The Concept of Environment in Judaism

An Ecological Perspective Based on Jewish Tradition

1 Introduction

“Rabbi Amorai asked: ‘Where is the Garden of Eden?’ He replied: ‘It is on earth.’”1

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks writes, “Hope is a human virtue, but one with religious underpinnings. At its ultimate it is the belief . . . [that God] is mindful of our aspirations, with us in our fumbling efforts, that He has given us the means to save us from ourselves; that we are not wrong to dream, wish and work for a better world. Hope is the knowledge that we can choose; that we can learn from our mistakes and act differently next time.”2

Many people fear that humans have irrevocably destroyed the ecology of “Eden” on earth. But God created the world out of love for life on earth. This chapter, adapted from Eco Bible volume 1: An Ecological Commentary on Genesis and Exodus, explores the deep inspiration we can find in the Hebrew Bible for fulfilling the blessing of all life, for changing course to preserve God’s creation, and for sustaining human life in harmony with nature and all of God’s creatures.

The Hebrew Bible is also called the Torah, the Five Books of Moses, or the Pentateuch (and also refers to the Prophets and Writings, which are not addressed in this commentary). How does the Hebrew Bible relate deeply to living in balance with God’s creation, through a lifestyle that is not only aware of but protects the natural world? Is concern for environmental stewardship external to the Hebrew Bible, or a central message embedded within it? This chapter reveals a spiritually grounded vision for both long-term sustainability and immediate environmental mindfulness and action.

Some people believe religion is separate and distinct from ecology or care for God’s creation. Most Hebrew Bible study, teaching, and preaching occur without addressing the ecological crisis, the greatest crisis facing humanity. This chapter applies an ecological perspective to reveal how the Hebrew Bible itself, and thousands of years of Biblical teaching by Jewish rabbis, indeed embrace care for God’s creation as a fundamental message. An ancient Jewish commentary on the Hebrew Bible, the Midrash, teaches that “God gazed into the Hebrew Bible and created the world.”3 The Divine teaching is a blueprint for all of creation and instructs us about living sustainably in the world God created.

Were it not for the receiving of the Hebrew Bible on Mt. Sinai, the Midrash teaches, God would have returned the world to chaos and void.4 Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch writes that the ideal of the Hebrew Bible “awaits the generation which will finally have become matured for its ideals to be made into a reality.”5 Applying the teachings of the Hebrew Bible to stewardship of God’s creation is not just an idea for today, but essential for a future in which we achieve a balanced, worldwide ecosystem and thrive on a planet viable for all life.

This chapter quotes scores of rabbis and other Jewish thinkers commenting on verses from the Hebrew Bible. Eco Bible, including Volume I, Genesis and Exodus, and Volume II, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, was published during a time of accelerating environmental challenges, a worldwide coronavirus pandemic, and widespread protests for racial justice. Ecological disasters and COVID-19’s devastating spread are causing the tragic loss of so many lives as well as a profound disruption of natural ecosystems, families, communities, cultures, and the populations of entire nations. Pollution disproportionately impacts people of color and calls for environmental justice are growing.

These interconnected crises are signals to humanity of the need for restoring balance between people and nature. The Hebrew Bible’s Divine wisdom can provide important messages for striving to find this balance. Some of the Hebrew Bible’s verses – which first “spoke” to people in ancient times when the Bible was given – may seem cryptic, obscure, or irrelevant to our modern times or lives. The chief function of contemporary commentaries like Eco Bible, as with all rabbinic commentaries that have strived to enlighten, is to make the holy book relevant in our own generation and those to come.

This chapter explores how the Hebrew Bible and traditional commentaries relate to a range of critical, contemporary ecological challenges, such as preserving animal and plant biodiversity, ensuring clean air, land, and water, and showing compassion to both domestic and wild animals. Each of us can take many different kinds of actions that sustain the world and sustain our souls. “Study is not the most important thing, but action,”6 Rabbi Shimon ben Gamliel says.

1.1 The Need for Jewish Ecological Ethics

The Ark, which held the Tablets God gave Moses on Mt. Sinai, physically moved with the Israelites during their 40 years in the desert.7 The word of God contained in the Ark is a revolutionary teaching; to remain dynamic and alive, it has to keep moving with human concerns or it will become reactionary, static, fixed. Commentaries on the Bible must move forward too. This new Eco Bible commentary is extremely timely – both grounded in millennia of rabbinic thought and speaking to the greatest challenges facing humanity in the twenty-first century.

Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, the first chief rabbi of Israel before its statehood in 1948, spoke of learning the Hebrew Bible “for its sake,” where the teachings “become more and more expansive.”8 Rabbi Daniel Kohn understands this to mean that the Hebrew Bible becomes ever more multifaceted, expressive, variegated, and beautified.9 Eco Bible attempts to unfold and reveal the profound Divine teachings of the Hebrew Bible from an ecological perspective, among what Rabbi Shlomo ben Aderet recognizes as “the ever-increasing number of fresh understandings of the Bible’s verses.”10

Religion has been a channel for moral and ethical instruction across the ages and the world. Faith can and should help us to address the roots of our planet’s ecological crisis. Rabbi Dov Berkowitz says in regard to the Hebrew Bible, “How do we utilize 3,500 years of spiritual consciousness for the betterment of our contemporary society?”11 When we are faced with the compelling, sustained insights of religious thought and tradition, we can come to see our current life choices in a different and more ecological light.

1.2 Addressing the Spiritual Roots of the Ecological Crisis

What on earth are we doing to creation? We have disrupted the ecological balance of all God created on earth, and we owe it to God, to each other, and to all species to restore the balance. This is the greatest physical and spiritual challenge humanity has ever faced together. Caring for creation is key to receiving the full blessings of the Creator. Awareness of the Infinite opens us up to protecting the immediate – the very planet on which we live.

As a fundamental part of many people’s lives, religion can be a key motivator by shaping values. Religion appeals not just to our intellect but to our soul – and this is where change is most needed. When God is at the center of our environmental awareness, it becomes much more powerful. At this moment in history, we need a major infusion of energy specifically to help faith groups inspire behavioral change for sustainable living.

We offer this chapter to accelerate the awakening religious and spiritual process, so humanity can keep moving fast enough to avert irreversible environmental deterioration of our only home. The environmental movement has failed to effect transformational change in the past 50 years partly because fear of the darkness of ecological collapse has driven the movement. The light of spirituality can spark a more hopeful approach with deeper and broader effect. Here are three reasons why.

First, religion can persuade people to consume in moderation as they find true satisfaction in spirituality, community, and family. Spiritual living should bring consciousness to our consumption. To rise to this ultimate challenge for human civilization, we have to raise our spiritual awareness and maturity. A person can exist at varying levels of soul awareness, but a sustainable planet will require that we learn to live and thrive at higher levels of spiritual consciousness.

Second, religious teachings help instill foresight and long-term thinking. The rabbis of the Talmud taught about 1,500 years ago: “Who is the wise person? The person who can see the effect of their actions.”12 We must put both the present and future of our children and grandchildren first, above expanding our own standard of living. Spiritual awareness can help us recognize the...