An invaluable key to understanding the intersection of ecology and Judaism.

Volume 1:
-- Biblical Israel: One Land, One People
-- Rabbinic Judaism: One People, Many Lands

Introduction: Earth and Earthling

vii

Adam

Adamah

PART 1: Biblical Israel: One Land, One People

1

(84)

Biblical Texts

Aggadah: Joy in Creation---Two Psalms

9

(5)

Halakhah: Rest for the Earth---The Sabbatical/Jubilee Tradition

14

(4)

``The Mountain and the Tower: Wilderness and City in the Symbols of Babylon and Israel''

18

(37)

Evan Eisenberg

``Ecology in a Biblical Perspective''

55

(15)

Tikva Frymer-Kensky

``Earth, Social Justice, and Social Transformation: The Spirals of Sabbatical Release''

70

(15)

Arthur Waskow

PART 2: Rabbinic Judaism: One People, Many Lands

85

(124)

Rabbinic Texts

Aggadah: Celebration and Avoidance

93

(3)

Halakhah: The Law of Bal Tashchit (Do Not Destroy)

96

(7)

``Ecology in Jewish Law and Theology''

103

(24)

Norman Lamm

``The Earth Is the Lord's: Judaism and Environmental Ethics''

127

(14)

Jonathan Helfand

``Judaism and the Practice of Stewardship''

141

(16)

David Ehrenfeld

Philip J. Bentley

``The Rabbis and Expanding Environmental Consciousness''

157

(23)

Fred Dobb

``Nature vs. Torah''

180

(29)

Jeremy Benstein

Spiraling into the Future: Sources for Learning and Doing

209

(3)

Eco-Jewish Organizations

212

(3)

Suggestions for Further Reading

215

(3)

Notes

218

(23)

About the Contributors

241

(2)

About Jewish Lights

243

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Chapter One

Biblical Texts

A. Aggadah: Joy in Creation--Two Psalms

Translated by Arthur Waskow

Bless YHWH/Breath of Life, O my breathing; O YHWH, my God, You are very great; You are cloaked in glory and majesty, wrapped in a robe of light; You spread the heavens like a tent, In the world-wide waters You set the beams of Your planet-wide pavilions, You make the clouds Your chariot, move on the wings of the wind. You make the winds Your messengers, fiery flames Your servants. You set the earth on its foundations, so that it shall never totter. You robed the earth with ocean waves, the waters stood above the mountains. They fled at Your blast, rushed away at the sound of Your thunder, Mountains rising, valleys sinking-- to the place You established for them. You set bounds they must not pass so that they never again cover the earth. You make springs gush forth in torrents; they make their way between the hills, giving drink to all the wild beasts; the wild donkeys quench their thirst. The birds of the sky dwell beside them and sing among the foliage. You water the mountains from Your loftiest sources; the earth is fulfilled with the fruit of Your work. You make grass grow for the cattle, and grain for human labor that we may get food out of the earth-- wine that cheers the human heart, oil that makes the face shine, and bread that sustains a human life. The trees of YHWH drink their fill-- the cedars of Lebanon, Your own planting, where birds make their nests; the stork has her home in the junipers. The high mountains are for wild goats; the crags are a refuge for rock-badgers. You made the moon to mark the seasons; the sun knows when to set. You bring on darkness and it is night, when all the beasts of the forests stir. The lions roar for prey, seeking their food from God. When the sun rises, they come home and couch in their dens. Then we go out to do our work, to labor till the evening. How many are the things You have made, O YHWH; You have made them all with wisdom; the earth is full of Your creations. There is the sea, vast and wide, with its creatures beyond number, living things, small and great. There go the ships, and Leviathan that You formed to play with. All of them look to You to give them their food when it is due.

Give it to them, they gather it up; open Your hand, they are well satisfied; hide Your face, they are terrified; take away their breath, they perish and turn again into dust; send back Your breath, they are created, and You renew the face of the earth. May the glory of YHWH endure forever; may YHWH rejoice in Your works! You look at the earth and it trembles; You touch the mountains and they smoke. I will sing to YHWH as long as I live; all my life I will chant hymns to my God. May my prayer please You; I will rejoice in YHWH. May sinners disappear from the earth, and the wicked be no more. Bless YHWH, O my breathing. Hallelu Yah!

(Psalm 104)

Hallelu-YAH! Praise YHWH/the Breath of Life from the heavens, Praise It in the heights, Praise It, you messengers; Praise It, you multitudes! Praise It, sun and moon And all you light-filled stars! Praise It, Heavens beyond the heavens. Praise It, waters beneath the heavens. Praise the Name of YHWH/Breath of Life, For through Its intertwining all comes to Be, Each finds its place in the dance of All: YHWH carves them a role that no one can erase. So sing praise, all that is earthy and grounded, All that flows in the deeps like the great sea-monsters, Fire and hail, snow and fog, Storm-winds blowing from the Mouth of God. Lofty mountains, gentle hills, Fruit trees and evergreens, Roaring beasts and lowing herds, Crawly bugs and soaring birds, Powerful rulers and empowered peoples, Prosecutors and public defenders, Men and women sprouting promise, Bearded elders bent by life and beardless youth not yet on path, All sing praise to the Breath of Life-- For It stands alone in radiance, Filling with splendor earth and sky, Making Its people a horn of plenty. For the sake of all who love It Or who come near through Wrestling God, Let us praise the Breath of Life--Hallelu-YAH!

(Psalm 149)

B. Halakhah : Rest for the Earth--The Sabbatical/ Jubilee Tradition

YHWH/Breath of Life spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying: Speak to the Children of Israel and say to them: When you enter the land that I give you, the land is to restfully-cease a Sabbath-ceasing of YHWH. For six years you are to sow your field, for six years you are to prune your vineyard, and to gather in its increase. But in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath of Sabbath-ceasing for the land, a Sabbath of YHWH. Your field you are not to sow, your vineyard you are not to prune, the aftergrowth of your harvest you are not to harvest....

It shall be a Sabbath of Sabbath-ceasing for the land. You may eat whatever the land during its Sabbath will freely produce--you, your male and female servants, your hired hand, resident-settlers who sojourn with you, and your domestic-cattle and the wild-life in your land may eat all its yield. (Lev. 25:1-7)

Every seventh year you shall practice Nonattachment. This shall be the nature of the Nonattachment: Every holder of a loan shall release what he has lent to his neighbor. He shall not oppress his neighbor or kinsman, for the Nonattachment proclaimed is from YHWH. (Deut. 15:1-2)

You shall count off seven Sabbath-cycles of years--seven times seven years--so that the period of seven Sabbath-cycles of years gives you a total of forty-nine years. Then you shall sound the ram's horn loud; in the seventh New Moon, on the tenth day after the New Moon--on the Day of Atonement--you shall sound the ram's horn throughout all your land. And you shall hallow the year, the fiftieth year.

You shall proclaim Nonattachment throughout the land for all its inhabitants. It shall be a Home-bringing/Jubilee for you: Each of you shall return to his holding and each of you shall return to his family. That fiftieth year shall be a Home-bringing/Jubilee for you: You shall not sow, neither shall you reap the aftergrowth or harvest the untrimmed vines, for it is a Home-bringing/Jubilee. It shall be holy to you: You may only eat the growth direct from the field. (Lev. 25:8-12)

In this year of Home-bringing/Jubilee each of you shall return to your holding. When you sell property to your neighbor, or buy any from your neighbor, you shall not wrong one another. In buying from your neighbor, you shall deduct only for the number of years since the Home-bringing/Jubilee; and in selling to you, he shall charge you only for the remaining crop years: The more such years, the higher the price you pay; the fewer such years, the lower the price; for what he is selling you is a number of harvests. Do not wrong one another, but fear your God; for I YHWH am your God. (Lev. 25:8-17)

You shall act upon My carved-out patterns-of-reality; My judgings you shall keep and act upon, that you may live upon the land in security; the land shall yield its fruit and you shall eat your fill, and you shall live upon it in security. And should you ask, "What are we to eat in the seventh year, if we may neither sow nor gather in our crops?" I will connect My blessing to you in the sixth year, so that it shall yield a crop sufficient for three years.... But the land must not be sold beyond reclaim, for the land is Mine; you are but strangers and visitors with Me. (Lev. 25:18-21, 23)

If you follow My laws and faithfully observe My commandments, I will grant your rains in their season, so that the earth shall yield its produce and the trees of the field their fruit. Your threshing shall overtake the vintage, and your vintage shall overtake the sowing; you shall eat your fill of bread and dwell securely in your land.... I will grant peace in the land, and you shall lie down untroubled by anyone; I will give the land respite from vicious beasts, and no sword shall cross your land.

I will establish My Dwelling-place in your midst, and I will not spurn you. I will be ever present in your midst: I will be your God, and you shall be My people. I YHWH am your God who brought you out from the land of Narrow Straits/the Egyptians to be their slaves no more, who broke the bars of your yoke and made you walk erect.

But if you do not obey Me and do not observe all these commandments, if you reject My laws and spurn My rules, so that you do not observe all My commandments and you break My covenant.... (Lev. 26:3-15)

... Your land shall become a desolation and your cities a ruin. Then shall the land make up for its Sabbath-ceasing years throughout the time that it is desolate and you are in the land of your enemies; then shall the land restfully-cease and make up for its Sabbath-ceasing years.

Throughout the time that it is desolate, it shall restfully-cease as it did not restfully-cease in your Sabbath-ceasing years while you were dwelling upon it. (Lev. 26:33-35)

For the land shall be forsaken of them, making up for its Sabbath years by being desolate of them, while they atone for their iniquity; for the abundant reason that they rejected My rules and spurned My laws. (Lev. 26:43)

Those who survived the sword he exiled to Babylon, and they became his and his sons' servants till the rise of the Persian kingdom, in fulfillment of the word of YHWH spoken by Jeremiah, until the land paid back its Sabbaths; as long as it lay desolate it kept Sabbath, till seventy years were completed. (II Chron. 36:20-21)