RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL: Positive Mitzvah of Publicly Naming One Destroying Earth
An Exegesis Showing Mitzvoth, not discussed before in this context, to Save Our Planet Using Traditional Texts
including
The Positive Mitzvah of Publicly Naming One or Ones Destroying Our Planet
Rabbi Dr. Arthur Segal
Shalom my dear Chaverim and Ketivah v' Chasimah Tovah: Peace unto you and may you be Inscribed and Sealed into the Book of Life.
Shabbat Parasha Noah, this year October 23-24, 2008, Cheshvan 6, 5770, will be a special Shabbat when congregations and rabbis are asked to pay particular attention in their sermons, and activities, to help promote Eco-Judaism and the urgent saving of our Planet. This call is shofared by The Shalom Center and Rabbi Dr. Arthur Waskow. For more information and about how you and your congregation can participate in this, email office@shalomctr.org.
I invite you to read and take to heart the below. It is an exegesis using our traditions and texts to show our moral obligation, and actual mitzvoth, to be involved in literal Tikun Olam, the repairing of the Planet. Please stay with me if while reading the beginning you are wondering where I am heading.
The month of Elul is a time of serious self-reflection for Jews in preparation of the Autumn High Holy days, beginning with Selicoth, moving into Rosh ha Shana, and ending with Yom Kippur. Elul is a time for Jews, if we haven't done so each day during the year, to do a complete written moral inventory of our souls. This ''chesbon ha nefesh'' is to not only discover our character defects, but to find them objectionable. We ask G!d to remove them from us, during our Tashlich ceremony during Rosh Ha Shana.
When we do our honest Chesbon we will come across names of those that we owe amends to or may harbor a grudge against. During the day of Selicoth, we, if we haven't already done so, make teshuvah (amends) to those we have harmed, and ask G!d to help us forgive those to whom we resent.
By Yom Kippur our slate is hopefully clean. We can begin anew with a new year hopefully doing more positive mitzvoth and less negative ones. For those of us needing more time, we actually have until Shemini Atzeret {12 days after Yom Kippur} to finish this task.
During the Holy Days we are continually echoing prayers to Avenu Malkeinu, Our Father, Our King. We promise that we will do Tsaddakah and Chesed, Righteousness and Kindness, to help us atone for chetim, (missings of the mark) that we have done in our relationship with the Almighty. The bad deeds that we have done to our fellows, are not atoned on Yom Kippur, unless we do teshuvah to those human individuals. (Talmud Bavli Tractate Yoma 8:9)
One way we are taught to do Chesed is visiting the sick, called Bikur Cholim . We are taught that the Shekanah, God's Holy Presence, in the feminine gender grammatically, and spiritually, sits at the head of the ill.[Yoreh Deah 335]. We are also taught that each of us who visits the sick, removes 1/60th of their illness. (Talmud Bavli Tractate Nedarim 39b).
We are also taught that not visiting the sick is a violation of "You shall not stand idly by while your fellow's blood is shed" (Lev. 19:16). We can not think that it is another's responsibility to visit and care for the sick. We cannot think that one's children or one's neighbors will care for the old widow, for example. We must. It would be her blood on our hands if she fell down the stairs to make herself a cup of tea. Our Psalmist taught "Fortunate is he who cares wisely for the needy. On the day of evil, Ha Shem will save him" (Ps.41:2). After all, an old sick woman, might be our own mother, needing aid.
Indeed our Mother is very ill and needs our aid and care. She calls out:
Pollution, Cain, and misery
Oceans of golden mystery
Armies boisterous and armies loud
Portraits of a vicious crowd
Talk to me, talk to me now
Hey man, you're all that I have
Me, myself, myself and I
Were born to work and born the die
I have chosen my anthems
Of these I am proud
Portraits of a divided crowd
Talk to me, talk to me now!
Oceans of golden mystery
Armies boisterous and armies loud
Portraits of a vicious crowd
Talk to me, talk to me now
Hey man, you're all that I have
Me, myself, myself and I
Were born to work and born the die
I have chosen my anthems
Of these I am proud
Portraits of a divided crowd
Talk to me, talk to me now!
[Mother Earth Is A Vicious Crowd,Patrick Dahlheimer 1991 (C) ]
Our tradition has many specific rules in visiting the sick. The rich are required to visit the poor. One should visit a number of times a day unless the sick person needs to rest. Relatives and close friends visit in the first three days, and others after. But if the person is seriously ill, visiting and caring starts immediately.
And interesting rule exists: One should not visit the ill during the first 3 hours of the day as many ill patients look fine and one may not see the need to come and care for them again. Nor should we visit in the last 3 hours of the day, as ill people look worse then, and we will not care for them, as we will despair in their recovery.
Rabbi Akiva declared that one who does not care for the ill is a shedder of blood (Talmud Bavli Tractate Nedarim 40a).
Certainly we can make the short leap that if we are commanded to care and heal the sick, and that by not doing so we are murderers, we can apply these very mitzvoth to the saving of our ill Mother Earth as well as all our human fellows spinning on this blue-green Dreidel around the sun. Ecologically, not caring for our sick Mother Earth will bring us to 'the day of Evil.' And there will be no one to rescue us.
The special rule of what hours to visit the sick is set so that we neither neglect them because we think they are not ill, or because we think that they are terminal. We have an obligation to look at our Mother Earth rationally and honestly, and not hold back care, because of false reports. Our Mother Earth is not unfixable at this stage, but neither is She is terrific form, not needing our help.
Bikur literally means to examine. We have an obligation to discover for ourselves. When visiting a sick person, we don't just ask the nurse or doctor how the patient is, we ask the patient, and we determine what we can do to help them get well and be comfortable. We have the obligation to scientifically view Mother Earth, and realize that scientist are not ''crying wolf.''
Cholim of course means sick people. When the vowel at the end is changed and the consonants are pronounced Cholem, the word means 'dreams.' Sick folk with fevers have delusional dreams. When they are lucid they dream of being healed. To be healers, we cannot however be in a delusional dream, thinking either all is Okay, or all is hopeless. Cholem is also the vowel, the dot, than when placed over a silent vuv, makes an 'O' sound as in the vuv in the Ivrit ''Shalom.'' When we visit the cholim we take away their 'o' and their 'oy', and give them shalom, rest and silence.
Just as we have rules on caring for the sick in Judaism, we need to develop rules for caring for Mother Earth. And She needs us now. We need to immediately care for Earth, putting aside partisan politics and turf wars over private or government grants.
True Tikun Olam, means we are junior partners with G!d. We are taught that G!d provides us with remedies and paths to save the world. An example of this is that He split the Sea of Reeds because the Hebrews carried the Coffin of Joseph, not forgetting him. When we study what Egyptian sarcophagi looked like with embalmed dead in them (Joseph was embalmed, Gen. 50:26), and then read later in the Chumash what our Ark of the Covenant looked like, we realize that Joseph's coffin was an ark before the Hebrews built a second ark to carry the Tablets. For most of the 40 years in B'Midbar we carried two arks, but at the Sea of Reeds, we had Joseph's only. Both the words used for the Ark of the Covenant and Joseph's coffin are '' aron.'' (Special thanks to Rabbi GERSHON STEINBERG-CAUDILL who reminded me of this )
And what was the merit of Joseph, Zekhut, that earned the Hebrews the splitting of the Sea? Joseph did not give into his yetzer ha ra and said no to Mrs. Potiphar when she tried to seduce him. As humans we do give in to daily enticements as we over -consume the benefits of the Planet. We are seduced by false science telling us that what we are seeing is some natural cycle that will do Tikun on itself, as we keep on spilling carbon emissions.
The Slonimer Rebbe, Rabbi Sholom Noach Berezovsky (d. 2000) , in his Nesivot Sholom, says today's world ''morally is like the world was at the time of the Flood, when the spiritual filth is powerful and widespread.'' Now for those who have studied the Chumash, Talmud and Midrash and know the details of what humans were doing during Noah's time. We may see some parallels, but in my opinion we morally haven't sunk to that level. Noah was the only one ''righteous in his generation.'' We have plenty of good people today. [If you are still reading this, you're one of them.] But ecologically we are in a behavioral sink.
The people of Noah's time were ecologically out of balance. They mated animals of totally different species, and mixed species of plants and fruit trees.They had no respect for the seasons. They paid no attention to how they treated the earth as well as each other. They had no love for Mother Earth nor for their own mothers.
As we read when the water subsided, plants and trees did just fine without human interference, as olive trees grew.
Hence scientifically, spiritually, and ecologically we have to care for sick Mother Earth. Our traditions give us not only permission, but demand that we do. We cannot continue in ignoring the Earth, and to not do active Bikur Cholim and chesed and tsaddakah for our Mother. We cannot continue to disrespectfully and foolishly gobble Her up. We can not treat our Mother as if She is a seductive whore like Potifer's wife, to use and discard. We will cause the Sea that was split for us for a safe crossing into Life, crash down on upon us, to drown us as it did to Pharaoh's army, horses and chariots.
Just as we have specific rules for caring for the human sick, we must develop firm rules of how we can care for Mother earth. Further just as the Noachide covenant after the flood was given to all Humankind,[ including Shem (Noah's son), who is the father of Semites (Shemites)], so must these rules be for all humans on our globe. While Jews can look at our texts, as I have done, and only using one aspect (Bikur Cholim), other faith groups can review their texts for similar inspiration. When we read our Chumash, the Noachide covenant was made not only with every human, and every future generation of humans, but with all animal life, as equal partners.
Hence equal partnership also depends that we learn to live in peace with one another, and stop fighting over land and resources. If we do not we will have no Mother Earth to give us land to live on or resources to use.
One aspect of rules for caring for Mother Earth includes outing those corporations who we know from first hand information and hard facts that are actively, or passively, killing our Spinning Top, and life on it. I was discussing this question with Rabbi Dr. Arthur Waskow, one of the main pathfinders of Jewish Renewal and founder of the Shalom Center in Philadelphia. I am honored to be able to do post-ordination (semicha) study with him. What do our spiritual rules of Lashon Ha Ra say to guide us?
When it comes to Lashon Ha Ra's rules I usually refer to Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan (d. 1933) and his texts. His 1873 text ''Desirer of Life'', (Chofetz Chaim), from Psalm 34:12, earned him the name The Chofetz Chaim. Along with his ''Guarding of the Tongue'', (Sh'mirat Ha Lashon ), these two books outline when, in rare incidences, one can talk about someone else.
Secondhand truthful information, which would ordinarily be considered rechilut, (spreading gossip of what one heard, as opposed being the primary person to say it) and not allowed to be repeated, may be communicated for a constructive purpose (l'toelet), provided that it is not presented as fact. Regarding lashon ha ra, however, communicating secondhand information for a constructive purpose is prohibited in most cases.
The Chofetz Chaim explains that ''while achieving a positive result on the basis of firsthand information is justified even when the chances for success are minimal, secondhand information may be used only when one can assume that the intended result will almost certainly be achieved. Consequently, one may inform one party in a prospective shidduch (marriage match) or business partnership of possible major problems regarding the other party on the basis of hearsay, since such information will probably be taken very seriously. For the same reason, one may warn a potential victim of impending danger on the basis of secondhand information. ''
Conversely, one cannot publicize the ''alleged unethical behavior of an individual with the hope that social pressure will encourage him to change his ways or reimburse his victims''. However, and I will bold this for emphasis, ''this would be permissible only when one has witness to such behavior.'' The Chofetz Chaim continues that ''the effectiveness of social pressure in persuading people to change their ways is far too limited to justify relating secondhand negative information – even if it is clearly stated that the information has not been verified.''
Hence, corporations, and their Jewish or non-Jewish CEOs, and officers, can be publicized in an ad in a newspaper, if they and/or their corporations are clearly responsible, with first hand information, for causing harm to Mother Earth.
We are at the point where polluting our Mother Earth, including Her atmosphere above, is murder. It kills us right now and will kill all of us in the near future. To not announce such, when we have truthful information, and tried at least three times to meet with them to ask them to change their ways, would put us in the position of sinning, as we would be letting our neighbors sin without trying to reprove them. (Lev. 19:17 ). At that point without announcing that they are murdering, would be allowing a rodef, a pursuer with a knife in his hand, to kill us. (Talmud Bavli Tractate Sanhedrin 72b). And the Talmud teaches that no one's blood is more red than another. (Talmud Bavli Tractate Sanhedrin 74a).
We truly need to teach those who profit on the Rape of our Mother Earth are like those "who are apparently rich, but in truth have nothing" (Prov. 13:7). And we must teach that they are raping, and stealing and doing Chamas, to every other human on the Planet.
The Chofetz Chaim teaches that the Torah demands us to judge our fellow with favor. We are to not conclude that he has sinned. We must try to think of an alternative way of explaining his acts. Even when we are sure someone has sinned, we still must give him the benefit of the doubt, that he sinned out of ignorance. We have an obligation to reprove, if they are willing to listen.
Giving someone the benefit of the doubt cannot not be done at the expense of another. If one has witnessed with first hand evidence that one person or persons is attempting or actually has harmed another, the Chofetz Chaim teaches that ''the need for accuracy does not require an attempt at justifying the perpetrator's motives. Even if the act is out of character, it must be rectified, and one may, therefore, inform the appropriate parties.''
The ''appropriate parties'' for a corporation , or a government, attempting to kill Mother Earth is all of humanity. "Nor shall you take a stand against the life of your neighbor: I am the Lord.''(Lev. 19:16). We are all neighbors on Mother Earth, and those who are destroying it, which is practically everyone on this Planet in some small way, make us rodefim of each other, and frankly suicidal.
The 4th utterance of the Tablets states : "Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you,"(Ex. 20:12). Dishonoring our Mother Earth, by hurting Her, and not caring for Her now when She is extremely ill, will literally make humankind's days short upon Her.
Oh, Mother Earth,
With your fields of green
Once more laid down
by the hungry hand
How long can you
give and not receive
And feed this world
ruled by greed
And feed this world
ruled by greed.
Oh, ball of fire
In the summer sky
Your healing light,
your parade of days
Are they betrayed
by the men of power
Who hold this world
in their changing hands
They hold the world
in their changing hands.
Oh, freedom land
Can you let this go
Down to the streets
where the numbers grow
Respect Mother Earth
and her giving ways
Or trade away
our children's days
Or trade away
our children's days.
Respect Mother Earth
and her giving ways
Or trade away
our children's days.
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
Ragged Glory, 1990, (C)
Shalom:
Rabbi Dr. Arthur Segal
HILTON HEAD ISLAND, SC,
BLUFFTON, SC
SAVANNAH, GA
JEWISH SPIRITUAL RENEWAL
JEWISH RENEWAL
JEWISH SPIRITUALITY
ECO-JUDAISM
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RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL
HILTON HEAD ISLAND, SC,
BLUFFTON, SC
SAVANNAH, GA
JEWISH SPIRITUAL RENEWAL
JEWISH RENEWAL
JEWISH SPIRITUALITY
ECO-JUDAISM
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