For all our do-goodism, Jews just don’t do right by the environment

I was recently engaged in a conversation about the Jewish community and environment. The conversation gradually evolved into a discussion of the number of Jewish books on the subject.

Aside from the three I've written on natural sound and the natural sciences, I could only think of one other author currently writing about the topic, David Abram ("Spell of the Sensuous").

Based on a quick survey of ecological output, I became concerned that the Jewish community may be one of the least-involved and committed religious affinity groups related to matters of environment.

"Wait a minute," you protest. "I'm an environmentalist. I donated $25 to Audubon and the Sierra Club." Sure. Most of us consider ourselves to be environmentalists. First, let's take a simple test. How many of you:

• Drive a hybrid automobile?

• Have significantly powered your living spaces with alternative energy sources?

• Know the names and voices of more than three species of wild birds? Mammals? Reptiles?

• Choose to camp in the wild rather than in a suite on Carnival Cruises?

• Have ever fished/hunted (don't tell me you're a vegetarian. You're an omnivorous mammal)?

• Would know (or care) how to dress your own freshly killed wild meat, or clean a fish?

• Grow your own vegetables?

• Opt to read Edward Abbey, Paul Shepard, Loren Eiseley, Terry Tempest Williams, Thoreau and Darwin instead of "The DaVinci Code"?

• Would choose to see a wolf in the wild rather than shopping at Neiman-Marcus?

So what's an environmentalist? George W. Bush claims to be one. So did his dad. Add Bill Clinton to the list. I'm a naturalist and have no idea what an environmentalist is, these days; the concept has become too fuzzy.

Speaking as a Jew, I can tell you we've got a spotty if negligible history as caretakers of the environment. The problem begins with the Torah itself. Essentially, in recent history we began defining our sense of nature in the Book of Genesis. However, the creation myth that was included tells a disparaging story, one that set the course of environmental history to follow.

The commonly translated mandates in Genesis — "to have dominion over," to "subdue" and to "replenish" the earth and the various creatures that inhabit it — are clear. However, if we look to the original Hebrew (or Aramaic) texts for more light, an injunction even more sinister emerges.

The word from which "subdue" was translated plainly means "to conquer (it/her)" (kivshu ha). The word from which "replenish" was translated means literally "to fill" (mil'u). And the word from which to "have dominion over" was translated, (yarod), means accurately "go down" or "to subject."

Despite all the New Age attempts at reinterpretation, nowhere in the Torah is there any transparent reference to us as stewards or caretakers of the Earth. There are only a few iffy references in ancient talmudic and kabbalistic texts that never brought the community together under one ecological moral compass.

To be sure, a more accurate translation of the original text of Genesis 1:28 reads: "And God blessed them; and God said unto them: 'Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth, and conquer it; and subject the fish of the sea, and the fowl of the air, and every living thing that creepeth upon the earth."

Thus, the direction was set.

Then there's this disturbing story: Near the beginning of Chronicles II, Solomon, in his infinite wisdom, decides to build a temple — the Frank Gehry of temples, large and imposing. It is so big it required 70,000 axe men and 80,000 haulers to level the cedar forests of Lebanon.

By executing the first clear-cut in literature, we provided a legacy and model for Charles Hurwitz of Maxxam (Pacific Lumber), coaching him and his group to clear-cut the remaining old-growth redwoods of Northern California.

Today, a Jew cannot refer to him- or herself as an environmentalist, support the current administration and claim to be serious about clean air, free nonpolluted water, and food uncontaminated by genetic alteration or pesticides or laced with high amounts antibiotics or growth hormones.

A Jewish environmentalist cannot support the environmental policies of the current administration with appointments like Gale Norton as the head the Interior Department, who has a mandate to privatize the National Park Service, or Mike Leavitt as head of the EPA, whose private Utah fish-farms introduced trout into the streams of five Western states infected with whirling disease — thus seriously infecting wild populations of steelhead.

The previous administration's support of NAFTA and GATT also was an enormous double-barreled environmental disaster — and continues its catastrophic impact to this day. The Kyoto Protocol was scuttled, for example, by insisting that "carbon sinks" be counted toward the U.S. percentage of emissions reductions, thus making a mockery of the whole treaty.

For the past 36 years, I have been invited to speak about the environment to numerous diverse groups throughout the world, and have yet to be asked to speak about my work by any Jewish organization.

While there have been a couple of attempts by individuals bringing into focus issues of environment and Jewish tradition — the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund, for instance — none of these have taken widespread organizational root or stirred the community to action.

Like all humans, we Jews began as hunter-gatherers. Like all humans, we learned, after cutting down the trees and wildlife in the gardens where we began existence, to thrive in the deserts that remained.

We were taught to dance, sing and speak from the creature sounds of the forest. We learned to use the natural world to our distinct advantage. We learned to be practical and, with a combination of hand, human brain and a quill, wrote our thoughts down on parchment in the name of spiritual essence.

But, unfortunately, those sentiments do not fit an ecologically minded paradigm and need to be altered before it is too late.

We as a community of Jews have yet to come to terms with our place in the natural world in the sense of our physical, emotional, intellectual and sacred links. We've drifted too far away from the anchorage, and need to re-define the nature of our compass.

To do that, we may have to write new sacred texts — a daunting but worthwhile task if we want to leave a righteous legacy for our progeny.




Bernie Krause, a Glen Ellen resident who has been a researcher for the National Park Service, is a bioacoustician, author and lecturer who records sounds of the natural world. More than 35 percent of the soundscapes he recorded in North America since 1968 are from now extinct habitats. .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).