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Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

be used to heal or wound, build or been found, among them flightless it periodic fallow years, not pursuing
destroy. ducks, coots, and geese together with short-term gain at the cost of long-
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pelicans, swans, ravens, and eagles. term desolation. The second, no less
Bereishit 2, by contrast, is about Animals that have not had to face significant, is theological: “The Land,”
morality and responsibility. It tells us human predators before are easy game, says G-d, “is Mine; you are but strang-
about the moral limits of power. Not and the Maoris must have found them ers and temporary residents with Me.”
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everything we can do may we do. We a relatively effortless source of food. We are guests on earth.
have the power but not the permission;
we have the ability but not the right. A similar pattern can be traced almost It was no accident that Jewish law
The earth is not ours. It belongs to G-d everywhere human beings have set interpreted the prohibition against
who made it. Therefore we are not the foot. They have consistently been cutting down fruit-bearing trees in the
owners of nature but its custodians. more mindful of the ability to “subdue” course of war as an instance of a more
and “rule” than of the responsibility general prohibition against needless
This explains the story that immedi- to “serve” and “guard.” An ancient destruction, and more generally still,
ately follows, about Adam, Chava, the Midrash sums this up, in a way that against acts that deplete the earth’s
serpent, and the forbidden fruit. What deeply resonates with contemporary non-renewable resources, or damage
the fruit was, why the serpent spoke, ecological awareness: When G-d made the ecosystem, or lead to the extinc-
and what was the nature of the first sin Adam, He showed him the panoply of tion of species.
– all these are secondary. The primary creation and said to him: “See all My
point the Torah is making is that there works, how beautiful they are. All I Václav Havel made a fundamental
are limits, even in paradise. There is have made, I have made for you. Take point in The Art of the Impossible: “I
forbidden fruit. Not everything we can care, therefore, that you do not destroy believe that we have little chance of
do may we do. My world, for if you do, there will be averting an environmental catastrophe
no one left to mend what you have unless we recognise that we are not
Few moral principles have been forgot- destroyed.” 6 the masters of Being, but only a part of
ten more often and more disastrously. Being.” That is why a religious vision is
The record of human intervention in Environmental responsibility seems so important, reminding us that we are
the natural order is marked by dev- to be one of the principles underlying not the owners of our resources. They
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astation on a massive scale. Within the three great commands of periodic belong not to us but to the Eternal and
a thousand years, the first human rest: Shabbat, Shemitta, and Yovel. On eternity. Hence we may not needlessly
inhabitants of America had travelled Shabbat all agricultural work is forbid- destroy. If that applies even in war, how
from the Arctic north to the south- den, “so that your ox and your donkey much more so in times of peace.!
ernmost tip of Patagonia, making their may rest.” It sets a limit to our inter-
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way through two continents and, on vention in nature and the pursuit of 1 Devarim 20:19–20.
the way, destroying most of the large economic growth. Shabbat is a weekly 2 Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Melachim 6:10.
mammal species then extant, among reminder of the integrity of nature and 3 Bereishit 1:28.
them mammoths, mastodons, tapirs, the limits of human striving. 4 Ibid 2:15.
camels, horses, lions, cheetahs, and 5 Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel
bears. What Shabbat does for humans and (New York: W. W. Norton, 1997) and
animals, the Shemitta and Yovel years Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or
When the first British colonists arrived do for the land. The earth too is enti- Succeed (New York: Viking Penguin, 2005)
in New Zealand in the early 19th cen- tled to its periodic rest. The Torah 6 are classic texts on the subject.
Kohelet Rabbah 7:13.
tury, bats were the only native land warns that if the Israelites do not 7 Shemot 23:12.
mammals they found. They discov- respect this, they will suffer exile. 8 Guide for the Perplexed, III:39.
ered, however, traces of a large, ostrich- Behind this are two concerns. One is 9 Vayikra 25:23.
like bird the Maoris called “moa.” environmental. As Rambam points
Eventually skeletons of a dozen species out, land which is overexploited even- Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks is Emeritus
of this animal came to light, rang- tually erodes and loses its fertility. Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew
ing from three to ten feet high. The The Israelites were therefore com- Congregations of the Commonwealth
remains of some 28 other species have manded to conserve the soil by giving @RabbiSacks · www.RabbiSacks.org
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