Ecology & the Jewish Spirit: Where Nature and the Sacred Meet [Hardcover]

Ellen Bernstein (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1998

The ancient Israelites, like all our ancestors, depended on nature for their daily livelihood. Rain and crops determined their fate Nature was an integral part of their lives and of their faith.

But what is our place in nature, and what is nature's place in our spiritual lives?

In today's modern culture, we've become separated from the spiritual possibilities of the natural world. "Modern" religion often overlooks nature, focusing instead on history and human drama.

This book offers an alternative...a different, eye-and-soul-opening way of viewing religion: a perspective grounded in nature, and rich in insights for people of all faiths.

Respect for the holiness of Creation, our duty to protect the natural world, reverence for the land--a focus on nature is part of the fabric of Jewish thought. Here, innovators in Judaism and ecology lead us on an exploration of the concepts of sacred space, sacred time, and community. They bring us a richer understanding of the long-neglected themes of nature that are woven through the biblical creation story, ancient texts, traditional law, the holiday cycles, prayer, and mitzvot (good deeds).

Ecology & the Jewish Spirit is the first book in the emerging field of religion and the environment to reflect a Jewish ecological perspective. It describes the wisdom the Jewish tradition has to offer all of us, to help nature become a sacred, spiritual part of our own lives.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In 1988, Bernstein founded Shomrei Adamah (Keepers of the Earth), an organization "dedicated to cultivating the ecological thinking and practices that are integral to Jewish life." According to Bernstein, humanity's task of sustaining the environment is central to the Jewish belief that all "Creation is sacred." This splendid anthology shows just how deeply rooted ecological thinking is in ancient Jewish texts and practices. Bernstein divides the collected essays into three sections - "Sacred Place," "Sacred Time" and "Sacred Community" - that reflect the intersections of nature and the sacred in Jewish thought. In the section on "Sacred Place," for example, Eliezer Diamond, professor of Talmud at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, examines passages from the Torah and the Talmud that encourage Jews to partake of the earth as a divine gift and thus to limit consumption. In the section on "Sacred Time," Debra Robbins associate rabbi of Temple Emanu-El in Dallas, traces the development of the Jewish calendar in her essay to show the ways that modern Jews can use the calendar to weave ecological practice into everyday life. And, in the same section, a number of essayists explore the ecological significance implicit in the celebration of the Jewish holidays. In the final section, "Sacred Community," Modern Orthodox rabbi Barry Freundel (Kesher Israel, Washington, D.C.) examines the impact of "Judaism's environmental laws" on the formation of modern Jewish community. Drawn together by their belief that Judaism contains within itself the seeds for the practice of an environmental ethic, the variety of voices contained in this collection present lively and compelling reflections on taking care of the earth.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From the Publisher

Contributors include: Jeff Sultar

Shamu Fenyvesi

Neal Joseph Loevinger Bradley Shavit Artson Everett Gendler Charles Fenyvesi Eliezer Diamond

Robert Sand Ellen Bernstein Debra J. Robblns Lawrence Troster Dan Fink Ellen Cohn Eileen Abrams Neil Gillman David Ehrenfeld Victor Raboy Shira Dicker Barry Freundel Philip J. Bentley David Gedzelman Marc Swetlitz

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 250 pages
• Publisher: Jewish Lights Publishing; 1st edition (January 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1879045885
• ISBN-13: 978-1879045880
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,137,937 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Where Judaism and nature meet!, July 12, 2000

By 

Rabbi Yonassan Gershom (Minnesota, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Ecology & the Jewish Spirit: Where Nature and the Sacred Meet (Hardcover)

I received this book as a Wish List gift (thank you, dear reader!) and it arrived the day before a local PBS camera crew came to our hobby farm to film a segment on me as a Hasidic gardener. The idea of a religious Jew actually working the land (in Minnesota yet!) was so unusual to a certain writer in Duluth (himself Jewish), that he felt it merited a TV story!

I suspect that "Ecology and the Jewish Spirit" will sell very well for the same reason: most people -- Jewish or not -- simply do not associate the Jewish religion with ecology. The idea seems so novel, they just have to know more...

As Ellen Bernstein points out in her introduction to this excellent anthology, the lack of specific references to "environment" and "nature" in traditional Jewish sources does not mean that Jews have no connection to nature. "Rather," she writes, "Judaism's ecological message emerges when we observe what is sacred in Judaism. How are we to treat what is holy? And what is humanity's place amid the holiness? The Jewish understanding that the earth belongs to God attests to the fact that the earth and everything in it is holy, and this concept of holiness, kedushah, is the beginning of a unique Jewish environmental ethic." (p. 13)

This book explores that ethic through 37 essays by Jews from all kinds of backgrounds, organized into three sections: Sacred Place, Sacred Time, and Sacred Community. The styles are as varied as their authors, ranging from personal anecdotes about relating to Judaism and nature, to an excellent explanation of the ethics behind the agricultural laws in the Torah, to a liturgy for celebrating the Jewish Festival of the Trees (Tu B'Shevat). Page 205 has a list of the special brochahs (Hebrew blessings) to be said upon seeing various works of nature. Did you know that Judasim has a separate blessing for seeing a rainbow, the ocean, or trees in bloom? Sadly, these particular brochahs have fallen out of use among urbanized Jews. Perhaps this book will help revive awareness of them among modern Jews.

Of special interest to me was the essay "Practical Kabbalah: A Family History" by Charles Fenyesi, whose ancestors came from Eastern Europe, where his family had owned and worked 30 acres of land. (So much for the old stereotype of Hasidic Jews being urban.) He tells how his ancestors "religiously" gathered organic debris of all kinds, to "toss into the sort of heap that we moderns call a compost pile." This would eventually be carted off to their fields and vegetable garden.

"Nothing should go to waste!" was their motto -- not out of stinginess, but from an understanding that everything has a place and should be treated with respect, not wasted. Life was a "productive loop," not a vicious cycle. This ecological awareness, Fenyesi explains, came from within the Hasidic-kabbalistic worldview of traditional Judaism. His family didn't talk about "ecology" in modern words, but they lived it as an integral part of daily life in the stetl (Jewish village). Religion encompassed all things, including what should be thrown on the compost pile.

Another story I liked, wihch was a bit amusing to me at first, was Eileen Abrams' account of how she grew a plot of barley in the tiny yard in front of her Philadelphia rowhouse. A friend of hers wanted some barley stalks and heads for a craft project. OK, why not? Eileen quickly went from land lender to barley steward. She had never seen barley grow before (hard for me to imagine, living as I do in the Midwest!). She soon became fascinated with the life cycle of this plant that was used for the Omer sacrifice in the ancient Jerusalem Temple. My initial amusement grew into respect as I read how she observed and nurtured this tiny plot of grain from seed to harvest. Her reverence for that bit of barley heightened my own awareness of the local fields of grain that I take for granted.

All in all, this book was such a great read, I stayed up half the night with it. It has something for everybody -- I give it ten stars!

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book is a must read for ecologically minded seakers !, December 5, 1999

By 

J.F. (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ecology & the Jewish Spirit: Where Nature and the Sacred Meet (Hardcover)

As someone who identifies as a cultural Jew, rather than a "religious one" I was delighted to find Ecology & the Jewish Spirit.

I have never found Judaism to be accessible or compelling; the closes thing to religion for me has been "nature." (Professionally, I've pursued a career as a landscape architect) Now for the first time--through this book--I recognize that Judaism may have something to offer me spiritually. A reverance for nature is basic to Jewish thought and is so integral to a Jewish way of life that most of us neglect to see that its there--I never did.

Ecology & the Jewish Spirit illuminates various strands of ecological thought within the Jewish tradition and makes it accessible for a wide audience.

The book is divided into 3 sections: Sacred Place, Sacred Time and Sacred Community. Through this framework, the holiness of nature becomes apparant. Bernstein juxtaposes analytical readings with personal narrative pieces to give the reader a wholistic experience of how nature fits into Jewish tradition--the effect is that you get a sense of how rabbis and Jews thought about the human place in nature hundreds of years ago, and you also get a sense about what that could mean for you today.

I recommend this book highly for anyone, Jewish or not, who is interested in pursuing an ecologically oriented and spiritual life.

I also recommend the book as a present for bar and bat mitzvah kids who are seeking answers for the environmental crisis.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Must Buy E. Bernstein Books, March 18, 2008

By 

Jamie S. Korngold "Rabbi Jamie Korngold, The... (Boulder, CO) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ecology and the Jewish Spirit (Paperback)

I admit I am a huge fan of Ellen's work and buy several copies of anything with her name on it so that I can hand it out to people who come to me wanting to learn more abotu the convergence of Judaism and nature. Ellen has a way of merging text and modernity that makes her writing accessible yet engaging. I use her material on my adventure trips, as a source of inspiration for my own writing God in the Wilderness: Rediscovering the Spirituality of the Great Outdoors with the Adventure Rabbiand, as I said before, as a gift for other who wish to learn more about this burgeoning field.
-Rabbi Jamie Korngold, the Adventure Rabbi, author God in the Wilderness: Rediscovering the Spirituality of the Great Outdoors with the Adventure Rabbi