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81 Responses Teshuvah to Shylah: Creating Questions from Answers Arthur Waskow FOR ALL of the questions in this case study, two teachings arise for me as transcendently important: One is the contemporary consensus of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,1 a council of scientists from around the world, that planet Earth is becoming overheated, that this poses very serious dangers to human civilization and to the web of life in which the human race came into existence, and that this process is mostly due to the actions of the human race itself. The second is the warning in ancient passages in Leviticus 26:31–35 and 26:43 that failure to let the Earth rest, as described in Leviticus 25, will bring about social and ecological calamity: famine, drought, and exile. Leviticus is, I think, encoding the accumulated experience of farmers , shepherds, and orchard-keepers on the western edge of the Mediterranean as sacred wisdom. These are the sharpest and most poignant teachings, but not the only relevant ones. The traditional second paragraph of the Shema, for example , taken from Deuteronomy 11:13–21, warns that if we follow the sacred teachings that flow from the One Who/That is the Unity of all life, then the rain, the soil, the sun, and the seed will unite to make our herds and our crops prosper and we will live well; but that if we turn to “afterthought gods” (Elohim acherim), then the earth, the river, and the sky will become our enemies. For me, the God of forethought, of flow, of the 1. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a panel of scientists from all over the world, set up by two U.N. agencies—the World Meteorological Organization and the U.N. Environment Programme. The Panel consults all available scientific research on climate change and issues public reports (most recently in 2007) reflecting the views of its member scientists. Its reports have warned that major changes in world climate are resulting from human actions that increase the proportions of carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere. It shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former Vice President of the United States Al Gore. Case 3: Responses Jewish Choices, Jewish Voices: SOCIAL JUSTICE 82 Whole, is YHWH, Whose name cannot be pronounced but only breathed, because God is the interbreathing of all life. (Try pronouncing these four aspirate letters with no vowels, so not “Yahweh” or “Jehovah.” For many people, what emerges is a breath or the sound of the wind. As the prayer book says, “Nishmat kol chai tivarekh et shimkha”: The breath of all life praises Your Name.” Thus, the Name replicates the interbreathing of all life.) For me, these teachings are not sacred just because they are embedded in what we call Torah. They are sacred because they embody lived and living experience. And they point to what I can see around me: that human action can despoil, and is despoiling, our earth. Human beings, as well as entire species, are dying as a result. Our story of Eden, the Garden of Delight, says that God shows us a world filled with abundance, and God says not to consume it all, but to practice self-restraint by choosing not to eat from one tree among the many. If we overuse it, the abundance will wither, the earth will give forth only thorns and thistles, and we will need to work with the sweat pouring down our faces in order to survive instead of enjoying the planet we have been given. So, for me, modern scientists are simply specifying the terms of interconnection between adamah and adam, earth and earthling when they warn of the consequences of global warming. For each individual, and for corporations and governments, that connection produces the imperative to prevent the destruction of our world. To do so, we must limit our consumption of the abundance all around us. Specifically, we must calm and cool our planet from the surplus of carbon dioxide and methane that is overheating it. We must move from burning fossil fuels to using “a sun of responsible justice (shemesh tzedakah) … with healing in its wings” (Mal. 3:20): solar energy and the ruach hakodesh—the “holy wind” that is moved each day by the healing wings of that sun. We must also restrain our consumption of meat, whose production pours methane into our atmosphere. And we especially must take upon ourselves the task that Malachi invokes with...

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