Abstract
This chapter explores ways classical Jewish sources, Jewish law (Halakha), and the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) can be analyzed around ecological themes contributing to global sustainability practices to protect our environment. Environmental motifs are found throughout these texts. Perspectives used focus on interconnecting humanity and nature linking environmental stewardship, protection, and the idea of tikkun olam, repairing the world. This Jewish religious perspective, with its rich history of respect for nature and non-human life, interrelated with social justice, offers insight into “just sustainability,” serving as a model and guide for a more sustainable future. A key Jewish contribution to environmental ethics is interdependence among God, human needs, and claims of nature, with a responsibility to use nature wisely and responsibly, preserving it for future generations and caring for its people justly. We explore modern environmental concerns through this biblical lens including stewardship, climate change, resource conservation, urban planning, sensitivity to animal welfare, and environmental health. Incorporating Judaism’s ancient wisdom from more than 2500 years ago, with its balanced approach to environmental issues, can inspire positive individual and organizational actions enhancing ecological discourse.
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Notes
- 1.
The author grew up in Reform and Reconstructionist Jewish communities with Jewish educator parents, all stressing moral behaviors required to live a Jewish life, making a difference in the world.
- 2.
Exploring these ecological perspectives requires an understanding of the place of the Hebrew Bible in Jewish thought and practice. Unlike the Christian Bible, biblical Jewish texts are not stand-alone sources. You read them through a lens of rabbinic texts with later commentaries and interpretations developed after the Roman destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 CE (Belser, 2022). The Mishnah (canonized in 200 CE) is one of the earliest texts of rabbinic law and practice. The Babylonian Talmud is a commentary on the Mishnah including debates between rabbis about Jewish law and practice. Judaism is not settled beliefs and law. Rather, in Jewish tradition, the Talmud emphasizes a process of inquiry and argumentation (Belser, 2022, p. 2). It is this Midrashic tradition that brings contemporary ecological concerns into Judaism. Rabbis employ commandments for each age in which they lived, attending to their world, fashioning everyday life around these commandments (Kornfeld, 2021, p. 1014).
- 3.
There are many Jewish organizations across the Orthodox to Reform spectrum that do Jewish environmental activism. These include Shalom Center that promotes an activist ecological understanding of Judaism, Coalition of the Environment and Jewish Life (COEJL), Shomrie Adamah (Keepers of the Earth), Canfei Nesharim, Teva Learning Alliance, Heschel Center for Environmental Learning and Leadership (Israel), Jewish Climate Initiative and others (Dobb, 2018: Krone, June 23, 2021).
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Case, S.S. (2023). Judaism and Ecological Discourse: What a Jewish Religious Perspective Offers to Contemporary Sustainability Dialogue. In: Singh, N., Vu, M.C., Chu, I., Burton, N. (eds) Faith Traditions and Sustainability. Management, Change, Strategy and Positive Leadership. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41245-5_9
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