JUNE 16 • 2022 | 11
process that climate catastro-
phe is on us if we fail to act.
Such messages were appropri-
ate in the 1980s, when disaster
merely loomed on the horizon.
Now, however, this line of
thinking will increasingly be
heard as nothing more than a
grand “I told you so.
”
We can address both of
these problems by expanding
our conception of what Jewish
environmental thought is
supposed to be. Even as we
continue to push for sensible
climate policy, we must make
realistic plans to greet the
future, as well.
Rather than doubling down
on messages of prevention and
personal responsibility, hoping
to achieve a better result per-
haps by being more emphatic
about it, Jewish environmen-
talism must help people adapt
to the stresses of our warmer
world, offer consolation to
those who are mourning the
one that we are losing, and
prevent us from treating the
present climate as “normal” by
reminding us of the truly nor-
mal climate that will soon be
out of living memory.
The Jewish tradition is
already well suited for these
tasks. As examples: rabbinic
Judaism’s central narrative
about moral failure leading to
the loss of a land bears a strik-
ing similarity to the contempo-
rary climate crisis, and the long
process by which all types of
Judaism dealt with that tragedy
speaks to its ability to reinvent
itself around a story of loss and
recovery, a story which has
served it well through other
periods of persecution.
In terms of memorializing
tragedy, Jewish tradition con-
tinues to commemorate events
that took place more than two
millennia ago, and the imper-
ative to never forget continues
to be highly motivating.
An expanded Jewish envi-
ronmentalism also offers us
the chance to reconsider a
basic question: Is this line of
thinking for the benefit of the
world or just for other Jews?
While politically minded
environmental thought is
strongly incentivized to spread
universal messages, it does
so by focusing on stories that
Christians and Muslims will
find relatable — Adam being
charged with stewarding the
world, Noah and the flood —
and ignoring a much larger
set of stories and ideas that are
particular to Jewish tradition.
The proposed new kinds
of thinking might ironically
be better capable of speaking
specifically to Jewish interests,
developing ideas about how to
adapt to a changed planet that
draw from the particulars of
Jewish history.
Shifting Jewish environmen-
tal thought in this direction
is not without its risks. As
with any strategy that takes
climate change to be inevitable,
this line of thought could be
accused of propagating a dan-
gerous fatalism and sapping
environmental activism of its
energy. The risks are serious,
but Jewish educators and
leaders must understand that
new ideas are crucial because
environmental fatalism has
already become the accepted
wisdom. Many young people
already assume that their entire
lives will play out in a world of
radical climatic decay, and this
plays a powerful dampening
effect in their ambitions to
change even non-environmen-
tal aspects of the world.
Jewish environmental
thought, like the environment,
is out of time. It is time to
embrace this reality and think
about the subject anew.
David Zvi Kalman is the scholar in
residence and director of new media
at the Shalom Hartman Institute of
North America and the owner of Print-
o-Craft Press. He holds a Ph.D. from
the University of Pennsylvania.
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