Published: 27 September 2019
Last updated: 4 March 2024
THE STRONG CONSENSUS of scientific opinion is that the Earth’s climate is changing and this is the result of human activity. This change in climate is already having deleterious effects which will become even more drastic unless action is taken soon. There will be more droughts and heatwaves, hurricanes will become stronger and more intense, sea levels will rise, the Arctic will lose its ice, ecosystems will be disrupted.
This trend will affect all life, including human life: where we can live, what there is to eat, the natural events we must endure. Do we have a religious duty to do anything about it?
The first and most obvious source of a religious obligation is our duty to each other. Leviticus 19:16 instructs: “You shall not stand idly by the blood of thy neighbour: I am the Lord”. If our fellow men and women are going to suffer, even die, as a result of climate change that we have caused, then we have a responsibility to avert it.
That is straightforward, but there is another possible aspect we need to explore: Do we have any God-given responsibilities to the planet itself and its non-human creatures?
At first glance, we seem to have no such obligations. The Earth is ours to rule and to do with as we wish. The Psalms tells us: “The heavens are the Lord’s, but the earth he has given to the children of man” (Psalm 115:16).
That right dates to the beginning of humanity and the people within in. The story of creation in the first chapter of Genesis unambiguously give humanity dominion over the rest of the world and everything that is in it:
“God said, ‘Let us make humanity in our image, after our likeness. They shall rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the cattle, the whole earth, and all the creeping things that creep on earth.” (Genesis 1:26).
When Nachmanides, the medieval Spanish Rabbinic commentator (1194-1270) looked at that verse, he understood that the Torah has given us tremendous licence to harness the world.
He wrote: “God gave them power and dominion over the world, to manipulate the animal kingdom, to build and to uproot, to mine the ground for metals and everything of a like nature”.
That is indeed what we do. We breed animals, chop down forests to create pasture, derive metals, oil, gas and precious stones from the earth. Human beings have always done that. The question is only whether it is done responsibly and sustainably.
God gives us a stark warning. If we ruin the world then no one, not even God Himself, will repair it for us. We have a unique capacity to destroy the world and a unique capacity to preserve it.
If I own a home, and I want to trash it, that might be foolish. It might have regrettable consequences for my own wellbeing, but it remains my right. That is not true if I am housesitting for someone else. They did not lend me their home to destroy, only to maintain.
The Rabbis asserted our duty to maintain our earthly home, as an implied quid pro quo for being given such a beautiful world to inhabit. The Midrash (early rabbinic exegesis) on the book of Ecclesiastes makes this point emphatically:
When the Blessed Holy One created the first human, God took him and led him round all the trees of the Garden of Eden and said to him: “Look at My works, how beautiful and praiseworthy they are! And all that I have created, it was for you that I created it. Pay attention that you do not corrupt and destroy My world: if you corrupt it, there is no one to repair it after you.” (Kohelet Rabbah 7:13).
God gives us a stark warning. If we ruin the world then no one, not even God Himself, will repair it for us. We have a unique capacity to destroy the world and a unique capacity to preserve it. We are instructed to keep it in good condition, and if we do not, the consequence and the punishment will be the same.
Responsible stewardship of the world is therefore the expectation of the biblical and rabbinic traditions. That ancient message was taken up by rabbis in the industrial age. Nowadays we are well-aware of the dangers to the plant that come from overconsumption. Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808-1888) warned us about this in his book discussing the philosophy of the commandments Horeb.
Only for wise use has God laid the world at our feet when God said to humanity, “subdue the world and have dominion over it.” (Genesis 1:28). Destruction does not only mean making something purposely unfit for its designated use; it also means trying to attain a certain aim by making use of more things and more valuable things when fewer and less valuable ones would suffice consuming more than is necessary.
If we only consumed what we needed, the dangers of climate change would be radically reduced. We would be able to take advantage of the permission Nachmanides identified in the Torah, without straying into the destruction the Rabbis warn us against.
We can enjoy the world, without endangering it. That is the golden mean that the Jewish tradition wants us to seek out.
Illustration: Avi Katz
