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Desecrating What God Entrusted to Us
Protecting God’s creation is, I have found in my travels, perhaps the most intuitively religious social issue of our day. Because it is shared by so many faiths, a genuinely interfaith effort on this issue could forge a powerful religious response whose potential would be staggering.
Think of it: There are over 300,000 houses of worship in America! If every one of them engaged in a serious effort to conserve energy, to recycle goods and purchase recycled goods, to use compact fluorescent light bulbs, to help clean up their neighborhoods and plant trees, to speak out on environmental policy for their 140 million congregants -- what a transformation of the environmental issue we would see!
As Jews, we know why we must be involved.
La'adonai ha'aretz um'loah -- "The Earth is the Eternal's and the Fullness thereof." What we own, we own in a trust relationship with God, requiring that we protect the corpus -- the body -- of the trust, i.e. G-d's creation. This mandate resulted in an extensive array of Talmudic environmental regulations aimed at keeping the water and air clean; preventing pollution; containing wastes; encouraging, under the rubric of baal tashchit, conservation of resources; requiring the migrash, belts of green, planted around urban areas. All these testify to the unmistakable obligation of Jews to address environmental concerns.
The picture of the whole earth taken from outer space is the defining image, the icon, the revelation of our generation. And as we see it from afar, this blue-green home, with its great forests and seas, mountains and creatures, is sweet and precious -- and good, the way God created and beheld it: kee tov -- "and it was good."
But just at the very moment in human history when we see with clarity, wonder, and awe how precious is God's creation, we are suddenly confronted by startling evidence of its peril. And of damage already being wrought: By our own hands, by our ignorance, and by our indifference, affecting all of us, indiscriminately: Global warming, ozone depletion, the escalating eradication of entire species of life, destruction of our rain forests, runaway world population.
The Midrashic commentaries on the Bible recount:
In the hour when God created the first human, God brought the human before all the trees of the Garden of Eden and said, "See my works, how fine and excellent they are! …For you have I created it…. Do not corrupt and desolate my world -- for if you destroy it, there will be no one after you to set it right again.
Our common task is to ensure that God's mandate is heard today by all humanity. For this Earth is our garden, and this time we face not expulsion but devastation. And that we cannot, we dare not, allow, neither for our children's sake nor for God's.
By
David Saperstein
|
February 13, 2007; 4:57 PM ET
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Not only is the earth the garden but the universe is also the garden. In the near future, there will be an interfaith revolution to protect the garden. The faithful of all the religions will unite behind this common goal. We will then be able to dwell in the garden as intended. The pagans of all faiths will lose their power, the power of war and rumors of war. The children of God will no longer be enemies. The spark for the revolution is the revelation.
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There's a great big universe out there. Let's get out there and enjoy it—and not waste any more human energy and creativity wringing our hands over this insignificant dust speck.
Posted by: Anonymous | February 13, 2007 7:23 PM
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Thank you for this wonderful tribute to the sense of responsibility that delineates a mature mind. It is children and fools who are selfish and uncaring.
Posted by: J. Rhinehart | February 13, 2007 7:11 PM
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Hey dave, you discovered this:
"Protecting God’s creation is, I have found in my travels, perhaps the most intuitively religious social issue of our day. Because it is shared by so many faiths, a genuinely interfaith effort on this issue could forge a powerful religious response whose potential would be staggering."
Wow. Stagger some of this: you should travel more, get away from all those Jews you hang with, and recognize that you can profit from "genuine interfaith efforts" just like the Palestinian bros who are wondering were their next loaf of bread is going to come from. Travel more, and you'll discover the nexus of the Nazis and the government of Israel.
You're a clown, a simpleton, and you (and your father) always knew it.
Thank you for informing me of your world view.
Your pal,
Bob
Posted by: Anonymous | February 12, 2007 10:43 PM
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