10 | JUNE 16 • 2022
opinion
Jewish Environmental Thought Is Not Ready
for the Climate Crisis. But Our Tradition Is.
S
moke from California’s
fires is regularly bad
enough to tint the sun
on the other side of the country.
Pakistan and India just experi-
enced a devastating heat wave. In
the Middle East,
temperatures
have risen by 1.5
degrees Celsius,
more than twice
the global average.
Climate change,
and its punish-
ing effects, are
here, and getting worse, yet
Jewish thinking and advoca-
cy on climate change are still
stuck in prevention mode. The
Jewish organizations that have
blossomed to meet the political
moment, not to mention the
rabbis, activists and rank-and-
file Jews who are engaged on this
issue, are largely focused on one
bottom line: Judaism demands
that we care for the planet before
it is too late.
This sentiment remains
important, and I support it, but
it cannot be the only Jewish
message for the moment. This
is because “we” — the Jewish
people — are likely powerless to
affect the environment on a scale
that would make a difference. It
is also because, whether we like
it or not, it is too late. As a schol-
ar interested in the Jewish future
and as a member of a research
team devoted to Judaism and the
natural world, I believe it is time
to expand our understanding
of what “Jewish environmental
thought” can be.
The problems with main-
stream Jewish approaches to
addressing climate change,
which scientists say is rapidly
approaching a breaking point,
are twofold.
First, unlike many other envi-
ronmental problems, climate
change can’t be meaningfully
curtailed through individual
behavior; for better or worse, it is
primarily in the hands of nation-
al governments and the energy
sectors that they regulate.
In the United States, it is
largely for the worse: Legislative
deadlock and the current
Supreme Court’s deregulato-
ry impulses make it hard to
imagine tighter regulations on
emissions, and domestic political
polarization severely hampers
America’s ability to exert influ-
ence over the 85% of global
emissions that are produced out-
side its borders. These realities
undermine much Jewish think-
ing on climate change.
Rabbis can tell their congre-
gants that they should care for
the planet until they’re blue in
the face, but if their ideas are to
be greeted with something other
than a nod of agreement, a wist-
ful sigh and eventual indiffer-
ence, they cannot solely focus on
the possibility of political change.
IT’S TOO LATE
Second, the “it’s too late”
piece is harder to hear. Even if
humanity radically changes its
ways in the next decade, as the
Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change says it must,
disasters aggravated by climate
change are already here, and
many people — especially young
people — operate under the
assumption that they will get
worse. Despite this, messages
from Jewish leaders largely con-
tinue to focus on prevention,
frequently insinuating in the
David Zvi
Kalman
JTA
PURELY COMMENTARY
ety where they performed shaliach mitzvah
tzedakah by delivering $1,500 in tzedakah that
they raised from the Hillel community prior
to their trip.
Many of the graduating eighth graders were
part of the first class of 2-year-olds when Hillel
opened its Early Childhood Center (ECC) in
2010, meaning these “lifers” have the distinc-
tion of being the first class of Hillel students to
enjoy 12 years of Hillel Day School education.
The eighth graders were able to bring their
Hillel experience full circle with get togethers
throughout the school year with their 4- and
5-year-old ECC buddies.
Prior to their Israel trip, the eighth graders
and their ECC buddies learned about Israel
together before the ECC students gave their
buddies a blessing and wished them safe
travels. After the eighth graders returned,
they played games and shared stories about
the experience with their ECC buddies. As
these ECC students complete their preschool
experience and head to kindergarten, many of
them shared how excited they are to one day
be Hillel eighth graders so they can travel to
Israel with their classmates.
Amy Sapeika is communications coordinator at Hillel
Day School of Metropolitan Detroit.
continued from page 6
Dane Zeff and
Evan Bronstein
Land scorched by heat waves in Mumbai, India, May 2022
SATISH BATE/HINDUSTAN TIMES VIA GETTY IMAGES