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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.