Uvacharta Bachayim [Choose Life]:
Jews and Climate Change
There is increasing scientific and public understanding that we are facing a climate crisis and that urgent, decisive action is necessary if we hope to avoid the worst of its consequences for organized human life on earth.
While of course Jews everywhere will be affected along with the rest of humanity, as Jews we are also guided by calls for tikkun olam [repair of the world] and of bal tashchit [do not destroy or waste]. In this case, the world needs an actual physical, not just spiritual, halt to destruction and repairing of the damage already done. As well, the impacts of the climate disruption will be—and already are—profoundly unjust, with the most destructive impacts falling on those who have contributed the least to the disruption: the young and the unborn, Indigenous nations, people of color, poor people, and the impoverished nations that have been most heavily exploited by the “developed” countries.
As a people who have not shied away from taking on [confronting and doing something about] the largest issues facing humanity, such as the class society, we might wonder, “Where is our Jewish voice on what is being named the biggest challenge and moral issue to have ever faced humanity?”
We humans have been slow to rise to the challenge. For the small minority who make huge profits by pouring the largest amounts of greenhouse gases into our atmosphere, the slowness is about greed, fortune, and power. For the rest of us, it may be due to lack of awareness, addiction to convenience, or denial of what feels too unbearable to face.
Many people feel powerless, discouraged, and incompetent. But, for specific reasons, it might be particularly difficult for us as Jews to look squarely at the problem, to own it, and to organize to solve it.
Some of the alarming things we hear about climate change and, indeed, the actual looming threat of extinction can remind us of the Holocaust. Terror and powerlessness can overwhelm and paralyze us when we’re faced with a threat that sounds so similar to the repeated attempts at genocide of our people. At least for me personally, the feelings of doom and gloom can be confusingly familiar: What is real? What is just “in my head”? It can be all too easy—and tempting—to dismiss the real present-day danger.
For a people who have rarely been allowed to own and work the land and who have been living out of suitcases between one expulsion and the next, it can be hard to feel a connection to the environment, or to the rest of humanity. And it can be a stretch to feel that our countries’ institutions are ours to influence when much of Jewish history has been about finding favour in the eyes of rulers in the hope of being protected against anti-Semitism.
And then, organizing with others in the general community can feel uncomfortable. Will we run into [encounter] unaware anti-Semitism? Will we have to challenge it, which can feel scary, or painfully assign our own liberation to the back burner [make our own liberation a low priority]?
We could organize as Jews on climate change, but we must also collaborate with others in the broader movement. Given that isolation is a key component of anti-Jewish oppression, I’m inclined to think it would be good to work within existing groups, and if presented with anti-Semitism figure out how to take it on [deal with it] and train allies. In either case, I would love to have a safe Jewish space in which we could support each other and look at what it’s like to be doing this work, and adjusting to a rapidly changing (and possibly disintegrating) world. We must also prepare ourselves, and our allies, for growing expressions of anti-Semitism, which typically happen at times of social unrest.
One way or another, we cannot afford to stay away from this climate tikkun olam work. The threat to human—and Jewish—life from climate breakdown is existential. “You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it.” [Rabbi Tarfon] And to quote Hillel, “If not now, when?”
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Reprinted from the RC e-mail
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