A rabbi, a Jewish farmer, and a young Israeli activist walk into a retreat center for a panel discussion on Judaism and the environment. This is not the beginning of a bad joke, but an image from my recent experience at the Kayam Farm just outside of Baltimore. Kayam (meaning "alive" in Hebrew) is a burgeoning environmental initiative that includes a five-acre organic farm, and offers a variety of agricultural and environmental educational experiences for Jewish and non-Jewish adults and children.
The retreat I attended was called "Torah, Land, and Agriculture," and included a full Shabbat experience, complete with prayer services, communal meals, study sessions, and recreational activities. The gathering attracted an impressive 150 participants from across the eastern seaboard, despite unusually heavy snowfall in the days leading up to the gathering. The majority of the retreat-goers were young progressive activist and educators, but others -- older and younger -- came from conservative political and religious backgrounds. All of us came together to explore what Judaism has to say about the current environmental crisis, and how we might construct meaningful Jewish lives that include traditional and contemporary values and sensibilities.
Significantly, Kayam is not an isolated phenomenon, but a part of a growing Jewish environmental movement that includes a new summer camp in New York (Eden Village Camp), an annual food conference in California (Hazon), a residential farming community in Connecticut (Adamah), and several other innovative programs across the country. There is also the production of new religious and cultural writings on issues of theology, ethics, and ritual practice (see, for example, articles in Tikkun an Zeek, and books published by Jewish Lights).
I do not know how widespread this American Jewish "green" movement is at present or where it is headed, but I am excited to be a part of it, because unless Jews are actively engaged in the great issues of our time, and doing so consciously as Jews, Judaism will stagnate and cease to be meaningful to its adherents and irrelevant to the world at large. And to my mind, the current environmental crisis is among the greatest issues (if not the greatest issue) facing humanity. To put it simply, if we do not develop patterns of sustainable living, the world as we know it may not survive.
Of course, the first step we Jews must take in engaging the environmental crisis is recognizing that we are a part of a much larger web of life -- human, animal, vegetable and mineral. We cannot worry only about our own community; we must also develop a global ethic in which we see ourselves as part of a vast, intricate, and interdependent cosmos.
I believe that the Jewish tradition has several key insights to bring to bear on the environmental crisis that will help strengthen both the Jewish community and the wider world. Here I offer but two examples.
The first of these teachings come from the heart of the Jewish liturgy (by way of the book of Deuteronomy): "Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One." The opening line of the Shema (meaning "Hear") has been the essential faith statement of the Jews throughout the ages. Traditionally, it is one of the first prayers we learn as children and these are the last words we hope to say before we die. As my teacher, Arthur Green writes, "The Shema is ... the proclamation of Divine Oneness. God is One, the Source of all being ... God's oneness includes and embraces all; everything exists within God" (These Are the Words, p. 102).
This means that all of life is sacred, that divinity animates and flows through all of existence, and that we must treat all of life with great respect and care. This is true of our fellow human beings, but also the rest of God's creation. This proclamation -- which is not prayer to God, but a call to the people of Israel -- is considered so important that it is a staple of both the morning and evening prayer services (among others). This call to spiritual attention -- to the interconnection of all life and the sanctity of all life -- is one that I think is important for all people to hear, regardless if they are members of the historic community of Israel, if they are "God-wrestlers" (the literal meaning of Yisrael) from other communities, or people for whom the words "God" or "belief" are not a part of their vocabularies.
A second Jewish practice that can serve as a guide for us in the midst of the environmental crisis is the Sabbath. To observe Shabbat means to cease from our daily routines every seventh day, and to set aside time to give thanks for the gifts of life, to reflect on the week that was, and to bask in the glory of creation. As the great 20th theologian, Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote, the Sabbath is a "palace in time," built through a series of intentional acts and abstentions. Living as we do, in such a fast-paced world, in which far too may of us measure success based on productivity without thinking deeply enough about the impact of that productivity on ourselves, on others, and on the earth, Shabbat is great gift and challenge to live more thoughtful and reflective lives.
In the context of this article, it is important to add that ancient biblical agricultural laws include the institutions of the Sabbatical Year and the Jubilee, which compliment the weekly Sabbath. These periods of cessation for human beings, animals, and the earth are all practices that can positively inform a contemporary environmental sensibility.
What excited me so much about my time at Kayam was the experience of being among a group of people committed to the project of renewing Judaism by delving into the riches of our religious teachings and rituals, and asking how these insights might help us and others respond effectively to the current environmental crisis. These explorations were accompanied by an appropriate humility and openness, knowing that we must continue to learn from and work with other religious and secular communities to heal our shared earth.
Rabbi Lawrence Troster: 10 Teachings on Judaism and the Environment
Perhaps the openness you preach should include getting back in touch with your tradition's indigenous pagan roots.(A reverence for nature is central to most pagan faiths, with adherents also actively involved in developing a more balanced relationship to our environment.)
Whether it's democracy or Civil Rights or bland rock music, religious people are always trying to play catch-up with the secular society so as not to "stagnate". (BTW -what's wrong with stagnating? Many of the strongest religious communities like the Hasidim thrive on not following the latest fads.)
From what little I know about Judaism, for centuries upon centuries, mainstream Judaism didn't embrace the environmentalist proto-animism the Rabbi Rose has discovered in a declaration of the unity of G-d.
We should indeed take care of the Earth. But digging up religious reasons to do so is just icing on the cake.
And, frankly, I think that the members of the various Hasidic communities would be rather surprised, and not a little insulted, to read that you think that they are stagnating, when I'm sure that they feel that their relationship to Hashem is being daily renewed and energized. It's particularly laughable that you've somehow reduced the special nature of their religious practices to "not following the latest fads."
In addition, Judaism has never been anti-nature. Jews have always had a healthy respect for "the creation," and a close reading of the Torah would show where it began, and that's quite a few centuries ago by my calculations. And for those who live their religions, and grow with them, embracing new or enhanced or enriched ways of honoring the earth is a lot more than "just icing on the cake."
Oh, I forget (and as Carlin intimated) . . . but, he LOVES you!
And, by the way, an earthquake destroyed Haiti, we let Cheney run amok, and we stood idly by as 6 million Jews were killed.
In 1948, American Mark Braverman was born into a devoutly religious and Zionist home, but the scales fell from his eyes when he experienced life in the West Bank. In FATAL EMBRACE he speaks as a Jewish prophet and also explains Walter Brueggemann’s analysis of ‘the land’ as a metaphor:
"On the ninth of Av, when I stood on the outskirts of Jerusalem, a Jerusalem I now saw marching to its own destruction. I felt like the prophet Jeremiah and like Jesus eight centuries later, overcome with grief...not about victimhood: it is about the self-inflicted nature of disaster to come."
For Brueggemann, the land is a "core metaphor for the drama of God’s people struggling to come to terms with the divine imperative to live justly. It is at once the promise and the problem. Possession of the land is totally conditional on obedience to God’s plan as expressed in the covenant. The land is a vast metaphor about home, homelessness, loss, transgressions, forgiveness and redemption. God’s promise of land to Israel is at the heart of the covenant...Christians cannot speak seriously to Jews unless we acknowledge land to be the central agenda...What would the prophets say?"
http://wearewideawake.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1588&Itemid=230
Judaism has nothing to say about the enviroment. There was no such issue in the days that Judaism was created. Despite modern religious believers penchant for reading anything they want into the volumnous and vague texts, ancient religious practice can tell us nothing about how to deal with the unprecendented problems we face.
The only message history teaches us about how to deal with new challenges is: "Abandon everything you thought you knew about everything and listen to what the scientific community is telling you." That's the only way to find solutions. Religions are scrambling to find a religious value in that, but if they could forget about trying to inject religion into secular and scientific matters it would be huge step in the right direction.
Clearly, you don't know much about Judaism. Go educate yourself.
it's all about telling apart the large from the small impacts.
For example, the matters of the seventh year and of the seventh day aren't small at all. If you look into private bankruptcy laws in western industrial nations, you may find that seven years of debt slavery aren't uncommon. Similarly, it is known that we wouldn't worry about co2 emissions if, say half of the world would find it meaningful to avoid excessive oil or gas consumption once in a week.
10K years of clearcutting forests, draining wetlands, and converting grasslands have near-totally destroyed the soil-surface of earth. THAT IS: - farming was the single worst and distasterous invention of humanity, from which all other disaster follows: settlements, most diseases, militia (gotta guard "your" crops from the nomads!), never-ending overpopulation, private property, classism, religion, demand for more & more "resources" (which are only living and inanimate things converted into wealth) - and thus, the RUIN of the majority of earths land surface.
What is so sad about modern Judaism (and especially Christianity) is it has entirely no understanding of the near-total conversion of "the land of milk and honey" from the lush temperate and subtropical wetlands, grasslands, and forests of the historical Middle East - to the now pathetic, completely manicured, soil-less, salinized, depleted, wildlife-devoid, overworked anthills these areas now are.. They NOTHING like what they were when their ancestors first started tearing them apart.
Oh, and Tu Bishvat?
You can find tons of info about Israel and environmental issues here:
http://www.israel21c.org/environment/archive
These are all great inventions - I support them - but its NOT the original ecology of the land by any means - the water, the wildlife, the wild forests that were long ago clearcut and charcoaled to make gold masks. It als has nothing to do with Judaism (though it's certain ethical). All the technological advances in the world will not bring back the original 'milk and honey' that was the reason the people of the Middle East (not just Jewish people) - or even Ankor Wat, the Incan / Mayan / Aztec / Toltec - the Egyptions - settled in the regions the initally settled...they had abundant natural resources, not a bunch of bioengineered man-made things that are because humans have wrecked the place. . The Ecology of those regions is far, far, far long gone and no religion, ethics will return them.
Continue to do all the great things...but don't confuse them with the native, natural dynamics of nature which is all but a memory in Israel, Egypt...even the dustbin of the Sahara - all nuked by man.