Yonatan Neril earned his MA at Stanford University with a focus on global environmental issues and was ordained in Israel. He developed educational materials for the Jewish environmental organization Canfei Nesharim. Rabbi Neril is founder and director of the Jerusalem-based Interfaith Center for Sustainable Development and its branch Jewish Eco Seminars.
Yonatan Neril is a Jewish environmental educational entrepreneur who passionately makes the case for the importance of Jewish environmental education.
Young Jews are eager to address the most pressing issues facing humankind. If Jewish education speaks to these concerns, it can capitalize on its potential to engage and inspire these young Jews. If it does not address these issues, it runs the risk of being irrelevant to many of these young Jews. One key engagement point relates to environmentally sustainable living practices, which express the Jewish teaching of tikkun olam – repairing the world.
In the first part of this article, I make a case for why Jewish environmental education should be an important part of Jewish education. The second part of the article explores what organizations are currently providing resources and training to empower Jewish educators to teach this topic. The third part of the article provides an example of a Jewish environmental teaching, on the topic of reuse of resources.
Why Jewish environmental education should be an important part of Jewish education
First, many young Jews relate to environmental issues and therefore they can serve as a helpful bridge to Jewish content. According to the United Nations’ Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, “Over the past 50 years, humans have changed ecosystems more rapidly and extensively than in any comparable period of time in human history” (www.maweb.org). As Japan’s nuclear energy crisis, the BP oil spill, and global climate change increasingly show, humanity faces significant challenges with regard to living sustainably on the planet. All three issues point to both crises and opportunities. They challenge us all to live better and walk more wisely and responsibly on the Earth. In regards to climate change, a consensus of scientists in the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change state that human-caused global climate change presents a significant challenge for humanity to alter its behavior to avert potentially catastrophic impacts. Many scientists point to a linkage between climate change and hurricane intensity. In recent years, many Jews have experienced first-hand the impacts of Hurricanes Sandy, Irene, and Katrina.
In an October 2008 poll of the Pew Research Center, 64 percent of voters under age 30 said the environment is “very important.” In that same poll, 77 percent of Jews surveyed said that environmental protection was so important to them that “stricter environmental laws and regulations are worth the cost.” Jewish environmental teachings can inspire Jewish youths concerned about the planet’s future by linking a core area of concern for them to Jewish teachings.
Second, Jewish environmental programming can engage Jews through a holistic approach which reflects and utilizes the all-encompassing natural environment in which Jewish values can resonate. Some synagogues and day schools are located on or near natural areas or city parks to which classes can go and experience Jewish programming at least part of the year. Even a small grove of trees can serve as a good setting for such programming. As a way to engage and inspire students, outdoor, experiential programming is an effective pedagogical tool from which Jewish education could well benefit.
Third, Jewish environmental programming represents a novel way to engage with Israel. For centuries,Jews faced and addressed environmental sustainability issues in the land of Israel. Jewish environmental teachings relate to how we can live sustainably in the present, and how we can draw on our rich tradition in order to provide guidance for our collective future. In addition, Israel is now a leading global innovator in “green technology,” and learning about its environmental successes in the context of Jewish teachings can be a positive new way to engage with Israel in a non-political and non-controversial way.
Organizations currently providing resources and training to empower Jewish educators to teach on this topic
What are the resources available to Jewish educators to further engage in Jewish environmental programming?
First, Jewish Eco Seminars (www.jewishecoseminars.com). Its Israel-based programs deliver Israel-focused Jewish environmental programming to U.S. groups and educators visiting Israel, including day and Hebrew school teachers, and offer follow-up programming upon their return to the U.S. Its North American-based programs present professional development workshops for Jewish educators to deliver new educational materials and practical tools to integrate the teachings.
Jewish Eco Seminars also facilitates dynamic seminars in the U.S. on Jewish environmental education for education directors, rabbis, and teachers at congregational and Hebrew schools, and JCC staff. The seminars provide access to curriculum modules plus a teacher’s resource manual with lesson plans, articles, experiential activities, source sheets, and background materials on a wide array of Jewish teachings on the environment. Jewish Eco Seminars also offers follow-up support to interested educators to assist them in teaching topics on Judaism and the natural environment in the term following the seminar, including consultation from Jewish Eco Seminars staff and regular conference calls prior to each curriculum module on the Jewish calendar.
Second, Canfei Nesharim (www.canfeinesharim.org), which connects traditional Torah texts with contemporary scientific findings, educates and empowers Jewish individuals, organizations and communities to take an active role in protecting the environment in order to build a more sustainable world. It offers leadership training which utilizes new tools to empower the Jewish environmental community. It has also produced robust Jewish environmental materials on a range of topics, including Jewish holidays, each of the 54 weekly Torah portions, and key Jewish environmental topics.
Third, Jewcology (www.jewcology.com)is a new web portal for the global Jewish environmental community. It has created a comprehensive set of core Jewish resources on teachings from the Torah regarding environmental sustainability This set of resources on eighteen core topics is an in-depth Torah-based exploration of Jewish-environmental laws and values, and is being used by Jews of all denominations and affiliations to understand the relevance of Jewish tradition to current environmental challenges.
Fourth, the Teva Learning Alliance (http://tevalearningcenter.org/) works to fundamentally transform Jewish education through experiential learning that fosters Jewish and ecological sustainability. Their annual Teva Seminar on Jewish Environmental Education is held at Surprise Lake Camp in Cold Spring, NY. It is described as “the premiere professional development opportunity for adults of all ages to explore Jewish environmental education, environmental sustainability, camping, gardening, or simply enjoying nature with others.”
Fifth, Hazon’s Jewish Food Education Network (JFEN)(www.hazon.org/education/jfen/) is a way for educators all over North America to connect with, share and learn from each other with the help of Hazon’s innovative food education resources and support. Hazon has developed a diverse library of curricula and source books that can be used in the classroom, at home, or as experiential programs. Its tools are geared towards various age groups and have been used in Synagogues, Day Schools, JCCs, and camps around the world.
A sample Jewish environmental teaching
I will now share with you a sample Jewish environmental teaching, “A Jewish Approach to Sustainable Resource Use,” that I wrote as part of the Jewcology Core Resources project. My aim is to provide an example of how a Jewish teaching connects to ecology. A longer version of the article, source sheet, podcast, and video on this topic (and seventeen other Jewish environmental topics) are all available on www.jewcology.com.
When something breaks, the question may arise – repair it, or get rid of it and buy a new one? We can answer a question with a question: If it is cheaper to buy a new one, why should I go through the hassle of trying to repair it? With material goods so abundant and cheap today, it is easy to throw things away. We discard clothing and appliances and buy new ones instead of repairing them, or throw away useable items because they are a few years old and maybe outdated by new products.
The decision whether to reuse or discard an object partly emerges from how a person relates to material possessions: as essential or expendable, indispensable or disposable. People living in a consumer society relate to material objects in a vastly different way than people did in previous times. (For more on this, see Waste and Want: A Social History of Trash, by Susan Strasser, Henry Holt and Co., 2000). Age-old Jewish teachings reveal a Jewish vision for “holy use” of the material world and relate deeply to today’s need for sustainable resource use.
Let us begin with the Talmudic sage Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai. On his deathbed, he told his students to remove the vessels from his room lest they become contaminated by his corpse, and thereby unusable (Berakhot 28b). In the 20th century, Rabbi Yaakov Kanievsky (known affectionately as the Steipler Gaon), instructed his children to straighten a bent nail and use it in building their sukkah so that it would not go to waste. These examples show the relationship our Sages had with material objects, and the effort they invested in the holy use of them.
Jewish sources abound with examples of reusing ritual objects. The Talmud Sages Rav Ami and Rav Asi stated concerning the reuse of ritual bread, “Since one mitzvah (commandment) was done with it, we should use it for another mitzvah”(Berakhot 39b). The principle manifests in a number of other Jewish practices, including the custom to use the myrtle from the lulav bundle (four species) of Sukkot as the pleasing fragrance for havdalah.
A story about the patriarch Jacob also lends perspective to how we are meant to use our resources. Before the epic encounter between Jacob and Esau, Jacob brought his family and possessions across a stream. He returned at night to the other side of the stream, and the Torah narrates that: “Jacob remained alone.” The rabbis understand that Jacob re-crossed the stream at night to recover a few small vessels he forgot to bring across (Hulin 91a). Why did Jacob, facing an imminent confrontation with Esau and his 400-man militia, leave his family alone and vulnerable at night to recover a few forgotten flasks?
The strangeness of Jacob’s action becomes understandable when one examines Jacob’s worldview: he believed that everything in his possession comes from God, has a specific purpose and must be used to its full potential. As the Orhot Tzaddikim (Genesis 32:24) commentary explains, each material item that a righteous person uses is a means toward a spiritual repair in the world. Jacob went back for the vessels to ensure that their full potential would be realized. The truly righteous recognize the value of their God-given possessions, and are very careful with them, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant they are. Reuse is their message.
This perspective is foreign to our current “disposable” lifestyle, which has tangible, environmental consequences. For example, the United States’ National Academy of Sciences estimated that each year, humans put 6.4 million tons of marine litter into the oceans (www.unep.org/regionalseas/marinelitter/about/distribution/default.asp). This debris entangles sea life, and harms marine animals such as sea turtles, seabirds, and marine mammals that come to eat the debris, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Marine Debris Program. Furthermore, NOAA notes that marine debris can harm important marine habitats like coral reefs, which “serve as the basis of marine ecosystems and thus they are critical to the survival of many other species” (http://marinedebris.noaa.gov/info/plastic.html).Humans depend on healthy marine life for food consumption. Indeed, some countries harvest from the oceans a significant percentage of their dietary intake.
How could it be that we generate so much waste? That brings us back to the small vessels – one plastic bag at the checkout stand, or one item I could have had fixed – multiplied by decades of such consumption and now billions of people. Things add up. Jacob’s going back for two or three vessels teaches us that little things matter. Seeing the higher value in objects reorients how we use them. While recycling is often synonymous with “green,” acts with far greater environmental impact include reducing what one uses in the first place, and reusing what one does use (see http://zerowaste.org/case.htm andwww.lnt.org/). Hence the phrase, “Reduce, reuse, recycle.”
The affluence and abundance of Western society today presents both an environmental and a religious challenge – to avoid needless waste and use the resources of the physical world in a holy way. If we live up to the task, we can discover both physical and spiritual rewards through our “holy use” of the material world.