I entered the classroom, where more than 30 Jewish adults who had been studying together for the past semester buzzed in conversation.
I began class by asking my students a simple question: “Are you concerned about what is happening to our environment and how it may affect the future of your children and grandchildren?”
Without a single exception, every person in the room said yes.
Read any newspaper today and you will find stories about problems being created by global warming, water, air and soil pollution, destruction of eco-systems and rain forests and of course, our dependency on oil.
But human abuse of our earth is not a new issue nor solely a result of technology. Sadly, man’s instinct to destroy the natural world dates back to Biblical times.
It seems that we have always needed guidance in how to treat the earth. In Deut. 20:19-20, we are commanded not to cut down fruit-bearing trees during a siege against a city because they may one day feed the people who survive, (although we are permitted to cut down non-fruit bearing trees to use for building materials.)
This prohibition against destroying (bal tashchit) teaches the value of humility and restraint in how we act toward the earth.
Think about it. What better time is there to limit the human tendency to act without concern for our environment than after a successful conquest, when we are infatuated with our own sense of power? And what better value can we instill than our responsibility to rebuild and renew the earth for future generations than after a war?
JUDAISM has a lot to say about how to create a balance between using the resources we have and abusing or destroying them.
The rabbis greatly expanded the concept of bal tashchit to prohibit wasting goods and materials, clogging wells, releasing toxic fumes and chemicals into the earth and killing animals for convenience rather than necessity.
The basic principle they established bears repeating today: While man may use the earth for his needs, he may not use any resource needlessly.
But how do we weigh our needs against our excesses? Who decides what a legitimate use is and what is wasteful?
To answer these questions, we need to look at the purposes for which man was created in the first place. Our first answers are found in Gen. 1:28 where we learn that man was put on the earth to “fill it and conquer it” and in Gen. 2:15, where our divine purpose is “to work the Garden of Eden and to guard it.”
Our marching orders seem clear, or do they?
From the beginning of time, we have had to face the challenge of balancing two contrary ideas: our obligation to use the environment for our own needs against the responsibility of preserving and protecting it.
Jewish tradition is rich with rituals and holidays that enable us to develop a sound and balanced environmental ethic.
Every day, each time we eat, the Jewish “menu” of kashrut (food “fit” for consumption) reminds us that the world is ours to use, but that with limitations.
The concept of restricted foods is incrementally introduced in the Torah — first, when G-d permits Adam to eat fruits and vegetables and later, when the Israelites are given a list of animals, birds and fish that they are no longer permitted to eat. Both commands reinforce the idea that we do not have unrestricted use of the world in which we live.
JEWS also have a special weekly reminder to help us balance our need to control the environment with caring for it. Shabbat is the original Earth Day.
It celebrates the majesty of creation and tells us in no uncertain terms that the earth is for us to enjoy, but that we have a weekly obligation to let it rest, just as we are commanded to rest.
On Shabbat, we relinquish our own work in order to pause and reflect on the wonder of creation rather than dominate and control it.
The concept of the sabbatical year, shmita in Hebrew, also develops an environmental awareness by requiring us to refrain from agricultural activity such as planting, plowing and harvesting every seventh year.
Once again we are required to limit our use of the earth, which is on “loan” to us, in order to fulfill our role as stewards.
Recently, much has been written about the concept of eco-kashrut, which is the practice of using environmentally friendly, eco-certified, kosher foods, goods and materials.
Eco-kashrut looks for Jewish solutions to contemporary environmental problems, resorting to Jewish values like tikkun olam (repairing the world), chesed (compassion) and tzedek (justice).
It encompasses more than just the food we eat, extending to the clothing we wear, the cars we drive and the products we use.
A website sponsored by the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life (www.coejl.org) offers excellent resources to develop an understanding of the issues.
We are bound to all life on the planet and have an obligation to sustain it and we are obligated to future generations to leave this world better than we found it.
There is no better time than now to embrace that challenge.