"Branching Out" by Fred Dobbs

The major theme of the second half of the Judaism reading was ecotheology. One passage that really interested me was, Zionist thinker, Aharon David Gordon’s. Gordon posed labor as combating the ecological crisis and bridging the gap between humanity and God. I really liked the statement about how the reconnection with the natural world will not be based on dominion as exploitation (as the relationship has been in the past) but on reunification through labor and how it culminates the union of the worker working with God and His creation. The section was interesting how it essentially made the case for Jews and wanting to save God’s beautiful earth, but then it closed with how nature is violent and unforgiving. I agree and disagree with this statement. I didn’t like how it sort of put nature down, because God controls nature and saying that nature doesn’t care about humans is like saying God doesn’t either. But also I agreed because, through the violence of weather and natural disasters, nature is communicating with humanity or God is communicating to humanity through nature.
“Branching Out: The Growth of Jewish Environmental Literature” reviewed by Fred Dobb discussed similar topics as the first reading. I found it interesting how Jewish law states that if an industry wants to pollute, it must provide compensation to everyone whom it affects. This shows the historical roots of Jewish environmental thought. In addition, eco-Judaism and classic midrashim (way of interpreting biblical stories) give the environmental crisis a new outlook. A story of the Messiah planting a tree provides metaphors for how we should treat the environment. Overall, like the first reading, this article opened my eyes to different aspects of the Jewish faith that I did not know. Through this eco-feminist movement we are able to gather a new insight on how Jews really view the environment.

Soraya

Judaism by Hava Tirosh-Samuelson

As I was reading, one passage that particularly stuck out to me was the one about Rabbinic Judaism and prayer. Rabbinic Judaism has a unique practice in which Jewish worshippers recite prayers over natural phenomena including the morning, the evening, a tree blossoming or even a storm. This is incredibly intriguing because despite the recitation of a prayer over an environmental entity, prayer does not place holiness on that entity. This seems ironic to me because the inherent nature of a prayer is to indicate holiness. Instead, prayer recognizes the power of God who brings about these changes and places an emphasis on Gods’ command over nature. I think this raises some severe problems for environment in that as Jews praise God for natural phenomena, they are able to over overlook nature and become disenfranchised with it. In my opinion, it would seem difficult for a true appreciation of nature as well as a commitment to preserve it to develop when there is a lack of admiration and understanding for it other than God’s command over it.

Another passage that caught my eye was the one regarding social justice and ecological well-being. The book suggests a reason for ecological degradation that “the corruption of society is closely linked to the corruption of nature. In both cases, the injustice arises from human greed and failure of human beings to protect the original order of creation.” This statement seems absolutely accurate and is visibly reflected in the world today, none more so than in big business. Large corporations are so motivated by profits that they are willing to exploit nature and degrade and destroy it. I absolutely concur that greed is a primary cause behind the destruction of the environment.

Chasen

Judaism: An Overview

I have not yet received the opening blog post for this reading, but wanted to open it up for you. Please leave your comments as normal.

Research Topics

Please list the religion you wish to study, your interviewees, and the place of worship you plan to attend below.

Eastern Orthodoxy

“For it is in the sacraments that the world not only looks back in historical time to the moment of creation and to the event of incarnation, but also simultaneously looks forward in sacramental time to and even anticipates the redemption and restoration of all things…” (96). This quote took me a while to digest but I think that it encompasses a lot of what the Eastern Orthodox believe. They use the commandments to see “purely mundane” things as “deeply mystical”. They use the commandments to show that everything created by God is inherently beautiful and that nothing is excluded from the sacramental principle. Therefore, Orthodox Christians have a closer relationship with the earth and God’s creation. To me, these passages were vaguely similar to Pagan religions beliefs in sun gods and moon gods in that they believed nature was sacred. This closer relationship with the earth is good in that it promotes taking care of it for future generations. If Western Christianity were more like this, there is a good chance that people would be more inclined to help the environment. The Orthodox Church believes heavily in the lastingness of all things and therefore believes in the importance of taking care of the environment.

Another interesting Eastern Orthodox belief was their perception of the cross. Unlike many other Christian denominations, which view it as a sign of suffering, they view it as a sign of transformation. The cross is not just a symbol for tolerationg the world but a symbol of change: everything in the world undergoes a similar cycle of crucifixion and resurrection.

Speaking of symbols, the Orthodox believe that the way they treat the earth around them is symbolic of the relationship they have with God. This is yet another reason that the earth is considered to be sacramental and why preserving the earth is important to them.

Ellyse

Christianity: An Overview

This overview of Christianity is quite extensive, and I found myself a bit confused at many points throughout this Encyclopedia entry. As the author states early on in this excerpt, the history behind Christianity is immense, and books much larger than his don't fully catalogue the full history of Christianity in it's entirety. The prevailing message I got was that Christianity and the singular doctrine which identifies it as the religion of Christ are hard to pinpoint, and debates over necessary ideals have created new sects within the Christian umbrella that attempt to refine their religious beliefs. Although the sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist stand as a universal for Christians in both the east and the west, even these two constants have sparked debate over adult versus infant baptism, and Christ in spirit and power versus Christ in body and blood. It isn't the case that Christianity is a violently divided religion, but there are so many distinct versions of it, which has lead to competition colonialism and stewardship throughout history. I thought the author's distinction of visible versus invisible hierarchy in society and membership to the Church and thus salvation was very interesting, if not novel, then definitely a part of history I took for granted. This is also a hugely divisive factor in Christianity, of whether or not the members of the church are on the truest and most successful path to salvation and eternality of their soul, or whether it is the most pure laypeople practicing Christianity. The terminology for those who discuss Christianity and its doctrines seems to have changed, the author describes early theologians as saints and priests and monks, and modern day theologians as merely scholars and theorists, which brings up the dialogue of Christianity and what age it truly belongs to. This extensive history involves a majority of the world's scholars, as the author bounces from Thomas Aquinas to Charles Darwin, and I found this incredibly interesting. There will always be a debate over the minutiae of Christianity, as well as the reformations that may need to be made. In this sense Christianity must be fluid and organic to survive, the more time passes from the age of Christ, the more the aspects of Christianity are looked upon to be revised in the context of society.

Julie

Lynn White's "The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis."

After reading White’s “The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis”, I do agree with what I think is the gist of the article. With this excerpt, White takes some things that people generally regard as true, and links them to his ideas making what he is saying in the article make a lot of sense. For this reason, I found myself agreeing with a lot of what’s stated in the article. First off, I find it extremely interesting how he uses a timeline in order to depict human’s progression with religion, development of science, development of technology, and then how the last two individually began to separate after all coming from religion. In the beginning of the excerpt, the phrase that stands out the most to me was “scientific power means technological power over nature.” I suppose that I had always known that science at times was not the most favorable to nature, but I had never really thought about its direct relationship with nature and how science and technology are “masters” of nature. After reading how White put it however, it all made sense. Second, White begins to describe around the time when man’s relationship with nature started to take a turn for the worse, and how religion, in a way, endorsed it. White says that “first, that viewed historically, modern science is an extrapolation of natural theology… and second, voluntarist realization of the Christian dogma of man’s transcendence of, and rightful master over, nature.” It is difficult for me to disagree with this because, again, what he’s saying makes sense. In their questioning of nature, it did lead to humans abusing it. They started experimenting with nature, not caring about what it would do to it. At the end of the excerpt, White asks for a solution, and introduces the concept of re-evaluating Christianity. I see this as a plausible yet impossible thing to do because over hundreds of years, Christianity has definitely evolved and has divided itself into different sects. I don’t think a re-evaluation of a religion that has been around for so long can simply be re-evaluated. Who would have the right to do this? Who would give someone the right to do this? I don’t know if forming a new religion is also the way to go about this, but by spreading the information in this article that could be something that ends up happening.

Megan