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How Green is Judaism? Exploring Jewish Environmental Ethics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2015

David Vogel
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Abstract:

This article draws on ancient and medieval Jewish texts to explore the role of the physical environment in Jewish thought. It situates Jewish teachings in the context of the debate between anthropocentrism and ecocentrism, discusses the Jewish view of nature, and reviews various interpretations of an important Biblical precept of environmental ethics. It argues that while Jewish thought contains many “green” elements, it also contains a number of beliefs that challenge some contemporary environmental values.

The key to the Jewish contribution to environmental ethics lies in the concept of balance—balance between the values and needs of humans and the claims of nature, and between viewing nature as a source of life and moral values and as a threat to human life and social values. The teachings of Judaism challenge both those who would place too low a value on nature as well as those who would place too high a value on it.

Type
Articles
Information
Business Ethics Quarterly , Volume 11 , Issue 2 , April 2001 , pp. 349 - 363
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Business Ethics 2001

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References

Notes

The author would like to thank the following individuals for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article: Eugene Bardach, Zev Brinner, Kenneth Cohen, Edwin Epstein, Claude Fisher, Rabbi Stuart Kelman, Christine Rosen, Eric Schulzke, Adam Weisberg.

1 For a general discussion, see “Thou shalt not covet the earth,” Economist, December 21, 1996, pp. 108–110.

2 Lynn White, Jr. “The Historical Roots of Our Ecologie Crisis,” Science, March 10, 1976, p. 1207.

3 On Christianity, see for example, Roderick Nash, The Rights of Nature: A History of Environmental Ethics (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989), chap. 4, “The Greening of Religion”; and Robert Booth Fowler, The Greening of Protestant Thought (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995).

4 Saul Berman, “Jewish Environmental Values: The Dynamic Tension Between Nature and Human Needs,” in To Till and To Tend (New York: The Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life); Jeremy Benstein, “Leave Nature Out of the War,” The Jerusalem Report, September 7, 1995, p. 32; Jeremy Benstein, “One, Walking and Studying . . .: Nature vs. Torah,” Judaism, Spring 1995, pp. 146–168; Mark Bleiweiss, “Jewish Waste Ethics,” Jewish Spectator, Fall 1995, pp. 17–19; Eliezer Diamond, “Jewish Perspectives on Limiting Consumption,” in Ecology and the Jewish Spirit: Where Nature and the Sacred Meet, ed. Ellen Bernstein (Woodstock: Jewish Lights Publishing, 1998), pp. 80–89; David Ehrenfeld and Philip Bentley, “Judaism and the Practice of Stewardship,” Judaism, pp. 301–311; Eliezer Finkelman, “Kee Tetze: Do Animals Have full Moral Standing?” Jewish Bulletin of Northern California, August 23, 1996; Eric Freudenstein, “Ecology and the Jewish Tradition,” Judaism, Fall 1970, pp. 1–11; Everett Gendler, “The Earth’s Covenant,” Reconstructionist, November-December 1989, pp. 28–31; Robert Gordis, “Ecology in the Jewish Tradition,” Midstream, October 1995, pp. 19–23; Robert Gordis, “The Earth is the Lord’s—Judaism and the Spoliation of Nature,” Keeping Posted, December 1970, pp. 5–9; Ismar Schorsch, “Leaning To Live With Less—A Jewish Perspective,” unpublished talk, September 14, 1990; Eilon Schwartz, “Judaism and Nature: Theological and Moral Issues to Consider While Renegotiating a Jewish Relationship to the Nature World,” Judaism, Fall 1995, pp. 437–447; Abraham Stani, “Educating for Change in Attitudes Toward Nature and Environment Among Oriental Jews in Israel,” Environment and Behavior, January 1993, pp. 3–21; Daniel Swartz, “Jews, Jewish Texts, and Nature: A Brief History,” in To Till and to Tend, p. 1—14; Samuel Weintraub, “The Spiritual Ecology of Kashrut,” in To Till and To Tend, pp. 21–24; Ecology and the Jewish Spirit, ed. Bernstein; Judaism and Ecology, ed. Aubrey Rose (London: Cassell, 1992).

5 Ellen Bernstein and Dan Fink, Let the Earth Teach You Torah (Philadelphia: Shomrei Adamah, 1992); David Stein, ed., A Garden of Choice Fruit (Wyncote, Penn.: 1991).

6 See, for example, Badley Shavit Artson, “A Jewish Celebration of Biodiversity,” Tikkun 12, no. 5, pp. 43–45.

7 For critiques of White’s arguments as they apply to Christianity, see for example, Mark Stoll, Protestantism, Capitalism and Nature in America (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1997), and Clive Ponting, A Green History of the World (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992), chap. 8.

8 For a discussion of these two perspectives, see Avner De-Shalit and Moti Talias, “Green or Blue and White? Environmental Controversies in Israel,” Environmental Politics, Summer 1995, pp. 273–294. For a discussion of deep ecology, see Deep Ecology for the 21st Century, ed. George Sessions (Boston: Shambhala, 1995).

9 Unless otherwise noted, all Biblical quotations are from Everett Fox, The Five Books of Moses: A New Translation with Introductions, Commentary, and Notes (New York: Schocken Books, 1995).

10 Quoted in Bernstein, p. 32.

11 Quoted in Diamond, p. 85.

12 Quoted in Gordis, p. 20.

13 Quoted in Ehrenfeld and Bentley, p. 302.

14 Quoted in Stahl, p. 6.

15 Quoted in Meir Tamari, With All Your Possessions (Jerusalem: Jason Aronson, 1998), p. 280.

16 Berman, p. 15.

17 Schorsch, p. 6.

18 Quoted in Marc Swetlitz, “Living As If God Mattered: Heschel’s View of Nature and Humanity,” in Ecology and the Jewish Spirit, p. 247.

19 Gordis, p. 22.

20 Gordis, p. 8.

21 Gordis, p. 20.

22 See, for example, the various essays in Ecology: Key Concepts in Critical Theory, ed. Carolyn Merchant (New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1994).

23 Quoted in Swartz, p. 6.

24 Quoted in Swartz, p. 4.

25 Swartz, p. 5.

26 Ibid.

27 Quoted in Stahl, p. 7.

28 For a detailed exegesis of this text, which appears to admit of a variety of interpretations, see Berstein, “One, Walking.”

29 Quoted in Gordis, p. 22.

30 Quoted in Bleiwiss, p. 18.

31 Quoted in Diamond, “Jewish Perspectives,” p. 87.

32 Quoted in Gordis, p. 22.

33 Berman, pp. 16, 17.

34 Bernstein, p. 87.

35 A number of writers have pointed to the danger of “study(ing) the Sources with an eye for those particular teachings that are inspirational for—or at least compatible with—one’s own predetermined ‘green’ positions and thus avoiding challenging oneself with texts that don’t fit current environmental wisdom.” Benstein “One, Walking,” p. 147.

36 Berman, p. 17.

37 Diamond, “Jewish Perspectives,” p. 82.

38 Arthur Waskow, “Redwoods, Tobacco, andTorah,” Tikkun 12, no. 5, p. 35.

39 For a very different interpretation, see, for example, the claim made by a number of the contributors to Reweaving The World: The Emergence of Ecofeminism, ed. Irene Diamond and Gloria Orenstein (San Francisco: Sierra Books, 1990).