Ellen Bernstein

Twenty-five years ago, while studying at the University of California at Berkeley’s environment program, one of the first in the country, I was troubled by the “problem” approach taken to the environment. This kind of orientation seemed to reduce the natural world into discrete segments and identified and attacked problems one by one. As fast as we could recognize and remedy one problem, a new one loomed on the horizon.
    I believed there was something fundamentally wrong with this piecemeal approach, since the environmental crisis is, at its heart, a crisis in values. It begins when people objectify the natural world and treat nature as a resource to manipulate, rather than as an aspect of the Sacred to revere.
    I concluded that part of what was at fault was an educational system that advances a reductionist and utilitarian world-view. I believed we must learn to value nature as an end in itself, not as a means to an end. We must educate for wholeness and joy, not utility. At that time, I decided to devote myself to teaching biology in a way that would inspire students about the mystery of life: I would rely on great nature writers and on the students’ encounters with wilderness to help me with the teaching.
    At the same time, I was on my own spiritual quest. After experimenting with many paths, I was ultimately drawn back to my own tradition. I began to study Jewish texts and found—to both my surprise and bewilderment—that Judaism was rich in spirit and wisdom concerning humanity’s relationship with nature. The Creation story, Jewish law, the cycle of holidays, prayers, mitzvot (good deeds), and neighborly relations all reflect a reverence for land and a viable practice of stewardship. Judaism supported the values that I was teaching: that Creation is sacred and humanity has the awesome and wonderful responsibility to guard and preserve it.
    I believed I was tapping into a wellspring of Jewish culture that had been obscured by a generation whose world-view was molded by Israel and the Holocaust. I was disturbed that the precious wisdom of Judaism had never been made available to me; in fact, my early Jewish education left me spiritually empty and resentful. My experience was not dissimilar to many of my generation, who abandoned Judaism—never to return. I was convinced that the spiritual and ecological dimension that I discovered for myself had the potential to enrich Judaism and provide meaning for my generation and those to come. I hoped that someone would develop and promote this dimension of Judaism. At that time, no one did.
    In 1988, with hospital syringes and other medical detritus washing up on the New Jersey shore and the threat of global warming becoming a reality, I founded Shomrei Adamah—Keepers of the Earth, the first organization dedicated to cultivating the ecological thinking and practices that are integral to Jewish life. With the input of many Jewish scholars, teachers, and rabbis around the country, Shomrei Adamah developed programs, publications, and curricula to illuminate Jewish ecological values and enhance Jewish spirituality.
    As director of Shomrei Adamah, I believed that my most important contribution would be to synthesize a Jewish ecological perspective. So I targeted a group of colleagues who integrated an ecological orientation with their specific discipline, be it biblical studies, Jewish philosophy, Jewish law, anthropology, or agriculture, and who represented all walks of Jewish life, from Orthodox to Reform to secular, to work on pieces for a book.
    Out of our discussions and work came Ecology & the Jewish Spirit, which for the first time, in one book, brings together the environmental understandings and practices implicit in ancient Jewish texts and makes them come alive for modern audiences.

Judaism’s Hidden Message

    It is important to address the fact that, up until now, Judaism’s ecological message has remained hidden. There are at least three reasons for this:

• Biblical scholars and most modern Jews tend to focus on the historical dimension of Judaism. This tendency reflects the bias of our culture in general. Yet, the development of a civilization depends not only on history but also on nature. Until now, nature’s role has remained hidden, the backdrop upon which the historical drama unfolds.
  
  
• Jewish texts are largely inaccessible to the unseasoned reader; the Talmud and Midrash invariably send the novice scurrying away. A beginner could not pick up a musical score and expect to play it immediately. So it is with classical Jewish texts, which are difficult and largely off-limits. Jewish texts are deep and rich, but most people will need a friend or teacher to help them navigate their way in the beginning.
  
  
• Moderns too often pose the wrong questions to religion. They ask what Judaism says about the “environmental crisis” or about “nature.” Nature and environment are modern terms that have risen out of our separation from the natural world. Ancient Israelites depended on nature for their daily livelihood: rain and crops determined their fate, and nature was an integral part of their lives. In a culture where the wisdom and the force of nature were experienced each day and often each moment, terms like environment and nature have no meaning.
      Rather, Judaism’s ecological message emerges when we observe what is sacred in Judaism. How are we to treat what is holy? And what is humanity’s place amid the holiness? The Jewish understanding that the earth belongs to God attests to the fact that the earth and everything in it is holy, and this concept of holiness, kedushah, is the beginning of a unique Jewish environmental ethic.