Opinion
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Humanity's Treatment Of The Earth
Dallas/JTA
R
osh Hashanah is a time of
rebirth. However, this fall holiday
brings a different sort of rebirth
than springtime: After months of gruel-
ing heat and decay, the earth is refreshed
with kernels of September green. In Israel,
palm trees blossom with honey-sweet
dates during the fall, providing the flavor
of our celebration of the birthday of the
universe. Yet while the earth renews itself
physically, we renew ourselves spiritually.
For this reason, Rosh Hashanah, also
known as the Day of Remembrance, is the
traditional time of year for heshbon nefesh,
"taking stock of the sour As I take stock
of this past year, I find myself thinking
more than ever before about Judaism's
view of the earth. I recall a G-Eight sum-
mit to discuss governmental responses
to global warming and gas emissions. I
remember the United Nations scientific
panel declaring that it is "very likely" that
human activity is the cause of "unequivo-
cal" warming and climate change. I also
recollect the stir over the Oscar-winning
documentary An Inconvenient Truth. I am
reminded again and again that the earth
and, in turn, humanity are in potential
ters of the earth, while stress-
crisis.
ing Judaism's core theological
Will this Rosh Hashanah bring
assertion: God is the creator
more awareness of this crisis and
of the universe and it belongs
teshuvah, meaningful change,
to Him. We remind ourselves
than the passed one?
Maimonides taught that we
of this when we ask God for
yearly blessings, echoed by the
come to love, appreciate and know
poet's supplication in our High
God when we "contemplate God's
Holiday prayer book:
wondrous and great deeds and
Rabbi Paul
In Your lovingkindness and
creations:'
Steinberg
faithfulness,
0 Lord, support
True, the first chapter of
Special
Your
world
that
is judged at
Genesis says that mankind "shall
Commentary
the four seasons of each year
rule" the creatures of the earth
and expresses that mankind is the
... When You visit the earth on
this Rosh Hashanah, invest it with righ-
apex of God's creation, but in no way does
teousness, with fruits and dew, with rains
it indicate that everything that precedes
and warmth ..."
mankind is unimportant.
In fact, God markedly identified each as
The fundamental lesson of Rosh
Hashanah and fall holidays is twofold: that
"good:" Moreover, the medieval collection
we human beings have incredible power
of midrashim, Pirke de Rebbe Eliezer, sug-
for which we must be grateful and that we
gests that Genesis' distinction of man as
must set limits upon this power. Through
"ruler" means spiritual leader. After man
the fall holidays, we confess our transgres-
was created, the other creatures feared
sions, our acts of selfishness, self-impor-
him, worshiping him as their creator. Yet,
tance, and entitlement. By loving the earth
he humbled himself and used his power
and protecting its supreme value, we are in
over them to make common cause with
them, by leading them to "make God King, fact serving and showing reverence to God
as the Creator. We are the chief custodians
the one who created us all."
of the earth, "placed in the garden to till
Rosh Hashanah is a time to remem-
ber the moral of the creation account,
and tend it" [Genesis 2:15].
By merely picking up trash, we belittle
acknowledging our unique status as mas-
the intention of God's creation. Again, our
rabbis expound:
When God created the first human
beings, God led them around the Garden
of Eden and said: "Look at my works! See
how beautiful they are — how excellent!
For your sake I created them all. 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, Ecclesiastes
Rabbah]
The scientific disciplines teach us that
the earth and its ecosystems live in a deli-
cate balance. Our Torah teaches us that we
are supposed to preserve and keep that
balance sustainable, respecting the trees,
plants, and animals by how we grow, reap,
yoke, and even slaughter them. If we learn
anything during the holiday season, it
is that what we do in the world matters.
Our actions have an impact and it is the
intent behind those actions, as well as our
commitment to tikkun olam, repairing an
imperfect world, that marks our sacred
pact with God.
Rabbi Paul Steinberg is author of "Celebrating
the Jewish Year" (Jewish Publication Society,
2007). He is Jewish Studies director of the
Levine Academy: A Solomon Schecter School
in Dallas.
Biased CNN 'Warriors Cro - ses.
Philadelphia
C
ritics of religion like to claim that
the source of most of the world's
ills can be traced to believers
who wage wars in the name of their dis-
torted fanatic faiths. Indeed, this thesis
has led to a spate of new books advocating
atheism and deriding religion in the past
year.
Needless to say, critics of this trend
have pointed out that the vast major-
ity of the deaths incurred by conflicts in
history's bloodiest century — the 20th
— were caused by fanatical non-believers
in traditional faiths in the name of their
Communist, Maoist and Nazi faiths.
But it must be admitted that violent
religious extremists are, at this moment
in time, the primary threat to the peace
of the world. The only problem with this
unpleasant fact is that the opprobrium
rightly aimed at the perpetrators of this
faith-based violence cannot be neatly
30 September 6 • 2007
to single out one group for the
distributed across the board to
sins of a large number of its
practitioners of the three major
members is considered unfair
monotheistic religions.
and perhaps even racist. So,
Though present-day Jews and
instead, we are asked to pre-
Christians are not all saints, there
tend that there is an intrinsic
is no getting around the fact that
connection or even symmetry
neither of those religions has
between Christian, Jewish and
sprouted a contemporary move-
Muslim extremists.
ment aimed at world domination
Jonathan S.
That was exactly the
to be achieved by terror and
Tobin
premise of a widely heralded
war. That honor is reserved for
Special
three-part series on CNN
the Muslim faith, among whose
Commentary
from Aug. 20-22. Titled "God's
adherents Islamist terror move-
Holy Warriors," and fronted
ments have found a home in the
by famed international correspondent
mainstream of its culture.
Christiane Amanpour, it was a tryptich
Not all Muslims are Islamists. Most
across the globe to highlight the dan-
American Muslims are nothing of the
ger from Jewish, Muslim and Christian
kind. But the notion that supporters of Al
extremists who are all given the same
Qaida, Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad
treatment and air time in the guise of
and other assorted anti-Western and
even-handedness.
anti-Jewish terror movements are a tiny
Thus, by its very structure of equating
minority in the Arab and Muslim world is
the three different situations, the series
a delusion.
was nothing short of a brazen lie.
But in this age of political correctness,
Though all parts of the series were
problematic, the first of the series, devoted
to threats from extremist Israeli Jewish
settlers and the entire network of support
for the State of Israel in this country, was
as classic an example of a dishonest piece
of biased programming as anything that
has been broadcast on a major network.
What A Stretch
Though a tiny fraction of the settlement
movement, which itself commands the
support of only a fraction of Israelis,
have committed isolated acts of violence,
the notion that this group is in any way
analogous to Al Qaida is nothing short of
bizarre. If anything, Jewish settlers and
ordinary Israelis living inside the pre-1967
borders have themselves been the victims
of the intolerance, fanaticism and violence
of their Muslim neighbors.
That the broadcasts' view of interna-
tional law on the question of the legality
of the Jewish presence in the territories is