This year, Earth Day (April 22, 2006) falls
on a Saturday, providing a perfect opportunity
to turn the day into an “Environmental
Shabbat.”
Shabbat is a reminder of creation, as it is
said, "For in six days the Lord made the
heaven and earth, and on the seventh day, He
rested." (Genesis 2:1.2) When God created
the world, he was able to say, "It is very
good." (Genesis 1:31) Everything was in
harmony as God had planned, the waters were clean,
the air was pure. But what must God think about
the world today? What must God think when the
rain he sends to nourish our crops is often acid
rain due to the many chemicals poured into the
air by our industries? When the abundance of
species of plants and animals that God created
are becoming extinct in tropical rain forests
and other threatened habitats? When the fertile
soil that God provided is rapidly being depleted
and eroded? When the climatic conditions that
God designed to meet our needs are threatened
by global warming?
Earth Day also falls almost immediately after
Passover this year, and today's environmental
threats can be compared in many ways to the Biblical
ten plagues, which are considered at the Passover
seder:
- When we consider the threats to our land,
waters, and air, pesticides and other chemical
pollutants, resource scarcities, threats
to our climate, etc., we can easily enumerate
ten modern "plagues".
- The Egyptians
were subjected to one plague at a time, while
the modern plagues are threatening us all at
once.
- The Israelites in Goshen were spared most
of the Biblical plagues, while every person
on earth is imperiled by the modern plagues.
- Instead of an ancient Pharoah's heart being
hardened, our hearts today have been hardened
by the greed, materialism, and waste that are
at the root of current environmental threats.
- God provided the Biblical plagues to free
the Israelites, while today we must apply God's
teachings in order to save ourselves and our
precious but imperiled planet.
- The first Earth Day was in 1970, so this year's
event will be the 36th anniversary of Earth Day.
The number 36 has special significance in Judaism,
as it represents the number of tzaddikim, the
lamed-vavniks who uphold the world. It also represents
twice CHAI. CHAI (life) is composed of the Hebrew
letters chet and yud, whose numerical values are
8 and 10, thus adding up to 18. Hence, we can
relate Earth Day this year to improving two lives,
that of our endangered planet and that of Judaism.
Our planet is arguably threatened as never before.
Just to take one problem, global warming, we
have recently experienced record heat waves,
increasing numbers and severity of hurricanes
and other storms, rapid melting of glaciers and
polar ice caps, major floods, and severe droughts.
This has all occurred due to a one degree Fahrenheit
average increase in the global temperature. This
is very frightening since the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change, a group composed of
the world’s leading climate scientists
has projected an average global temperature increase
of 2.5 to 10.4 degrees Fahrenheit by the end
of this century, and that would have catastrophic
effects in many areas worldwide.
An ancient midrash (rabbinic teaching) has become
all too relevant today: “In the hour when
the Holy one, blessed be He, created the first person,
God showed him the trees in the Garden of Eden,
and said to him: "See My works, how fine they
are; Now all that I have created, I created for
your benefit. Think upon this and do not corrupt
and destroy My world, For if you destroy it, there
is no one to restore it after you." (Ecclesiastes
Rabbah 7:28)
Environmental problems today are due to the
fact that the ways of the world are completely
contrary to Jewish values:
- Judaism teaches that the earth is the Lord's
and that we are to be partners and co-workers
with God in protecting the environment. But
today's philosophy is that the earth is to
be exploited for maximum profit, regardless
of the long-range ecological consequences.
- Judaism stresses bal tashchit, that we are
not to waste or unnecessarily destroy anything
of value. By contrast, wastefulness in the
United States is so great that, with about
4% of the world's people we use about a third
of the world's resources, and this has a major
impact on pollution and resource scarcities.
- Judaism asserts that a wise person considers
the long-range consequences of his/her
actions and that we must plan for future
generations; but the way of the world today
is often to consider only immediate gains.
It is urgent that Torah values be applied toward
the solution of current environmental problems.
This means, for example: an energy policy based
not on dangerous energy sources, but on CARE
(conservation and renewable energy), consistent
with Jewish teachings on preserving the environment,
conserving resources, creating jobs, protecting
human lives, and considering future generations.
The book of Jonah, which is read as the prophetic
portion during the afternoon service of Yom Kippur,
has a powerful lesson with regard to current
ecothreats. Jonah was sent by God to Nineveh
to urge the people to repent and change their
unjust ways in order to avoid destruction. Today,
in a sense, the whole world is Nineveh, in danger
of annihilation and in need of repentance and
redemption, and each one of us must be a Jonah,
with a mission to warn the world that it must
turn from waste, materialism, greed, and injustice,
in order to turn the world from its present perilous
path.
Hence, making Earth Day 2006 an Environmental
Shabbat, with sermons, classes, environmentally-conscious
meals and other environmentally-related activities
can be an important step toward moving our imperiled
planet to a sustainable path and revitalizing
Judaism.
