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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