With 2023 being the hottest year ever recorded, our climate reality is beginning to feel fatal. And yet, despite ongoing international efforts, the necessary action for lasting change constantly falls short. In a show of international pressure to pursue climate action, the voices of the strongest environmental organizations around the world are gaining popularity. Many of these organizations cite the scientific importance of taking climate action and call on individuals, companies, and governments to act before it is too late.
Judaism has its fair share of these organizations; maybe you have heard of them or participated in their movements. Many of them similarly use the undeniable scientific evidence for our climate catastrophe as a way to rally troops. However, it is not solely science that these organizations use as tools for green mentalities.
What sets many of the Jewish environmental organizations apart is their unique approach of using Jewish traditional thought as a foundation for change. They believe that by using Judaism as a backdrop for action, they can better cultivate community-wide sentiment towards climate action, and in turn, drive successful changes for a greener future.
In this article, we will take a look at exactly what these traditional thoughts are, where they come from, and how they are essential in creating impactful international climate action.
Judaism and Environmental Thought
Judaism and concepts of environmentalism have long co-existed. In a recent publication entitled “Waste Not: a Jewish Environmental Ethic,” author Professor Tanhum Yoreh from the University of Toronto in Canada gives an in-depth database of various locations through Jewish texts where environmentalism is spoken about.
According to Yoreh’s book, one of the subjects often cited when referring to environmentalism within Judaism is the concept of Bal Tashhit (בל תשחית). Bal Tashhit, directly translated as “do not destroy”, originates from Deuteronomy 20:19-20:
[19] When you lay siege to a city for a long time, fighting against it to capture it, do not destroy its trees by putting an ax to them, because you can eat their fruit. Do not cut them down. Are the trees people, that you should besiege them? [20] However, you may cut down trees that you know are not fruit trees and use them to build siege works until the city at war with you falls.
It is from these few lines in the Torah from which the ethics code is extrapolated. First spoken about in the Babylonian Talmud, the concept of wastefulness has been discussed for thousands of years. As millennia have passed, conversations about unnecessary wastefulness have famously been held by Rabbi Akiva in the first century to Moses Maimonides in the 12th century. Even the recent Rabbi Jonathan Sacks spoke about the subject, arguing for environmental responsibility by framing humans as “only visitors” to the land we live on. According to Professor Yoreh, Bal Tashhit has been discussed and interpreted beyond the origins of a prohibition against cutting down fruit-bearing trees to include a general “Jewish prohibition against wastefulness and destruction.”
Environmentalism in Modern Activism
For Jewish organizations, many intentionally use concepts like Bal Tashhit as a foundation for their missions, believing they create a unique impact on their greater communities. According to Rabbi Ellen Bernstein, founder of Shomrei Adamah, the first United States-based Jewish environmental organization, Jewish tradition is key for effective climate activism.
After graduating from UC Berkeley’s first class in Environmental Studies, Rabbi Bernstein began her career looking for a way to connect her new-found interest in Jewish knowledge and her passion for environmental activism.
In 1988, Rabbi Bernstein created Shomrei Adamah, which has since closed in 1996, with the mission to “make accessible the ecological roots of Jewish tradition and to inspire Jewish individuals and institutions to care for the earth and act on her behalf.”
For Rabbi Bernstein, the cultivation of environmental activism through Jewish thought was essential in creating the necessary sentiments within both individuals and communities to dedicate their time to climate action.
Today, it is easy to read climate headlines and feel paralyzed. According to a recent survey by researchers from the University of Bath in the United Kingdom, “more than 50% of survey respondents said they felt “sad, anxious, angry, powerless, helpless, and guilty” about climate change.
This is exactly where Jewish traditions come into play, according to Rabbi Bernstein. The question is not whether people believe in climate change, as in her opinion, many are already well aware of our current situation. Rather, according to Rabbi Bernstein, “the biggest question is always how to reach people.” The largest struggle in generating effective climate action is the difficulty of “getting [people] involved.”
This is where she believes that simply science is not enough: “Science alone will not move us to care about the earth, ” she argues. Rabbi Bernstein argues that Jewish texts have the unique ability to motivate people to take action by “helping us to get in touch with our deepest selves”. She believes that “[Jewish] texts give you something to hang on to – something to inspire you.”
“People don’t like being banged on their head,” said Rabbi Bernstein when speaking about how climate action is often communicated about today. Rather, she believes that the most impactful climate action “needs to arrive from within the individual.”
By providing people with a certain pathos to attach their understanding of our climate situations, internal motivations can be generated, leading to what Rabbi Bernstein believes to be both effective and sustainable action.
Additionally, Rabbi Bernstein asserts that it is also the community created by Judaism that allows for change as “when you have critical mass, all of the sudden you get stuff done.” It is with this group effect, that the scale of action can be tipped towards real change.
Moreover, Professor Yoreh believes similarly, arguing that “our stories are what help us make sense of the science, motivating us to act in different capacities.” He asserts that “it’s a human need to have things framed in a relatable way…Torah provides [us this with] stories and inspirations.” This is then attached to science to create a greater impact.
Light at the End of the Tunnel
When given the reality of how bleak our future is, it is challenging to see any action as making an impact. As a recent graduate from a degree in environmental studies, I’ve spent the past half-decade dedicated to micro-analyzing the historical, political, social, statistical, and scientific attributes of our climate crisis. However, when I was finally given my degree, I was not left with the promised skills to help create positive change. Rather, if I learned one thing, I learned there is almost no chance that I or any of my peers would be able to create enough near-future change to prevent climate catastrophe. And that no matter how hard I try, it is almost certain that billions of people on this planet would greatly struggle in the not-so-far future. When I left my environmental education, I only had hopelessness.
And I am not alone. Speaking with many of the similarly ages people I work, study, and socialize with, I often hear some form of the following: “I am just one person, so who cares if I don’t *insert climate action.* It’s all going down the drain anyways.”
Many people are aware of how dire our situation is, and it is because of this very fact that many feel powerless and, in turn, choose inaction. I empathize greatly with this sentiment. Why dedicate my entire life towards trying to prevent a future I have no control in? Our world is walking down a path of destruction. What can I – a simple kid with big ideas and no one to tell them to – do when the problems are as grand as I know them to be?
Almost every time I open my laptop or take out a pencil to begin yet another environmental article pleading people to take action, I ask myself these very questions. But it is something I almost accidentally learned from writing this very article you are reading that keeps me typing.
And it is something I, like many of those around me, have forgotten: hope.
When speaking with Professor Yoreh and Rabbi Bernstein, I was alarmed by their – what I, at the time, believed to be unfounded – hopefulness about their work and the impact it was making. A sentiment seemingly nonexistent within the current climate conversation, both Professor Yoreh and Rabbi Bernstein projected hope based on the very texts we were speaking of.
And it was alongside this hope that they were able to shape communities, write books, and create an impact.
Before writing this article, nothing much more than denial kept my professional motivations going. But now, armed with the pathos of hope, whether that be through Jewish traditional texts or other sources, I no longer face climate change with the popular held beliefs of planetary doom instilled through a constant bombardment of negative signs. Instead, even if it requires a little naivety, it is with hope that I am able to find the motivation to take even the smallest of steps towards global betterment.
Both Rabbi Bernstein and Professor Yoreh believe that it is only with that hope that true change can happen. Judaism and the texts it uses as a guiding light might not perfectly fit into how we see environmentalism today. But what it does provide is a foundation of ethics, debates, and stories that Jewish environmental activists and organizations can leverage as tools of sentiment to create hope within people. It is believed that with this hope, collective action will gain enough traction to bond people together and create positive change.
And though I am still aware of our dire situations, I too hold on to a little hope, as without it, change can never happen.
