K. Mark Demma
Religion and Ecology
Reflections on Judaism and Ecospirituality
With Native American or Buddhist spirituality, it is much easier to make connections between their religion and Ecospitituality. There is a very strong connection between the land and nature in native spirituality, and to a lesser extent in Buddhist, but there is a strong emphasis on living in an ecologically sound way. It is perhaps harder to make such a clear concrete connection between Judaism and caring for environmental concerns.
I do not believe that it always was this way. Way back in the early phases of the Hebrew religion, it was just any number of Pagan religions that existed in that area of the world. Ashera, who is closely related to Astarte and Ishtar, was the Goddess that looked over the people and provided for them. Rituals centered around fertility and connectedness with the land. The people, like all the peoples of that time, were connected to the land. But things changed. Brass and then iron weapons were invented and the older matriarchy slowly gave way to a patriarchy that emphasized war and aggression. An upstart mountain thunder god, Yahweh, who at one time was a consort to Ashera, began to rise in prominence. At the time of Soloman there where as many temples to Ashera as there were to Yahweh. Soon, an all male priesthood made sure that Ashera got shoved out of the picture and that Yahweh became the supreme ruler in the godly realms. In the Tanak, Yahweh commands his people to conquer others in his name. I have always wondered, even as a child, about one passage in which another group of people wants to intermarry with the Hebrews. They were instructed to tell that group that they had to be circumcised before they could do this and after they had done this, the Hebrews came and slaughtered the now helpless (in pain) suckers. Other passages tell of other campaigns. The walls of Jericho that fell, many battles in which the Hebrews conquered in the name of Yahweh. Stories of "my god can beat up your god". The mother Goddess was cast aside and her living body was parceled up to be used as they saw fit.
The Jewish faith, however, did not stop here. The Jewish faith and the Jewish people changed as they experienced suffering. This suffering changed not only the people, but changed Yahweh as well. No longer was he as much a god who demanded the conquer as much as he was a god who comforted them in their afflictions and delivered them from slavery. Now, to be sure, the current situation with the Palestinians shows that some Jews may not see this clearly, but for the most part, the Jewish people have a strong sense of justice and compassion for all people. The surveys that I am doing for a research methods class have proved interesting in that all of the responses that I have received from the Jewish congregation have all indicated strong feelings toward justice issues. There seems to be a drive and a passion that drive the Jewish people toward wanting justice and equality for all people. The seder that I attended emphasised this, and included talk of justice for African Americans, for instance.
This drive and passion seems to be mostly centered around justice for people mainly. There is not the native talk of the sky being our grandfather and the trees our brothers and the earth out mother. But I think that awareness of the environment is becoming an ever increasing concern of many Jews. Even though there is perhaps not the same connection that native and pagan religions may have, for a people that are driven to strive for justice, concern for ecological justice is a natural thing in which to be concerned. The approach seems to be more one of steward ship over the environment rather than being in close family relations with nature, but does this matter as much as what people are doing? I think that it is more important to look at what people are actually doing now than to focus as much into whether the Jewish tradition is environmentally aware based on this passage from the Tanak or that. It is the actual deeds that are important.
I think that one of the things that inspires me about the
Jewish faith is that they seem to find it very important to put into practice
their faith. They do not just talk about justice, they work for justice
and are active politically towards justice issues. They do not just speak
of giving and compassion, they work to do these things. We saw examples
of this when the collection was being made for the Russian family and when
it gave the members of Beth Ha-Taphila such joy to feed a bunch of college
students. I think that I can learn from the Jewish people the idea of you
have to put your ideals and beliefs into practice. How often do we Unitarians
talk and talk and talk about an issue and never get off our asses and do
something is a question that I have asked of my own congregation some times.
I feel that as it applies to the environment, I should take this example
of putting your beliefs into practice. I also know that if environmental
issues are being talked about in Synagogues, it is a good bet that the individual
members will be doing something about it in their own personal lives.