Rabbi Gabriel Botnick expands on an important theme in his High Holyday sermons

Dear Rabbi, On Rosh Hashanah you spoke about the environment as a central Jewish value. But isn’t that really just a modern, liberal issue?
Sincerely, Eco Agnostic

Dear Eco, it’s always nice to know someone was listening to a sermon. And the question you raise is fair. I suspect you were not the only person wondering about this at the time.

Environmentalism, as an organised movement, is indeed relatively new. And in public life it has increasingly become associated with one end of the political spectrum. So it’s understandable that when a rabbi stands on the bimah and starts talking about carbon emissions, some of you might wonder whether you’re hearing words of Torah or of politics. But the concern underlying the modern environmental movement is very old – far older than any political party.

On Rosh Hashanah, I mentioned the verse in Genesis where God places the first human in the Garden of Eden le’ovdah u’leshomrah – to work it and to protect it (Gen. 2:15). The rabbis explain this verse to mean that we’re not only permitted to make use of the world’s resources, we’re commanded to do so. But we’re equally commanded to look after them.

There’s a midrash that takes us back into that same garden. In the book of midrash, Kohelet Rabbah, the rabbis imagine that, when God created Adam, God took him and led him around all the trees of Eden. ‘See my works,’ God says, ‘how beautiful and praiseworthy they are. Everything I have created, I created for you.’ And then comes the warning: ‘take care that you do not spoil and destroy My world, because if you spoil it, there is no one after you to repair it.’

Strictly speaking, the midrash is a comment on a verse in Ecclesiastes, not in Genesis. But I’ve always found it helpful to read the two together. The verse in Genesis gives us the command; the midrash gives us the reason. We’re asked to protect the world not because it’s a nice idea, or a fashionable one, but because there is no one coming along after us to fix what we break.

That is not a modern idea. And it is certainly not a partisan one.

Which is why I want to be clear about something: when I called on Rosh Hashanah for public advocacy, I was not calling on us to take sides in party politics. Caring for the planet doesn’t belong to the left or the right.

In fact, Britain’s own record makes this point rather well. The Climate Change Act 2008 – the first law anywhere in the world to set legally binding, long-term targets for cutting emissions – passed its final Commons vote under a Labour government with only a handful of MPs voting against it. Eleven years later, it was a Conservative government that strengthened that law to require net zero emissions by 2050, making the UK the first G7 country to do so. And when the Tory MP behind that update introduced his legislation, he reminded the House that it was Margaret Thatcher who had stood before the United Nations in 1989 to warn of early signs of man-made climate change.

So when we talk about advocacy, much of what we’re talking about is simply asking our government to keep promises that Parliament has already made – with support from across the political spectrum.

But why Belsize, and why now?

To begin with, this isn’t new for us. For a number of years, we’ve been recognised by EcoJudaism as an EcoSynagogue. Caring for the environment is already part of who we are as a community.

But the moment in which we find ourselves makes this work more urgent. Look across today’s political landscape and it’s hard to find a major party that keeps the environment anywhere near the top of its priorities. Commitments that once enjoyed broad agreement are being quietly set aside, or openly questioned. We can’t simply leave this to the politicians. It falls to communities like ours to help keep it on the agenda.

I know that can sound daunting. Climate change is vast, and it’s easy to feel that nothing any one of us does could possibly make a difference. But as I quoted on Rosh Hashanah, we’re taught in Pirkei Avot – Ethics of Our Ancestors – that it is not our responsibility to complete the task, but neither are we free to desist from it. No one is asking you to solve the climate crisis, or to become an expert on it – only to be willing to play a part.

So what might playing a part look like?

Here at home, it means making our community even more sustainable – building on the work we’ve already done, so that the way we run our synagogue reflects the values we teach within it. Beyond our walls, it means adding our voice to those who are already pressing the government and major businesses to do better.

Whether you’re a lawyer or a student, good with spreadsheets or good with people, have a few hours a month or only a few hours a year – there is a place for you in this work.

So, is caring for the environment just a modern, liberal issue? If it were, it might be understandable if some were to say that it belongs to someone else. But it doesn’t. It’s been ours since the Garden of Eden. And if we don’t look after this world, there is no one after us to repair it.

If you’d like to be part of this work, simply email climate@synagogue.org.uk and let us know. That’s all it takes to step forward.

Sincerely,
Rabbi Botnick