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March 14, 2008
From knowledge to action
Jews are protecting the environment one Shabbat at a time.
DAVID MIVASAIR
"When God created the first human beings, God led them around the Garden of Eden and said, 'Look at My works! How beautiful, how excellent! See to it that you do not spoil and destroy my world; for if you do, there will be no one else to repair it.'" (Midrash Kohelet Rabbah, sixth century CE)
Judaism values "deed" more than "creed." Doing counts more than believing. At Sinai, our ancestors proclaimed, "Na'aseh ve-nishmah." ("We will do and then we will listen.")
We pray "Baruch omer ve-oseh" ("Blessed is the one who speaks and does") each Shabbat morning.
This article is about taking concrete steps from knowing to action that will make a difference in living responsibly on God's green earth.
I learned a bit of Torah in action from one of my contemporary Jewish heroes – British Columbia resident Tzeporah Berman, co-founder of ForestEthics. She is an extraordinarily effective activist and a committed, conscientious Jew. A minute of thoughtful silence toward the end of her exceptional talk last month for the Jewish Museum of B.C. sparked this piece. After delivering a compelling argument against the Alberta tarsands development, because of its impact on global climate change, Berman challenged her audience to think what more we each could do to reduce our own impact on the endangered environment in which we live.
Me? I thought. I do everything I can. I ride my bike, carpool, turn down the heat. I even unplug the TV when no one is watching. Realistically, I think that's about all I can do. I'm OK. I don't need to do any more.
As soon as my self-satisfaction inventory was complete, that part of my thinking fell silent and made space for a new idea: highlight the intersection of Jewish teaching with practical steps to take from knowing about environmentally aware living to actually doing more.
Here in British Columbia, environmental consciousness is about as good as it gets anywhere. We all know plenty about what we can do to be more environmentally responsible. What we need is the "deed."
I've been hearing lately how, in taking a stand for God's Creation, Canada's largest mainstream Christian organizations are calling for an "Earth Hour" on Saturday, March 29, urging us to turn off our lights for an hour because our use of fossil fuels is contributing to global climate change. Obviously a symbolic, but worthy, action to raise consciousness that can then lead to real impacts, this campaign led me to think about our Jewish practice of reducing our use of fossil fuels for 25 hours every week of our lives (by not turning on lights on Shabbat). Hundreds of thousands of Jews all over the world completely refrain from fossil-fuel-propelled travel for one whole day every week – and feel good about it. As the prophet Isaiah said, "They call the Shabbat a delight."
Shabbat is central to Jewish life. In our understanding, it is inherent in the very rhythm of the universe. Shabbat is in the Creation story even before human religious practice emerged. We first hear about Shabbat in human life in the book of Exodus: "Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath for the Eternal, your God."
Although Jewish tradition has defined the "work" to be avoided on Shabbat in very specific ways, only one specific behavior is mentioned in the Torah itself as prohibited on Shabbat: "You shall kindle no fires." (Exodus 35:5) This has led generations of Jews to reduce burning on Shabbat and, in our times, to walk rather than drive for one glorious day each week.
Celebrating Shabbat by taking a break from driving is good for the soul, slowing us down, getting us outdoors. Even more, it is a wise and practical gift for God's earth, acknowledging that there is a time for us humans to simply stop impacting it as much as we do. In Israel, where nearly the entire country gives up driving on Yom Kippur, the air pollution is measurably less on that one day every year. Imagine theenvironmental benefits if more of us kept Shabbat in this way.
Freeing ourselves from driving on Shabbat isn't an all-or-nothing proposition. Conservative rabbis years ago ruled that driving on Shabbat is permitted to enable a Jew to go to synagogue to pray with a minyan – but not for non-Shabbat purposes, such as running errands or shopping. If we all rose to that standard of Shabbat practice, imagine how we'd benefit the earth.
We Jews can get totally behind environmental organizations which call for an "Earth Hour" or a "gasoline fast" one day a year. Hundreds of thousands of us go way farther than that every week. Consider letting your car rest on Shabbat and the earth will get a break too. Shabbat shalom!
David Mivasair is the rabbi of Ahavat Olam congregation and an active member of Adam va-Adamah, a Jewish environmental organization in Vancouver.
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