BIODIVERSITY

Overview of Jewish Texts on Biodiversity and Human Responsibility

by Rabbi Fred Scherlinder Dobb

The following quotations, drawn from every era of Jewish history, relate to "biodiversity" -- the fullness and complexity of God's creation as represented by the Earth's millions of species of living things. Rabbinic texts are original translations of Fred Dobb; Biblical quotations are from the new Jewish Publication Society translation.

1. "And Elohim said to Noah and to his children with him: Behold, I establish My covenant with you and with your seed after you, and with every living creature that is with you, of the birds, of the cattle, and of every wild animal of the earth with you..." (Genesis 9:8-10)

2. The raven said to Noah, "great is your hatred for me! ... you withhold [scouts] from species of which there are seven, but send [me] from a species of which there are two. If the power of heat or cold overwhelms me, would not the world be lacking a species?" (Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 108b)

• The World Conservation Union estimates that as of 1996, 25 percent of mammals, 20 percent or reptiles, 25 percent of amphibians, and 34 percent of fish are threatened with extinction.
• New studies by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization indicate the world is losing about 15.4 million hectares (an areas four times the size of Switzerland) of tropical forests each year.
• The rate of deforestation is highest in Asia (1.2 percent per year from 1981 -90), followed by Latin America (0.8 percent), and Africa (0.7 percent). In the same period, more land was deforested annually in Latin America and the Caribbean (7.4 million hectares) than in Africa (4.1 million hectares) and the Pacific or Asia (3.9 million hectares).
• The habitats richest in biodiversity are the tropical moist forests of Southeastern Asia, central and west-central Africa, and tropical Latin America. These forests, described as the global "hotspots," contain more than half of all species.
• At least half of the world's species are contained in just 7 percent of the world's land surface.
• The exact number of species on Earth is not known. Less than 5 percent of species in the tropics have been identified. Worldwide, on average, about three new species of birds are found each year. An estimated 40 percent of freshwater fishes in South America have not yet been classified.
• More than 700 species of vertebrates, invertebrates, and vascular plants have become extinct since 1600, and untold numbers probably became extinct without ever being described.
• Only 5 percent of the world's land surface is in national protected areas. These include nature reserves, national parks and monuments, habitat and wildlife management areas, and protected landscapes.

4. Our Rabbis said, what is this "And the advantage (yitron) of the land in all things" (Qohelet 5:8)? Even things you see as superfluous (meyutarin) in this world -- like flies, fleas, and mosquitoes -- they are part of the greater scheme of the creation of the world, as it says (Genesis 1:31), "And God saw all that God has created, and behold it was very good." And Rabbi Acha bar Rabbi Chanina said, even things you see as superfluous in this world -- like snakes and scorpions -- they are part of the greater scheme of the creation of the world. (Midrash Exodus Rabbah 10:1)

5. Rabbi Judah said in the name of Rav: Everything that the Holy One, Blessed Be, created in God's world -- God did not create a single thing in vain. (Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 77b)

6. The eyes of all look to You expectantly, and You give them their food when it is due. You give it openhandedly, feeding every creature to its heart's content. (Psalm 145:15-16)

7. You make springs gush forth in torrents; they make their way between the hills, giving drink to all the wild beast; the wild asses slake their thirst. The birds of the sky dwell beside them and sing among the foliage. You water the mountains from Your lofts; the earth is sated from the fruit of Your work ... The trees of the Lord drink their fill, the cedars of Lebanon, [God's] own planting, where birds make their nest; the stork has her home in the junipers. The high mountains are for wild goats; the crags are a refuge for rock-badgers ... (Psalm 104:10-18)

Questions for Study

Psalm 24 (#3) is a "foundational text" of Jewish environmental awareness. How is this so? What is the basic message? Texts #4 and #5 say that nothing in God's world is "superfluous" or created "in vain." What does this say about the world-view of the rabbis who wrote this? How does Genesis 1:31, the "proof-text" in #4, shed light on our discussion? What reasons might we suggest for the existence of fleas, mosquitoes, or scorpions? God feeds every creature to its heart's content (#6), yet often that food is itself another creature. How can we explain the food chain, since God has compassion for all existence (including plants)? Is "nothing in vain" (#5) part of the answer? The US Supreme Court recently upheld the protection of habitat -- the critical area in which a plant or animal lives -- as falling within the Endangered Species Act (Babbitt vs. Sweet Home). What does Psalm 104 (#7) teach us about habitat? About God? Looking at this first set of texts, what general statements can we make about Judaism's view of creation?

8. No mortal can in solid reality be lord of anything ... God alone can rightly claim that all things are God's possession. (Philo Judaeas, 1st Century Egypt; Loeb Classical Library, 2:83, 2:119)

9. Not thine is the earth, but thou belongest to the earth, to respect it as Divine soil and to deem, every one of its creatures a creature of God, thy fellow-being...... [consider] the things around you. I lent them to you for wise use only; never forget that I lent them to you. As soon as you use them unwisely, be it the greatest or the smallest, you commit treachery against My world, you commit murder and robbery against My property, you sin against Me!" This is what God calls unto you... (Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, 19th Century Germany; Fourth Letter of Ben Uziel, tr. Bernard Drachman; and Horeb 56, tr. Isidor Grunfeld)

10. A man [sic] should consider himself as a worm, and all other small animals should be regarded as his friends in the world, for all of them (i.e., man and the other species) are all created. (Baal Shem Tov, 18th Century Poland; Tzavaat HaRivash, tr. Norman Lamm) [Faith and Doubt, 1971, p. 176]

11. Man [sic] should return to his source, to nature, on condition that he be neither a slave nor a master of nature, but a trustworthy companion to nature in life and a trustworthy partner in creation. (Aaron David Gordon, early 20th Century Palestine; Man & Nature, p. 241.)

Questions for Study

Psalm 24 -- "The Earth is God's -- was cited earlier as a "foundational text." How are Philo and Hirsch (#8 and #9) and expansion of, or commentary on, Psalm 24?

Hirsch (#9) explains that the earth is "Divine soil," that all of God's creatures are our "fellow beings," and that misuse of creation is s form of robbery and murder. These explanations are not only thoughts (aggadah), but calls to action (halakhah). What specific actions does Hirsch compel you to take -- at home? at work in the Jewish community? at the ballot box? etc...

Hirsch calls us "fellow beings" with the rest of creation (#9), the Baal Shem Tov calls all creatures "friends in the world" (#10), and Gordon speaks of us as "companions" and "partners" (#11). How are these images similar, and how different? Which do you prefer? Why?

12. It behooves you to represent to yourself in this fashion the whole of this sphere as one living individual, in motion and possessing a soul ... It should not be believed that all the beings exist for the sake of the existence of [humanity]. On the contrary, all the other beings too have been intended for their own sakes and not for the sake of something else. (Maimonides, 12th Century Egypt; Guide of the Perplexed 1:72 and 3:13, tr. Shimo Pines)

13. Each of us should learn to think of himself [sic] as though he were a cell in some living organism -- which, in a sense, he actually is -- in his relation to the universe or cosmos. What we think of as a coherent universe or cosmos is more than nature; it is nature with a soul. That soul is God. As each cell in the body depends for its health and proper functioning upon the whole body, so each of us depends upon God. (Mordecai Kaplan, 20th Century U.S., Introduction to 1945 Reconstructionist Prayer Book)

14. One glorious chain of love, of giving and receiving, united all creatures; none is by or for itself, but all things exist in continual reciprocal activity -- the one for the All; the All for the One. (Samson Raphael Hirsch, 19th Century Germany; Third Letter of Ben Uziel)

15. Everything is full of riches and greatness, everything aspires to ascend, to be purified and to be elevated. Everything recites a song, offers praise, magnifies, exalts; everything builds, serves, perfects, elevates, aspires to unite and to be integrated...
    When we contemplate the physical creation as a whole, we realize that it is all as one organism, that the parts are linked in varying gradations to each other. We see this in every plant, in every living being....
    The realization dawns on us that were it not for the lower beings, the uncouth and the unseemly, the higher beings could not have emerged in their splendor, their esteem and their luminous quality. We continually become more conscious of the integration and unity of existence. (Rav Abraham Isaac Kook, 20th Century Palestine; Orot Hakodesh II:386 & 431, translated by Ben Zion Bokser)

Questions for Study

These four texts seem to point to a similar theology of interconnectedness (seeing God as both of and beyond the world). How would you describe this theology? Knowing that "the Lord is One" is a central Jewish belief, are you surprised by these texts?

Maimonides, Kaplan, Hirsch, and Kook posit a "unity within diversity." Suppose you were able to draw or graph this view of the universe. How would it look? Where would you put God? us? animals? trees? rocks?

Have you ever had a personal experience of this "cosmic-oneness?" What people or actions or places help you to feel part of this "one organism?" what people or places or actions block that feeling?

What trend in today's world threaten our "one glorious chain of love" -- socially? spiritually? politically? ecologically?

16. You shall not let your cattle mate with a different kind; you shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed; you shall not put on cloth from a mixture of two kinds of material. (Leviticus 19:19) If, along the road, you chance upon a bird's nest, in any tree or on the ground, with fledglings or eggs and the mother sitting over the fledglings or on the eggs, do not take the mother together with her young, in order that you may fare well and have a long life. (Deuteronomy 22:6-7)

17. The reason for the "mixing of seeds" is that God created the species in the world among all that has a soul, among plants and moving creature, and gave them the power of reproduction by which they may sustain themselves forever -- for as long as the Blessed One desires the existence of the world. And God commanded that by their power they bring forth [only] after their kind, and that they eternally may never change, as it is said in all of them, "after their kind." (Nachamanides, 13th Century Spain; commentary to Leviticus 19:19)

18. Torah doesn't permit a killing that would uproot a species, even if it permitted the killing [of individuals] in that species. And here, the one who kills the mother and the child on the same day ... it's as if that person has made that species extinct. (Nachmanides, 13th Century Spain; Commentary to Deuteronomy. 22:6)

19. The desire of the Blessed One is for the continuance of the species, and therefore no species from among all those created will ever become extinct -- for supervised in this matter by the Eternally Living and Enduring One, it [each species] will find its continuance through God ...
    The continual existence of the species in the world -- of which not one has become extinct and lost, from lice eggs to buffalo horns, since the day they were created -- it is all by God's word and desire concerning this. (Sefer HaChinuch, 13th Century Germany; 545)

20. The one sees fine creations [people or animals] and fine trees says, "Blessed is the One who has it like this in God's world!" ... Whoever goes out during the days of Nisan and sees trees which are budding ]should say], "Blessed is the One who left nothing out of God's world, and created in it wonderful creations and fine trees by which humanity enjoys itself." (Babylonian Talmud, Berakhot 58b)

Questions for Study

Why is text #20, which details blessings said over God's world, included in this final section about human responsibility? How does the commandment to bless God's beautiful creation, which is missing nothing, help us develop our own environmental awareness?

According to Nachmanides (#17), and Sefer HaChinuch (#19), God desires and decrees and continuation of every species -- and commands us to help (#18). If we humans are "created in the Divine image" (Genesis 1:28), to what extent is this our responsibility? If species become extinct, is it God's fault or our own?

Biologist E. O. Wilson warns that "a fifth or more of the species of plants and animals could vanish or be doomed to early extinction by the year 2020 unless better efforts are made to save them." Do Sefer HaChinuch and Nachmanides apply to our responsibility for current extinctions?

Rav Kook says of all existence that "no particularity will remain outside, not a spark will be lost from the ensemble." Given the current decimation of many species and habitats, if Rav Kook were alive today, what do you think he would do? What can you do?

Identify three concrete actions you can take to help protect the integrity of God's creation. Look back on the texts above. Which one(s) relate to the concrete actions you just identified?

How can we both do, and feel good about, the work of protecting God's endangered creatures? In closing, let us suggest the empowering words of Rabbi Tarfon in Pirke Avot 2:21 -- "It is not upon you to finish the work, but neither are you free to desist from it either."