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
The reading from the second half of Judaism and "Branching Out" had similarities in that both focused on having a better and more integrated relationship with God and the environment. I thought it was interesting to see the slight differences in EJS and TET. TET seemed much more modern in that 40% of its contributors were female while EJS had very few female contributors. TET also seems to have a closer relationship to the environment in that it believes all natural phenomena are proof of God's existence.
ReplyDeleteAnother interesting term in this reading was "eco-mitvah". It is interesting that with the growing importance of being environmentally friendly, mitvah is being used to encourage environmentally sound practices. Whereas before doing environmental good deeds was implied. now it is being more explicitly defined. I think this is a step in the right direction, but I hope that it actually translates into action.
In general the second half of the Judaism reading in our book was very useful for me. Similarly to what Soraya wrote, I found the passage with Aharon David Gordon to be very interesting. Since I am doing my next paper on Zionism, I will make sure to look up the works of Aharon D. Gordon, and try to incorporate some of his thoughts in my paper.
ReplyDeleteI personally was a little confused after reading Fred Dobbs' article "Branching Out". I felt that he was trying to cover too much information and in result the reading felt a little too cluttered. He referenced so many different works and people throughout his review that sometimes I forgot the main works he was reviewing were "Trees, Earth, and Toarah: A Tu B'Shvat Anthology" and "Ecology & the Jewish Spirit, Where Nature & the Sacred Meet". However, I feel that these two sources would be a valuable asset to my paper on how zionism and the environment relate because at one point in his review Dobb's wrote "Both 'Trees, Earth, and Torah' and 'Ecology & the Jewish Spirit' deserve to be read by everyone concerned with the Earth and/or Judaism.
After I read this, I understand more about the relationship between Judaism and environment. They know human can manage the earth and environment, and they also know that human should respect to the nature and nature also represents the creation of God. Through Bible we can know there are lots of verses to ask people to keep the balance of the environment. Such as “and whether the mother is a cow or a ewe, you shall not kill both her and her young in one day” (Leviticus 22:28). Everyone knows that female can have baby and they also can give birth. From this verse, we can know that God wants us to reproduce ourselves, therefore the earth will balance between human and animals, and animals will have their own offspring. From this verse, we can know that God really considers about the environment and Judaism whose followers believe God; they also care about the environment. There are lots of laws for them to obey from God and lots of those laws are about environment. After I read those articles about the religious and environment, I start to think that why some people want to dominate the earth and why some people just want to support and respect for the earth. I think that is because the ways they think about one object are different. Anyways, I think that earth is the creation of God; we should manage them but not to dominate them. I also think that Judaism dose a good job about this.
ReplyDeleteI really appreciate the selection of Dobbs’ article for our blog post tonight, because I feel his work is a perfect rolemodel for our annotated bibliographies. His list of works, essentially a works cited page, flows like a story, and isn’t boring to read, as I fear mine most certainly will be. He’s inspired me to take a more creative—and useful—approach to the standard.
ReplyDeleteStyle aside, the actual content of his article was very interesting. Some of the authors definitely have philosophies and ideas of note.
Elizier Diamond has an interesting idea that either we must “reappropriate the medieval model of ‘sumptuary laws’ against conspicuous consumption, or consumerist society encroaches ever further into our homes, synagogues, and communities.’ This seems to be a direct appeal to curb our tendencies towards the sin of gluttony (by way of using the environment to fuel our seemingly insatiable desire for consumer goods, etc.). Diamond seems to be suggesting that humans cannot on their own resist temptation…perhaps some sort of official mandate is required.
Or, maybe, there’s another approach, like the one Arthur Green advocates in his “Eco-Kabbalah Spirituality.” By utilizing Kabbalah mysticism, we can glorify the Earth, thus increasing our admiration and respect for it. If we have a perception of the earth as something that does not exist merely for our exploitation, but as a part of and infused by God, we might treat it fairly.
Hearing the short summaries of each author has spurred my interest in the relationship between Judaism and Ecology. Although I am a practicing Jew, I have never picked up on the millions of subtleties of my own faith that have such strong environmental undertones. I always knew that holidays like Sukkot and Tu Bishvat had strong environmental aspect to them, but I never heard anything explicit about it. MY rabbi would speak to us about the Jewish commitment to the environment outlined by tikkun olam, but that is about as far in depth as we had gone. I found it quite humbling that that there are millions of aspects about my own faith that I don't know about. However, now that I observe the traditions that I have practiced my whole life I am beginning to pick up on what it means about Jewish relationships to the Earth.
ReplyDelete- Alex Leeds
A portion of the reading Branching Out that particularly caught my attention was the reference to Barry Freundel and the parallels he creates between Talmudic and modern regulations and the existing literature on Jewish environmental law. The reference states “the notion that for an industry to pollute at all, it must fairly compensate everyone whom it affects.” This is an incredibly well-intentioned idea. I think it is absolutely necessary for industries to recognize that pollution is a byproduct that negatively impacts the company along with everybody else. Therefore, everyone needs to be compensated for the damage they all suffer at the hands of the industry. However, there is a severe flaw in this approach. The entity that suffers most, due to industrial pollution, is the environment. Efforts to need to be created to duly compensate the earth. Whether this be mitigation or reclamation, industries need to focus their attention on the environment that bares the brunt on human pollution.
ReplyDeleteChasen
I find it very interesting that we are studying a field that is very recent and is still being developed. The idea of "ecotheology"is modern and yet deeply rooted within the Abrahamic religions. Some of the teachings of men like Abraham Issac Kook and Martin Buber are essentially the cornerstone of Zionism. I never realized the scope of ecological commitments taught by Zionists because it is uncommon to study zionism from an ecological point of view. Author Tirosh-Samuelson claims that to many of the 20th century ecological thinkers are "belated responses" to the Holocaust, however i disagree. The holocaust certainly spurred zionism however the theology in which these ecological movements are based are founded in Judaic scripture. Fortunately, "ecotheology" seems to be on the rise and i believe that it is a step in the right direction for humanity in terms of our care for the natural environment.
ReplyDeleteOverall, I was a little conflicted with how I felt about Dobb's article analyses. I really enjoyed the variety of authors and how he chose to flow through them, as Katrina mentioned. However, I felt some of his conclusions were ambiguous, if not completely contradictory. For example, with Arthur Ocean Waskow/Naomi M. Hyman/Ari Elon's anthology, Trees, Earth, and Torah, he seemed to weave in and out of both compliments and criticisms. I couldn't really tell if he thought someone should read TET or not. Besides this, however, the selection of articles struck my interest numerous times. Being from a Jewish family, I read very personally, especially during the sections connecting Jewish holidays with environmental ideas, as the holidays represent my greatest memories, experiences and values throughout the various components of the religion. I also particularly liked this variety of articles because I thought it showed some serious work in the field of Jewish Environmentalism. Despite previous religious readings we have done, in a way, Dobb made the Jewish-Environmental connection seem more legitimate than others. So far, Judaism certainly seems to be the religion most studied in regards to environmentalism.
ReplyDeleteZoya Mufti
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with Katrina about how the annotated bibliographies flowed like a story and it was interesting to read. I thought it was interesting that the author described earlier writings on Jewish environmentalism as "simplistic and apologetic." I really liked reading Dobb's article because I thought it was interesting how he referred to many different authors and was able to keep the flow of the article. It was also interesting to see how there are so many things, such as holidays and rituals, that have environmental undertones to them.
I really liked that he emphasized how recently Jewish environmentalism transformed from, as Zoya mentioned, simplistic and apologetic to, beginning with Ellen Bernstein, a true reconstructionist environmental movement. It is interesting to me that it wasn't until just a few years ago that this occurred in the Jewish faith. Even more, I liked how Dobb describes the approach Jewish environmentalists have taken to relate their faith to the natural world. Arthur Waskow's Tu B'Shvat Anthology and the tree analogy, tracing trees (and Judaism) back to biblical roots by relating their Rabbinic beginnings to the tree trunk and relating the newer movements within Judaism, such as feminism, Zionism, kabbalah, and of course environmentalism, to younger "branches" of the tree. This really popped out at me. I love analogies that connect nature and non-environmental aspects of our world. To me, this is a very Eastern way of thinking. In many eastern religions, they explain everyday ideas and events through the natural world, and I loved that Dobb's article has Judaism, a Western religion, doing something very similar here. Dobb's review compares the two works by these scholars, Bernstein's EJS with Waskow's TET, and emphasizes that while they include many overlapping ideas, TET is a more direct, strident work that openly discusses ecofeminism and today's environmental problems. Lastly, I really liked Naomi Hyman's quote on the Torah and the natural world. She said "What would a Torah scroll be like that had these eitzim (trees) as its eitzim (poles)." She asks what would the Torah be if it's foundation were the trunks of trees. Her answer: "Each of us would be just the right size to be one letter in such a Torah scroll!" in conclusion, each person is a letter in God's Torah scroll of all the life on the planet. Again, this analogy intertwines the Jewish faith and the natural environment in a way that seems to me very Eastern-minded. I love the concept that we are all tiny building blocks in a massive, beautiful world of nature.
ReplyDeleteReading the second half of "Judaism" as well as "Branching Out" by Fred Dobbs proved to be really helpful for my WP III since I will be focusing on Judaism. One of the disadvantages it that I did not know much about Judaism. I understand that I barely scratch the surface of understanding the religion during class. These two readings provided some depth and an abundance of information - perhaps a little too much in Branching Out. That specific reading not only provided information about the ties between Judaism and religion - it also pointed the reader to different sources such as reading "Trees, Earth, and Toarah: A Tu B'Shvat Anthology" and "Ecology & the Jewish Spirit, Where Nature & the Sacred Meet". In conclusion I will be reading these articles again in the near future.
ReplyDeleteBefore starting this class I never knew that there was scholarly work on enviromentalism and religion. So its interesting to see where some of the founding texts come form in Jewish enviromentalism. I can also see how a text like this one would be very helpful when writing this last paper. This text addressed the field as a whole and gave a window into the scholarly discussion. If I was writing about Judiasim for my final paper this text would be very helpful. It tells the reader a little bit about each text including the focus or concentration of each text.
ReplyDeleteAlthough there were a few references in the article "Branching Out: The Grow of Jewish Environmental Literature", I still found what I could understand very interesting. The part that struck me the most was the section that reveals Insights on the Jewish Tradition. In this section, the traditions told the environmental side and its relation to the environment. I found this most interesting because it show that deeply rooted in the Jewish religion is the appreciation for nature. It's really at the core of the religion and the fact that traditions and holidays in Judaism connect back to nature isn't a coincidence (at least, I don't believe it is.)
ReplyDeleteI also found the annotated bibliography in "Branching Out" very interesting. When we talked about it in class, I could not fully wrap my head around the idea because I am not used to it, but this helped me understand it much more.
ReplyDeleteI was also surprised to read about how recent ecotheology is. It makes sense that it would be modern but I was surprised to read how modern it is. It also says that "Jews have lived according to the rhythms of nature." Even Shabbat is related to nature. I found it interesting that the article talked about Jewish holidays and how they relate to nature. This is the topic we discussed for our fake proposition in class on Wednesday. We talked about how many Jewish traditions, such as holidays relate to the environment and nature. So this would have been a good source.
I thought the "Branching Out" article was not only educational in terms of Jewish ecology but it also showed us a way to find good sources from a book review. I felt that if I was doing my project on Judaism I would have found a lot of good scholars to read more from as well as some good information such as the descriptions of the TET and EJS. It was a very helpful reading and it definitely cleared up my understanding of the Jewish approach to the environment.
ReplyDeleteThe final part of the Hava Tirosh-Samuelson article helped better my understanding as well. It defined the fact that the Jewish approach is definitely anthropocentric but has a commitment to reconnect with the natural world through social activism and ecology. Green articulates the importance of every creature and our responsibility to protect every creature and that includes protecting the environment. Overall both readings were very useful. I have found our section on Judaism pretty confusing but these two articles made Judaism and their ecology a little more clear.
Branching out was very informative by setting somewhat of a guideline on extracting sources from a book review. How focused Jewish tradition is on nature surprised me a lot. From the previous readings I got the sense that Judaism has a more biocentric outlook on the relationship that exists between humans and nature but reading the second half of Hava Tirosh-Samuelson solidified my notions about it. The Jewish tradition of having a day of rest for humans, animals, and the environment, paired with a desire to appreciate nature and the harvest, that can be seen in many major Jewish holidays, I understood agriculture and farming practices, especially in Israel, to be a central Jewish tenant. When Gordon was brought up as well as his desire to farm in Israel, this issue was again brought to the forefront. Because he rejected tradition Torah teachings and instead preached a view of the environment that was more holistic, he ushered in a new style of environmental Jewish thought.
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