Transcript Power Point Show

What’s Jewish About Jewish
Environmentalism?
Alon Tal
Institutes for Desert Studies
Ben Gurion University, Sde Boqer, ISRAEL
Are Jews Inherently Alienated from Nature?
“My dislike of nature goes deep: nonhuman
nature, mountain ranges, wildernesses,
tundra, even beautiful, but unsettled
landscapes strike me as opponents which, as
the Bible commands, I am to fill and conquer…
One explanation of my attitude is historical. My
paternal family lived in Frankfurt on the Main
prior to 1500. This was where I was born. We
have been urban for well over a millennium.
Might it be that Judaism and nature are at
odds?”
- Professor (Rabbi) Steven Schwartzchild
Pirkeh Avot Ethics of our Fathers, 3:9,
Rabbi Yaakov said, “One who walks on the road
while studying a Torah lesson but interrupts his
review and exclaims, ‘How beautiful is this tree!
How beautiful is this plowed field!’-Scripture
regards him as though he is no longer worthy of
living.”
When the Torah Speaks of Nature
When you come to the land that I am giving you, the land must be
given a rest period, a sabbath to God. For six years you may
plant your fields, prune your vineyards, and harvest your
crops, but the seventh year is a sabbath of sabbaths for the
land. It is God's sabbath during which you may not plant your
fields, nor prune your vineyards. Do not harvest crops that grow
on their own and do not gather the grapes on your unpruned
vines, since it is a year of rest for the land. (Leviticus 25:1-7)
Ba’al Shem Tov on Pirkeh Avot
The link between divinely inspired texts and God’s
natural world should is so self-evident,
if books have become your dominant reality –
you are in trouble with the Almighty
Jewish Environmental Heroes
Jeffrey Sachs
Ellen Silbergeld
Fred Krupp
Rob Sokolow
Ian Cohen
Jared Diamond
Four Approaches to the Environment in
Traditional Judaism
1) “stewards of the earth”.
2) “the holy sparks”
3) “out of the whirlwind”
4) “a little lower than the angels”
- Dr. Eilon Schwartz
Jeremy Benstein
The Way Into Judaism and the Environment
?‫מה נשתנה הסביבתנות הזו‬
How is Jewish Environmentalism Different?
What’s Jewish About Jewish Environmentalism?
•
•
•
•
•
The Authenticity of Antiquity
Thinking Locally – about Israel
An Agrarian Tradition for a non-agrarian people
Technological Optimism
An expression of the impulse for Social Justice
1) A Context of Antiquity
Global Warming – and the future of Tel Aviv
Projected Increase of 5 cm in
sea level
Haifa – 5 cm. sea level rise
“And there is another war not of human agency when
nature is at strife in herself, when her parts make
onslaught one on another, and her law-abiding sense of
equality is vanquished by the greed for inequality. Both
these wars work destruction on the face of the earth.
The enemy cut down the fruit trees, ravaged the country,
set fire to the foodstuffs and the ripening ears of corn in
the open fields, while the forces of nature use drought,
rainstorms, violent moisture-laden winds, scorching sunrays and intense cold accompanied by snow, with the
regular harmonious alternations of the yearly seasons
turned into disharmony -- a state of things in my opinion
caused by the impiety which does not gain a gradual
hold, but comes rushing with the force of a torrent
among those whom these things befall.”
Philo of Alexandria
2) Thinking Locally – about Israel
1-800-HOMLAND
Adam Werbach
“Let the Land be your Rashi”
The Jewish Calendar
The Great Tu B’shvat Debate
The 1st or 15th of Shvat?
Jerusalem vs. Tel Aviv
Tu Bishvat 5768?
Illegal Bedouin Construction
Restoring the North
Tu B’shvat –
A holiday resuscitated by the land of Israel
3) An Agrarian Ethic for non-farmers
Ruth gets it on –
on the Threshing Floor
Meteorological Uncertainty
and Theology
Professor Daniel Hillel
The Agrarian Context
Tza’ar Baalei Chaim – Cruelty to Animals: Rules
Ba’al Taschit – Protect the “Fruit Trees”
An Urban Jewish
Milieu
From the Shema:
“And it will come to pass that if you
continually comply with my
commandments that I command you
today, to Love the Lord your God, and
to serve him with all your heart and
soul, then I will provide rain for your
land in its proper time, the early and
the late rains, that you may gather in
your grain, your wine and your oil. I
will provide grass in your field for
your livestock and you will eat and be
satisfied.”
Beware lest you turn astray…then
the wrath of God will blaze against
you. He will restrain the heaven
so that there will be no rain and
the ground will not yield its
produce. And you will swiftly be
banished from the goodly land
which God gives you.
(Deuteronomy 11)
Bridging the Gap
Cycling Rebbe
Nigel Savage
4) Sustainability versus Preservation
Technological Optimism
"‫אתה שומע לאו‬-- ‫“מכלל הן‬
"If specifically allowed, and then omitted – it is prohibited”
The “Jewish Perspective” on Preservation
Once upon a time the wicked Tinneius Rufus asked
Rabbi Akiva: “Whose deeds are finer? Those of the
Holy One, blessed be He, or those of human beings?”
He answered him:
“Those of human beings are finer.”
Tinneius Rufus said to him: “Consider the heavens and
the earth – can humans make the likes of them?”
Rabbi Akiva said to him, “Do not give
me things that are above human
beings, that people have no control of;
rather, give me examples of things
that are in human hands.”
He said to him:
“Why do you circumcise yourselves?”
He responded, “I knew you would ask me about this,
therefore I began by saying that the deeds of human beings
are finer than those of the Holy One, blessed be He.” Rabbi
Akiva, bringing him some stalks of wheat and some cakes,
said to him, “These were made by the Lord, and these were
made by human beings. Are not these finer than the stalks
of wheat?”
Tinneius Rufus answered him, “If He desires circumcision,
why does the newborn not emerge circumcised from his
mother’s womb?”
Akiva answered him, “And why is he born with an umbilical
cord connecting him to his mother’s womb, and his mother
cuts it? As for your saying, why does he not emerge
circumcised – that is because the Holy One, blessed be He,
gave the commandments to Israel for no other reason than
to refine [or purify] them, hence David said (Ps. 18:31): ‘The
word of the Lord is pure.’”
“Nature is Not a Museum”
"And now it is my turn for a terrible confession. I object to nature
preservation. The very ideal of "preservation" is not acceptable in
almost any area of life. We have not come into this world to
protect or preserve any given thing, mitzvah, nature or cultural
heritage..... We have not inherited a museum, to patiently wipe off
the dust from its displays or to polish the glass..... Nature also is
not a museum. One is allowed to touch, allowed to move, to draw
closer, to change and to leave our stamp..... Touch the stone.
Touch the animal. Touch your fellow man. On one condition.
How to touch?.. To answer on one leg" and in a word I would say:
'with love.” Amos Oz, 1981
Some good news:
Drip Irrigation
40
Desalination
A Technological Solution
To Water Scarcity?
5) Environmental Justice
“Justice, Justice shall you pursue, that you may live.” (Deut 16:20.)
Aleinu L’shabeyach –
"‫ במלכות שדי‬,‫"לתקן עולם‬
L”taken Olam B’malchut Shadai”
mend the world – through
the Almighty’s sovereignty.
– To
Jewish Philanthropy and Africa
What’s Next for Jewish
Environmentalism?
Greening the
Synagogue