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The three faiths’ perspectives

A Jewish Environmental Ethic, Natan Levy

Life does not begin in the Garden of Eden. In Genesis you’ll see a twist to the familiar story:

These are the products of the heaven and the earth when they were created on the day that the Lord God made earth and heaven – now all the trees of the field were not yet on the earth and all the herb of the field had not yet sprouted.

God formed the human, dirt from the ground, and breathed into him the breath of life. God planted a garden in Eden in the East, and placed the human that He had created within it.

Genesis 2:4-8

God first creates a human (Adam) and later places him into the Garden. Why not just create Adam in the Garden itself? And, if not in the Garden, just where does Adam take his first breath? Genesis tells us that the setting into which Adam is born is no manicured garden, but a desert landscape. Adam wakes to a wasteland.

The 11^th century Biblical commentator, Rashi, offers this insight into Adam’s peculiar birthplace:

Even though the trees and grasses had been created on the third day of creation, until the creation of Man on day sixth, everything waited at the lip of the ground to sprout forth. And why did the flora wait? Because until the appearance of Adam there was no one to realise how badly the grass needed rain to grow, and no one to work and pray for change.

Genesis 2:5

The grass could have grown, the bushes could have burst forth, but God wanted to teach humanity its first fundamental lesson: when it comes to the environment, it is up to you to notice what is lacking, and it is up to you to be the agents of change. Prayer and work are the tools at your disposal. Do not let the world remain barren, do not accept brokenness. That is the message that God wished to impress upon Adam, and through him to all of humanity. And as Adam was created to look upon a barren world and feel its need for rain, we must listen to the needs of our own fragile world. As the Jewish sages impart:

It is not up to you to finish the task, yet you are never free to desist from the work.

Ethics of Our Fathers (Pirke Avot) 2:21

Entering the Garden of Eden, Adam is confronted with the task of sustainability. A Midrash, a biblical allegory, relates that God said to Adam:

Behold My works, how beautiful and commendable they are! All that I have created, for your sake I created it. Pay heed that you do not corrupt and destroy My universe, for if you corrupt it there is no one to repair it after you.

Midrash Kohelet Rabbah 7:20