former disintegrated into its natural components, the
soul continued to live in an eternal abode, provided the individual had
observed the commandments of God and devoted life to the study of the Torah, to
worship, and to acts of loving kindness. The body and the soul will be reunited
in the final redemption of Israel, an eschatological drama that will include
the resurrection of the dead. In short, the natural human body itself has to be
carefully managed and properly sanctified to God, so that Israel can remain a
proper partner in God’s covenant.
Sanctification of Social Relations
What makes the Jewish approach to nature most distinctive
is the links it establishes between the human treatment of God’s earth and
social justice. Since not all members of the community own land, those who do
have the moral and religious obligation to support those who do not. Parts of
the land’s produce—the corner of the field (peah), the gleanings of
stalks (leket), the forgotten sheaf (shikhekhah), the separated
fruits (peret), and the defective clusters (olelot)—are to be
given to those who do not own land: the poor person, the widow, the alien
resident, and the Levite. By observing these particular commandments, the soil
itself becomes holy, and the person who obeys these commandments ensures the
religio-moral purity necessary for residence on God’s land. A failure to treat
other members of the society justly, so as to protect the sanctity of their
lives, is integrally tied to acts extended toward the land.26
The connection between land
management, ritual, and social justice is most evident in the laws regulating
the Sabbatical year (shemittah).27
It was a year of prescribed rest analogous to the Sabbath.
According to the earliest mention of the Sabbatical year (Ex. 23:10–11), the
Israelites must let the land lie fallow and the vineyards and olive groves
untouched so that the poor people and wild beasts may eat of them. In Leviticus
(25:1–7; 18–22), the fallow year is referred to as “the Sabbath of the Lord,” a
year of complete rest for the land, promising the divine blessings on the crop
of the sixth year to those who suspend their work on the seventh. Deuteronomy
15:1–11 commands the Israelites to observe every seventh year as “year of
release” when debts contracted by fellow countrymen are to be remitted. In the
Jubilee year, all slaves are to be freed and returned to their families (Lev.
25:11). While people and debts are to be released in the Jubilee, Scripture
insists on God’s eternal ownership of the land: “The land shall not be sold
forever; for the land is mine. For you are strangers and sojourners with me”
(Lev. 25:23).
Regardless of how the laws of the
Sabbatical and Jubilee year were interpreted and adapted during the Second
Temple period, one aspect of these law remained unchanged: the Torah enjoined
human beings to allow nature a period of rest and regeneration. As Shlomo
Riskin puts it: “Shemitta is to the world of space what the Sabbath is to the
world of time.”28
As Israel “tastes” the possibility of transcendence each week in the
celebration of the Sabbath, so does the land enjoy the possibility of renewal
in the Sabbatical year. By returning the earth to God, nature’s vitality is
restored and protected from human use and abuse.29
In sum, the sanctification of
space, time, the human body, and human relations is illustrated in the
relationship between the people of Israel and the land of Israel, the token of
God’s covenant with the Chosen People. These laws and prescribed attitudes
demonstrate clearly that the Jewish religious tradition is especially sensitive
to the well-being of the natural environment and upholds a special human
responsibility for its proper management. God’s covenant specified how humans
should protect God’s created world and how they should ensure their own purity.
To live on God’s land requires the residents to be holy by observing ritual and
moral prescriptions. Only those who live by God’s will can properly enjoy the
bounty and beauty of God’s earth.
COSMOLOGICAL ASSUMPTIONS: RATIONALIST PHILOSOPHY AND
KABBALAH
Rabbinic Judaism was developed after the destruction of
Jerusalem and its temple in 70 C.E. With the loss of the Temple, communication
with God was severely disrupted and Jewish theodicy dictated that the
responsibility for the catastrophe be placed on human actions. Human sins,
especially the sin of “senseless hatred,” brought about the exile of the people
from God’s land. The Judaism of the rabbis was a comprehensive program for
repairing the broken relationship with God. Ironically, it was the
comprehensiveness of rabbinic Judaism that enabled the Jews to live
meaningfully outside the land of Israel and defer the return to the Holy Land
to a remote messianic future. In exile, the Jews continued to hope for their
return to the Promised Land. The land itself became an ideal, a spiritual
reality. And the possibility of eventually returning to the land became one of
the key hopes that sustained Jews who lived outside the Holy Land.
The primacy of the land of Israel
in Jewish self-understanding and the historical conditions of the Jews in exile
help explain the relatively little attention paid to the physical environment
by Jewish thinkers in the premodern period. For example, heavy land taxes
levied on Jews as second-class, protected subjects in Islam, and restrictions
on Jewish ownership of land in most of medieval Christendom, transformed the
Jews from agricultural people to urban dwellers who derived their livelihood
from commerce, trade, finance, and crafts. To the extent that premodern Jews
were interested in the natural world, it was a purely theoretical interest that
reflected theological and cosmological concerns. In the Middle Ages, two
theological programs—rationalist philosophy and theosophic Kabbalah—theorized
about nature in an attempt to specify the connection between creation,
revelation, and redemption. As ideal paths for religious perfection,
rationalist philosophy and theosophic Kabbalah flourished simultaneously,
cross-fertilizing each other.30
While rationalist philosophers and theosophic Kabbalists developed distinctive
conceptions of the natural world (which in turn makes it difficult to
generalize about nature in the sources of Judaism), it is only in these sources
that the term “nature” (teva) appears as an abstract concept.31
Rationalist Jewish philosophers
speculated about nature in two main contexts: reflections about the origin of
the world (viz., whether the world is created out of nothing or out of
something),32
and reflections on the origins of morality (viz., whether the moral code is
part of the created order, or revealed by God).33
Jewish rationalist philosophers did not agree on these issues, but in general
they regarded nature as the manifestation of God’s wisdom. Since God is
absolutely one, in God there is no distinction between what God knows and what
God does. Divine activities in the physical environment manifest divine wisdom
and God’s continued care for the world, that is, divine providence. The
philosophers studied the natural world in order to understand the mind of God,
emphasizing the orderliness, stability, and predictability of nature. The human
ability to understand how God works in nature was ascribed to the human
capacity for reason, which the philosophers equated with the “image of God”
mentioned in Genesis.34
By virtue of reason, humans are able to understand the orderliness and
purposefulness of nature, which Jewish rationalist philosophers interpreted in
accord with medieval Aristotelian cosmology and physics. The study of nature by
means of the human sciences, culminating in metaphysics, was thus understood as
a religious activity: the better one understood the laws by which God governed
the world, the closer one might come to God.
The worldview of medieval
philosophy was hierarchical: all beings were arranged within the Great Chain of
Being, each occupying its natural place and acting in accord with its inherent telos.
The hierarchical order of existence ranged from the most spiritual of
beings—God—to the most material. Human beings stood just below God in this
schema. The main task of the thoughtful human being was to contemplate and
comprehend the structure of reality on the basis of empirical observation. The
greatest of the medieval Jewish philosophers—Levi ben Gershom
(1288–1344)—designed an instrument to measure the relative distance of
celestial objects so as to gain a better understanding of the laws of nature.35
For most medieval Jewish philosophers, however, the focus of philosophical
activity was not astronomy but the human body itself. Often deriving their
livelihood from the practice of medicine, the Jewish rationalist philosophers
sought to explain the interdependence of the body and the soul.36
Human well-being, they maintained, could be attained only when one followed the
commands of God explicit and implicit in the Torah. Their interest in the
natural world was decidedly subordinate to their interest in the health of
humans.
During the early modern period,
Jewish philosophers became increasingly more interested in the flora and fauna
of their natural environment. Jewish philosophical texts from this period
abound with information about minerals, plants, and animals, but such
information is still framed by the theological assumptions of the older
rationalist tradition. Natural phenomena are to be understood in the light of
the Torah, since the Torah is the blueprint of creation.37
Observation of natural phenomena must be consistent with a correct reading of
the biblical text. For the medieval and early modern Jewish philosophers, there
was no division between nature and Scripture: each made manifest an aspect of
divine activity.
The Torah and nature were
similarly interpreted in tandem by the Kabbalists. But whereas the rationalist
philosophers stressed the regularity of nature’s laws, the Kabbalists focused
on the linguistic aspect of the creative act. Scripture, of course, depicts
creation as an act of divine speech. In late antiquity, the anonymous Jews who
composed Sefer Yetzirah (The Book of Creation) and its cognate
literature identified the “building blocks” of the created world with the
letters of the Hebrew alphabet.38
Understood as units of divine energy, the various permutations of the Hebrew
letters accounted for the diversity of nature. All created things were various
manifestations of linguistic information.39
Nature itself was viewed as a text that could be decoded and manipulated by
anyone who grasped its grammar, so to speak. The code itself was known only to
an initiated few, because of the dangers inherent in possessing such knowledge:
the one who knows how to decode nature can manipulate not only physical
phenomena but the inner life of God. Esoteric knowledge about the Torah assumed
magical and theurgic dimensions.
Kabbalah produced two distinct
approaches to the natural world. On the one hand, the textualization of the
natural world made all references to natural phenomena a hermeneutical
activity. Indeed, most Kabbalists (unlike the philosophers) had little interest
in collecting empirical data about nature. Though the Kabbalists often employed
references to nature in their symbolic interpretations of the Torah, the very
textualization of nature removed these premodern Jews from any close study of
nature as it actually existed. For this reason, the Kabbalists could view the
world of nature as a battleground between divinity and the forces of evil (Sitrah
Ahra). On the other hand, some sixteenth-century Kabbalists
highlighted the capacity of human beings to manipulate the forces of nature. A
Kabbalist who knew the linguistic formulas that governed all life could claim
to draw spiritual energy into the corporeal world by bringing down rain when
needed, by healing the sick, and by easing childbirth.40
These forms of “practical Kabbalah” manifest a “hands-on” approach to nature;
it is an activist attitude that closely aligned Kabbalah with magic and
alchemy. Such wisdom was considered effective only because the Kabbalists
claimed to possess the knowledge of invisible, occult forces of nature created
by divine speech. Thus, since the Kabbalists affirmed the human capacity to
activate a divine energy that pulsates throughout the universe, they remained
committed to the primacy of humans in the created order.
Medieval philosophy and Kabbalah
were transformed in the early modern period. The gradual dissolution of
medieval Aristotelianism eventually made the medieval synthesis of Greek
philosophy and Judaism untenable. Though Jews did not participate in the
scientific revolution of the seventeenth century in a significant way,
eventually the secularization of Western culture and the emancipation of the
Jews led to the emergence of modern Jewish scholars who no longer looked at the
natural world through the prism of the Torah. When the liberal professions and
the universities opened to Jews in the nineteenth century, many Jews flocked to
study the natural sciences, and many were at the forefront of new discoveries
in the fields of chemistry, physics, biology, botany, and others. The
scientific study of nature by born Jews, however, had little to do with
Judaism. In fact, for many of them, the scientific study of nature was thought
to be in conflict with the Jewish religious tradition and often provided modern
Jews an ideological context in which they could be modern without being
practicing Jews.
Kabbalah, by contrast, continued
to underscore the traditional understanding of the Torah, giving rise to
East-European Hasidism in the eighteenth century. Here nature played a
different role. Based on the principles of sixteenth-century Lurianic Kabbalah,
Hasidic theology treated all natural phenomena as ensouled: divine sparks
enlivened all corporeal entities, and not just human beings. The divine sparks
sought release from their material entrapment.41
Through ritual activity, the Hasidic master (a modern version of the
Kabbalistic magus of words) attempted to draw closer to the divine
energy, the liberation of which will result not only in the sanctification of
nature but also in the redemption of reality and its return to its original,
noncorporeal state. The worship of God through the spiritualization of
corporeal reality became a major Hasidic value, complementing the general
deemphasis on formal Torah study in Hasidism. Hasidic tales were situated in
natural rather than urban settings, encouraging the Hasidic worshipper to find
the divine spark in all created beings. This is not to say, however, that all
Hasidic masters were concerned with the well-being of the natural environment,
or with the protection of nature. In fact, to reach their desired spiritual
goals, Hasidic meditative practices attempted to dissolve the corporeality of
existing reality (bittul ha-yesh) and to eliminate
the selfhood of the one who meditates on nature (bittul ha-ani).42
The spiritualizing tendencies of Hasidism, therefore, are quite contrary to any
concrete concern with the natural environment, even though Jewish
environmentalists can find in Hasidism a profound respect for all living
creatures and an awareness of their intrinsic sacredness. In so doing, they
would follow in the footsteps of Martin Buber, who correctly understood the
kinship between his own philosophy of dialogue and the teaching of Hasidism.43
If we were to treat the natural environment as a “Thou” rather than an “It,” as
Buber suggested, perhaps we could halt or slow down the degradation of our
natural surroundings.44
JUDAISM AND THE CONTEMPORARY ECOLOGICAL CRISIS
As the preceding account shows, the Jewish religious
tradition is rich and varied; anyone so inclined will find plenty of support in
sacred sources for sound environmental policies. Above all, the principle of
“do not destroy” can provide religious support for a range of environmental
policies, such as conservation of natural resources, prevention of water
pollution, reforestation, proper disposal of waste products, energy
conservation, recycling, and reduction of material consumption.45
All of these policies highlight human responsibility toward the physical
environment.46
In this regard, Judaism can be part of a solution to the contemporary
environmental crisis.
However, the primacy of learning
in Judaism, the bookish culture it produced, the idealism inherent in the
Jewish prescriptive approach to life, and the economic reality of Jewish life
in the premodern period have also all combined to give rise to a religious
lifestyle that is either indifferent to nature or consciously aspires to
transcend it. How one wishes to interpret Judaism in regard to ecology thus
becomes a matter of personal choice, resulting in an ideological diversity that
is the hallmark of the Jewish condition today.
Still, if Jews wish to ground
their approach to ecology in Jewish sources, they must come to terms with the
fact that certain assumptions, widely taken for granted by secular
environmentalists, conflict with Jewish tradition. For example, a Jewish
environmental philosophy and ethics cannot be based on a simplistic version of
pantheism that acknowledges only the world and nothing beyond the world. From a
Jewish perspective, “biocentrism” is just another form of paganism that must
result in idolatrous worship of nature.47
An environmental philosophy that merely reveres what is, while ignoring what
should be, is not viably Jewish. To speak authentically from the sources of
Judaism, one must affirm that God created the world and that divine revelation
is possible.48
It is precisely because humans are created with the capacity to transcend
nature that they are commanded by God to protect nature. Therefore, a Jewish
environmental philosophy and ethics cannot give up the primacy of the human
species in the created order, notwithstanding the fact that “species-ism” is
now regarded as an unacceptable view by some proponent of Deep Ecology. In a
view true to Jewish teaching, human beings must first love and respect
themselves, if they are going to be able to love and respect other species. But
the love of one’s fellow human beings goes hand in hand with human
responsibility toward other species created by God.
Similarly, Jewish
environmentalism cannot simplistically preach zero population growth. The
obligation to procreate is unambiguously articulated in Genesis, and has become
a necessity after the Holocaust. Of course, it is possible to interpret the
injunction “to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth” to mean “to reach
the maximum population sustainable at an acceptable standard of living but do
not exceed it.”49
But it is the prior commitment to environmentalism that dictates such an
interpretation of the traditional sources, not the sources themselves.
A Jewish “ethics of
responsibility” does make plausible an ethic of “stewardship” over natural
resources.50
While this ethic has been criticized as “shallow ecology,”51
it seems to me that “stewardship” is not a useless idea. A sense of
responsibility toward other species need not be dismissed as mere condescension
and arrogance. To exist and to thrive, humans must take note of the needs of
other species without losing sight of human distinctiveness and the obligations
that flow from it.
The obligation to respond to the
needs of the other is at the core of the covenantal model, the foundation of
Judaism. The covenantal model establishes the everlasting relationship between
God, Israel, and the land of Israel. If extended to the earth as a whole, a
covenantal model would spell out the obligations of humanity toward the earth
and its inhabitants as one manifestation of humanity’s obligations to God.52
Minimally, this might mean that humanity is obligated to perpetuate the
diversity of other species created by God. Does that mean that human beings
must never harm individual members of other species? I do not think so. There
are many cases in which harming members of other species is necessary from a
human perspective, the only perspective available to humans. But since that
perspective also includes awareness of other species, humans are obliged to
ensure the perpetuation and thriving of other species, to the best of their
ability. Biological diversity and human distinctiveness are not mutually
exclusive, but the justification for their reconciliation should be based on
the covenantal notion of obligation rather than the “biotic rights” of animals,
soil, and water.53
The covenantal model asserts the
causal connection between the moral quality of human life and the vitality of
God’s creation. The Jewish covenantal model in this way provides a religious
justification for social ecology. The corruption of society is closely linked
to the corruption of nature. In both cases, the injustice arises from human
greed and the failure of human beings to protect the original order of
creation. From a Jewish perspective, the just allocation of nature’s resources
is indeed a religious issue of the highest order. The principles that should
guide contemporary deliberations are stated in Scriptural legislation about the
treatment of the marginal in society. Concomitantly, the rabbinic values of
loving kindness, humility, moderation, and self-control can all offer valuable
inspiration for policies that take into consideration both the needs of humans
and the needs of nonhuman beings. This is the meaning of “Eco-Kosher,” a
concept advanced by Arthur Waskow to illustrate the connection between the care
of others, the endorsement of a simple lifestyle, and the rejection of greed
and possessiveness.54
In sum, from a Jewish perspective
the current failure to interact respectfully with the physical environment is
symptomatic of a deeper human failure to accept the existence of a creator and
recognize the created status of all beings, including human beings. Human
hubris has inflicted considerable damage on the environment, but humans also
have the capacity to heal the damage. The Jewish tradition places the
responsibility for the well-being of the environment on humans while asserting
the dependence of humans on their physical environment. The Jewish tradition,
however, does not worship the natural world for its own sake, and does not
accept what is given as the end of human life. Jewish life is shaped by a long
list of duties and obligations that encompass all aspects of life. Still, it is
possible and desirable to treat ecology in accordance with the deepest values
of Judaism and, thereby, ensure the well-being of God’s created world and its
preservation for generations to come.
ENDNOTES
| 1 |
Lynn White Jr., “The Historical Roots of Our
Ecological Crisis,” Science 155 (1967): 1205. Back
to Text |
| 2 |
For an overview of the Christian response to
Lynn White and the history of Christian thinking about the environment consult
Roderick Nash, “The Greening of Religion,” in This Sacred Earth:
Religion, Nature, Environment, ed.
Roger S. Gottlieb (New York and London: Routledge, 1996), 194–229. Back
to Text |
| 3 |
Norman Lamm, a leader of modern orthodoxy and
the president of Yeshivah University, was among the first Jewish respondents to
White’s charges. See Norman Lamm, Faith and Doubt: Studies
in Traditional Jewish Thought (New York: Ktav
Publishing House, 1972), 162–185. Although Lamm identified all the pertinent
elements of a Jewish perspective on environmentalism, his work did not give
rise to a Jewish environmental movement. Jewish environmentalism emerged a
decade later as part of the so-called Jewish Renewal movement. It brought Jews
who were already committed environmentalists to anchor their ecological
sensibility in the sources of the Jewish tradition.
Back to Text |
| 4 |
At the forefront of this movement is Ellen
Bernstein and the organization she founded, Shomrei Adama (The Keepers of the
Earth). For a sample of Jewish environmental writings consult Ellen Bernstein,
ed., Ecology and the Jewish Spirit: Where
Nature and the Sacred Meet (Woodstock,
Vt.: Jewish Lights Publishing, 1998). In 1993 the Coalition on the Environment
and Jewish Life (COEJL) was founded to educate Jews about environmental
concerns and inspire them to lead an environmentally sound life, based on
Jewish values as expressed in the sacred sources of Judaism.
Back to Text |
| 5 |
For an overview of Jewish responses to the
contemporary environmental crisis, consult Eric Katz, “Judaism and the
Ecological Crisis,” in Worldviews and Ecology: Religion,
Philosophy, and the Environment, ed.
Mary Evelyn Tucker and John A. Grim (Maryknoll N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1994), 55–70;
Eilon Schwartz, “Judaism and Nature: Theological and Moral Issues to Consider
while Renegotiating a Jewish Relationship to the Natural World,” Judaism
44 (1995): 437–448. Back
to Text |
| 6 |
A typical example of both these approaches can
be found in Aubrey Rose, ed., Judaism and Ecology (New
York: Cassell, 1992). Back
to Text |
| 7 |
This tension, and hence the tenuous
relationship of Judaism to environmentalism, was pointed out by Steven S.
Schwartzchild, “Unnatural Jew,” Environmental Ethics 6 (1984):
347–362. Back
to Text |
| 9 |
For a fuller discussion of the representation
of nature in the Book of Psalms, consult Gerald Blidstein, “Nature in
‘Psalms,’” Judaism 13 (1964): 29–36.
Back to Text |
| 10 |
See Edward L. Greenstein, “Biblical Law,” in Back
to the Sources: Reading the Classic
Jewish Texts, ed. Barry W. Holtz (New York: Summit
Books, 1984), 90–96. Back
to Text |
| 11 |
Many have noted the etymological connection
between the Hebrew word adam (human beings) and the word adamah (land).
However, it is important to note that the word adamah refers to arable
land and is identified with land that humans farm to survive (Gen. 3:17–19).
See Theodore Hiebert, The Yahwist’s Landscape: Nature
and Religion in Early Israel (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1996), 35. Conversely, the word midbar does not
mean “wilderness” (as it is normally translated) but a “rugged land of seasonal
pasturage unfit for cultivation.” See Jeanne Kay, “Concepts of Nature in the
Hebrew Bible,” Environmental Ethics 10 (1988): 309–327, esp. 325.
The Bible does not despise wilderness but it clearly links the aridity of the
desert with divine punishment and the dialectics of blessing and curse. The
successfully cultivated land manifests the presence of God in the life of the
people, and, conversely, disloyalty to God incurs divine punishment in the form
of loss of life’s necessities. Back
to Text |
| 12 |
Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 53b; the relevant
passage is cited in Lamm, Faith and Doubt, 167. Back
to Text |
| 13 |
On humans as co-creators see Philip Hefner,
“The Evolution of the Created Co-Creator,” in Ted Peters, ed., Cosmos as
Creation: Theology and Science in Consonance
(Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1989), 211–233. Back
to Text |
| 14 |
See Jonathan Helfand, “The Earth Is the Lord’s:
Judaism and Environmental Ethics,” in Eugene C. Hargrove, ed., Religion and
Environmental Crisis (Athens: University of Georgia Press,
1986), 38–52. Back
to Text |
| 15 |
Mishnah Berakhot 6:3: “Rav. Judah said in the
name of Samuel: To enjoy anything of this world without a berakhah is
like making a personal use of things consecrated to heaven.” Back
to Text |
| 16 |
Richard Sarason, “The Significance of the Land
of Israel in the Mishnah,” in The Land of Israel:
Jewish Perspectives, ed. Lawrence A. Hoffman (Notre Dame,
Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1986), 114. For a modern reworking of
this biblical view see Samuel Belkin, “Man as Temporary Tenant,” in Judaism
and Human Rights, ed. Milton R. Konvitz (New York:
Norton, 1972), 251–258. Back
to Text |
| 17 |
For further analysis on this principle in
Talmudic literature consult “Bal Tashchit,” Encyclopedia Talmudit,
vol. 3, 335–337. Back
to Text |
| 18 |
Jonathan I. Helfand, “Ecology and the Jewish
Tradition: A Postscript,” Judaism 20 (1971): 332.
Back to Text |
| 19 |
Several rabbinic sources speak specifically
against harming trees, especially fruit trees. See Yosef Orr and Yossi Spanier,
“Traditional Jewish Attitudes towards Plant and Animal Conservation,” in Rose,
ed., Judaism and Ecology, 54–60.
Back to Text |
| 20 |
A comprehensive analysis of this principle is
provided by Noah J. Cohen, Tza’ar Ba’ale Hayim: The
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Its
Bases, Development and Legislation in
Hebrew Literature, 2d. ed. (New York: Feldheim Publishers,
1976). Back
to Text |
| 21 |
Nahmanides, Commentary on Deuteronomy 22:6. See
Helfand, “Ecology and the Jewish Tradition,” 333. Back
to Text |
| 22 |
Jeffrey L. Rubinstein, The History
of Sukkot in the Second Temple and
Rabbinic Periods (Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars Press, 1995).
Back to
Text |
| 23 |
For a full discussion see Arthur Schafer, “The
Agricultural and Ecological Symbolism of the Four Species,” Tradition 20
(1982): 128–140. Back
to Text |
| 24 |
See Ellen Bernstein, “A History of Tu
B’Sh’evat,” in Bernstein, ed., Ecology and the Jewish
Spirit, 139–152. Back
to Text |
| 25 |
For an overview of the Pharisaic transformation
of Judaism, consult Jacob Neusner, From Politics to Piety:
The Emergence of Pharisaic Judaism (Englewood
Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1973).
Back to Text |
| 26 |
This biblical principle is the foundation of
contemporary Jewish social ecology. An example is Richard G. Hirsch, The
Way of the Upright: A Jewish View
of Economic Justice (New York: Union of American
Hebrew Congregations, 1973). Back
to Text |
| 27 |
For an overview of these laws consult Gerald
Blidstein, “Man and Nature in the Sabbatical Year,” Tradition 8 (4)
(1966): 48–55; reprinted in Martin D. Yaffe, ed., Judaism and Environmental
Ethics (Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2001).
Back to Text |
| 28 |
Sholmo Riskin, “Shemitta: A Sabbatical for the
Land,” in Rose, ed., Judaism and Ecology, 72. Back
to Text |
| 29 |
The Sabbatical Law could not be observed during
the extended period of exile but its observance was renewed in the modern state
of Israel. See Benjamin Bak, “The Sabbatical Year in Modern Israel,” Tradition
1 (2) (1959): 193–199. For a contemporary reflection on the relevance of
biblical legislation see Arthur Waskow, “From Compassion to Jubilee,” Tikkun
5 (2) (1990): 78–81. Back
to Text |
| 30 |
On the interdependence of philosophy and
Kabbalah in the Middle Ages consult Elliot R. Wolfson, “Jewish Mysticism: A
Philosophical Overview,” History of Jewish Philosophy,
ed. Daniel H. Frank and Oliver Leaman (London and New York: Routledge,
1997), 450–498; Hava Tirosh-Rothschild, “Jewish Philosophy on the Eve of
Modernity,” in ibid., 499–573. Back
to Text |
| 31 |
The meaning of the concept of nature in
medieval philosophy and Kabbalah requires a more extensive discussion than
space allows. The pertinent issues are explored in the essays by Shalom
Rosenberg, Lenn E. Goodman, and Elliot Wolfson in Hava Tirosh-Samuelson, ed., Judaism
and Ecology (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press and
Harvard Center for the Study of World Religions, forthcoming).
Back to Text |
| 32 |
Consult Norbert M. Samuelson, Judaism and
the Doctrine of Creation (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1994). Back
to Text |
| 33 |
See Abraham Melamed, “Natural Law in Medieval
and Renaissance Jewish Philosophy” [Hebrew], Daat 17 (1986): 49–66;
Melamed, “ Natural, Human, Divine: Classification of the Law among Some
Fifteenth and Sixteenth Century Italian Jewish Thinkers,” Italia (1985):
59–93; David Novak, “Natural Law, Halakhah and Covenant,” Jewish Law
Annual 7 (1988): 45–67; idem, Natural Law in Judaism
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
Back to Text |
| 34 |
Moses Maimonides, Guide for the
Perplexed, trans. Shlomo Pines (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1963), I:2. Back
to Text |
| 35 |
On the scientific activity of Levi ben Gershom,
also called Gersonides, consult Gad Freudenthal, ed., Studies on Gersonides:
A Fourteenth-Century Jewish Philosopher-Scientist
(Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1992). Back
to Text |
| 36 |
Maimonides (Guide for the Perplexed,
II:40; III:27) best articulated the interplay between the well-being of the
body and the well-being of the soul that was the foundation of medieval
philosophical ethics. Back
to Text |
| 37 |
See Hava Tirosh-Samuelson, “Theology of Nature
in Sixteenth-Century Italian Jewish Philosophy,” Science in Context
10 (4) (1997): 529–570. Back
to Text |
| 38 |
The dating of Sefer Yetzirah is
disputed among historians of the Jewish mystical tradition. While it is
reasonable to assume that some of the material is as early as the second
century, the redacted text that came down to us is of a much later, medieval
vintage. Back
to Text |
| 39 |
On the textualization of nature in Sefer
Yetzirah and its cognate literature, consult Moshe Idel, Golem:
Jewish Magical and Mystical Traditions on
the Artificial Anthropoid (Albany: State University of New
York Press, 1990), 9–26. Back
to Text |
| 40 |
Consult David B. Ruderman, Kabbalah,
Magic and Science: The Cultural Universe
of a Sixteenth-Century Jewish Physician
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1988). Back
to Text |
| 41 |
The relationship between God and the world in
Hasidism is by no means easy to define, since Hasidic thought is very rich and
diverse. The dominant view in Hasidism is panentheism, namely, the claim “that
the world exists within the divine being, as part of its substance. The
panentheistic view assumes that the Divinity is both immanent in the world, its
substance dwelling within it, and also transcendent in relation to it and
beyond it.” See Yoram Jacobson, Hasidic Thought (Tel Aviv: MOD
Press, 1998), 23. Hasidism, however, has often been understood to advocate a
pantheistic view (namely, a view that identifies divinity with the totality of
the world itself), and thus comes dangerously close to the position that
rabbinic Judaism recognizes as an idolatrous form of paganism. For a
contemporary critique of Hasidism’s presumed pantheism consult Lamm, Faith
and Doubt, 175–180.
Back to Text |
| 42 |
On this dialectic see Rachel Elior, “The
Paradigms of Yesh and Ayin in Hasidic Thought,” in Hasidism Reappraised,
ed. Ada Rapoport-Albert (London and Portland, Oreg.: The Littman Library of
Jewish Civilization, 1997), 168–179.
Back to Text |
| 43 |
On Buber’s approach to Hasidism consult Moshe
Idel, “Martin Buber and Gershom Scholem on Hasidism: A Critical Appraisal,” in
ibid., 389–403. Back
to Text |
| 44 |
Buber’s dialogical philosophy has inspired many
contemporary, non-Jewish environmentalists. A typical example is found in Brian
J. Walsh, Marianne B. Karsh, and Nik Ansell, “Trees, Forestry and the
Responsiveness of Creation,” in Gottlieb, ed., This Sacred Earth,
423–435. While the distinction between the two paradigms of human relations—the
“I-Thou” and “I-It”—has been commonly employed in environmental literature in
regard to nature, a systematic analysis of Buber’s own philosophy in regard to
nature is yet to be undertaken. Back
to Text |
| 45 |
For a specific program for action to Jewish
individuals and institutions consult Vicky Joseph, “Action on the Environment:
A Practical Guide,” in Rose, ed., Judaism and Ecology,
119–127. Back
to Text |
| 46 |
An example of such application by Jewish
environmentalists is articulated by Ellen Bernstein and Dan Fink, “Bal
Tashchit,” in Gottlieb, ed., This Sacred Earth, 549–569.
The essay illustrates the kind of educational activities Jewish
environmentalists must do in their attempt to bring ecological concerns to the
awareness of contemporary Jews. Back
to Text |
| 48 |
Many secular Jews do not endorse these claims,
because they regard them, perhaps mistakenly, to stand in conflict with the
truths about the world that contemporary science teaches. A Jewish
environmental philosophy and ethics needs to be articulated within the
contemporary dialogue between science and religion. Back
to Text |
| 49 |
Norman Solomon, “Judaism and the Environment,”
in Rose, ed., Judaism and Ecology, 40. Back
to Text |
| 50 |
The point is well taken by David Ehrenfeld and
Philip J. Bentley, “Judaism and the Practice of Stewardship,” Judaism 34
(3) (1985): 301–311. For a Christian formulation of the principle consult Bruce
R. Reichenbach and V. Elving Anderson, On Behalf of God:
A Christian Ethic for Biology (Grand
Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans, 1995), 40–109. Back
to Text |
| 51 |
See Arne Naess, “The Shallow and the Deep, Long
Range Ecology Movements,” in George Sessions, ed., Deep Ecology for
the Twenty-First Century: Readings
in the Philosophy and Practice of the
New Environmentalism (Boston: Sambhala, 1995), 151–155. That Arne
Naess’s eco-philosophy is deeply indebted to Spinoza should not be cited as an
example for a Jewish influence on Deep Ecology. It was precisely because
Spinoza rejected the revealed status of the Bible and severed the connection
between creation and revelation that his philosophical monism could inspire the
principles of Deep Ecology. Back
to Text |
| 52 |
This is by no means an original idea; many
Jewish authors have noted that the attitude toward the land of Israel is to be
understood as the paradigm for the appropriate attitude toward the earth as a
whole. See Evert Gendler, “On the Judaism of Nature,” in The New Jews,
ed. James Sleeper and Alan L. Mintz (New York: Vintage Books, 1971),
233–243; Monford Harris, “Ecology: A Covenantal Approach,” CCAR Journal
23 (1976): 101–108. Back
to Text |
| 53 |
See Peter Singer, “All Animals Are Equal,” in Environmental
Philosophy: From Animal Rights to
Radical Ecology, ed. Michael E. Zimmerman et al. (Upper
Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1998), 26–40. Back
to Text |
| 54 |
See Arthur Waskow, “What is Eco-Kosher,” in
Gottlieb, ed., This Sacred Earth, 297–302.
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2001 by The American Academy of Arts and Sciences
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