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leshomrah, is the term used in later biblical
legislation to specify the responsibilities of
one who undertakes to guard something
that is not their own.
How are we to understand this tension
between the two opening chapters? Quite
simply: Genesis 1 tells us about creation and
nature, the reality mapped by the natural
sciences. It speaks about humanity as the
biological species, homo sapiens. What is
distinctive about humans as a species is
precisely our godlike powers of dominating
nature and exercising control of the forces
that shape the physical world.
This is a matter of fact, not value, and
it has increased exponentially throughout
the relatively short period of human
civilization. As John F. Kennedy put it in his
inaugural presidential address: “Man holds
in his mortal hands the power to abolish all
forms of human poverty and all forms of
human life.
” Power is morally neutral. It can
be used to heal or wound, build or destroy.
Genesis 2, by contrast, is about morality
and responsibility. It tells us about the
moral limits of power. Not everything we
can do may we do. We have the power but
not the permission; we have the ability
but not the right. The Earth is not ours. It
belongs to God who made it. Therefore,
we are not the owners of nature but its
custodians. We are here to serve it and care
for it.
This explains the story that immediately
follows, about Adam, Eve, the serpent and
the forbidden fruit. What the fruit was, why
the serpent spoke and what was the nature
of the first sin — all these are secondary.
The primary point the Torah is making
is that, even in paradise, there are limits.
There is forbidden fruit. Not everything we
can do may we do.
A BAD TRACK RECORD
Few moral principles have been forgotten
more often and more disastrously. The
record of human intervention in the
natural order is marked by devastation on
a massive scale. Within a thousand years,
the first human inhabitants of America
had traveled from the Arctic north to the
southernmost tip of Patagonia, making
their way through two continents and,
on the way, destroying most of the large
mammal species then extant, among them
mammoths, mastodons, tapirs, camels,
horses, lions, cheetahs and bears.
When the first British colonists arrived in
New Zealand in the early 19th century, bats
were the only native land mammals they
found. They discovered, however, traces of
a large, ostrich-like bird the Maoris called
“moa.
” Eventually skeletons of a dozen
species of this animal came to light, ranging
from 3 to 10 feet high. The remains of
some 28 other species have been found,
among them flightless ducks, coots and
geese together with pelicans, swans, ravens
and eagles. Animals that have not had to
face human predators before are easy game,
and the Maoris must have found them a
relatively effortless source of food.
A similar pattern can be traced almost
everywhere human beings have set foot.
They have consistently been more mindful
of the ability to “subdue” and “rule” than
of the responsibility to “serve” and “guard.
”
An ancient Midrash sums this up, in a way
that deeply resonates with contemporary
ecological awareness: When God made
Adam, He showed him the panoply of
creation and said to him: “See all My works,
how beautiful they are. All I have made,
I have made for you. Take care, therefore,
that you do not destroy My world, for if
you do, there will be no one left to mend
what you have destroyed.
”
OBLIGATION TO THE ENVIRONMENT
Environmental responsibility seems to be
one of the principles underlying the three
great commands of periodic rest: Shabbat,
the Sabbatical year, and the Jubilee year. On
Shabbat all agricultural work is forbidden,
“so that your ox and your donkey may
rest” (Ex. 23:12). It sets a limit to our
intervention in nature and the pursuit of
economic growth. We remind ourselves
that we are creations, not just creators.
For six days the earth is handed over to
us and our labors, but on the seventh
we may perform no “work,
” namely, any
act that alters the state of something for
human purposes. Shabbat is thus a weekly
reminder of the integrity of nature and the
limits of human striving.
What Shabbat does for humans and
animals, the Sabbatical and Jubilee years do
for the land. The Earth, too, is entitled to its
periodic rest. The Torah warns that if the
Israelites do not respect this, they will suffer
exile: “Then shall the land make up for its
Sabbatical years throughout the time that it
is desolate, and you are in the land of your
enemies; then shall the land rest and make
up for its Sabbath years” (Lev. 26:34).
Behind this are two concerns. One is
environmental. As Maimonides points
out, land which is overexploited eventually
erodes and loses its fertility. The Israelites
were therefore commanded to conserve
the soil by giving it periodic fallow years,
not pursuing short-term gain at the cost of
long-term desolation. The second, no less
significant, is theological: “The land,
” says
God, “is Mine; you are but strangers and
temporary residents with Me” (Lev. 25:23).
We are guests on earth.
Another set of commands is directed
against over-interference with nature. The
Torah forbids crossbreeding livestock,
planting a field with mixed seeds, and
wearing a garment of mixed wool and
linen. These rules are called chukim or
“statutes.
”
Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch
(Germany, 1808–1888) in the 19th century,
like Nachmanides six centuries earlier,
understood chukim to be laws that respect
the integrity of nature. They represent the
principle that “the same regard which you
show to man you must also demonstrate
to every lower creature, to the earth which
bears and sustains all, and to the world of
plants and animals.
” They are a kind of
social justice applied to the natural world:
“They ask you to regard all living things as
God’s property. Destroy none; abuse none;
waste nothing; employ all things wisely …
Look upon all creatures as servants in the
household of creation.
”
So, it was no accident that Jewish law
interpreted the prohibition against cutting
down fruit-bearing trees in the course
of war as an instance of a more general
prohibition against needless destruction,
and more generally still, against acts that
deplete Earth’s non-renewable resources,
or damage the ecosystem, or lead to the
extinction of species.
That is why a religious vision is so
important, reminding us that we are not
owners of our resources. They belong not
to us but to the Eternal and eternity. Hence,
we may not needlessly destroy. If that
applies even in war, how much more so in
times of peace. “The earth is the Lord’s and
all that is in it” (Psalms 24:1). We are its
guardians, on behalf of its Creator, for the
sake of future generations.
The late Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks served as the
chief rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of
the Commonwealth, 1991-2013.