They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator... Romans 1:25 NIV
The Green Glue that could help bring the world together spiritually....
Judaism on Green Religion
"Professor Nahum Rakover, an Orthodox legalist and Torah/Talmud scholar, was appointed by the World Jewish Congress to write this statement...
When discussing the quality of the environment, we must remember that the environment also comprises the people living in it—individuals and community. Protection of the environment, by itself, cannot solve conflicts of interest, though it can extend the range of factors considered when seeking solutions to problems. Solutions must, in the final analysis, be based upon economic, social, and moral considerations.
Rav Kook’s attitude toward each individual plant and to the creation in general is based upon a comprehensive philosophical approach to man’s relationship with nature. This position was well articulated by the noted mystic R. Moshe Cordovero in his work Tomer Devorah:
One’s mercy must extend to all the oppressed. One must not embarrass or destroy them, for the higher wisdom is spread over all that was created: inanimate, vegetable, animal, and human. For this reason were we warned against desecrating food stuffs ... and in the same way, one must not desecrate anything, for all was created by His wisdom—nor should one uproot a plant, unless there is a need, or kill an animal unless there is a need.
Maimonides, in his Guide of the Perplexed, suggests a reason for the sabbatical year:
“With regard to all the commandments that we have enumerated in Laws concerning the Sabbatical year and the Jubilee, some of them are meant to lead to pity and help for all men—as the text has it: “That the poor of the people may eat; and what they leave, the beasts of the field shall eat ...” (Exod. 23:11)—and are meant to make the earth more fertile and stronger through letting it fallow.
In other words, one of the goals of ceasing all agricultural activity is to improve and strengthen the land.
In honor of the Year of the Environment, the book Environment Reflections and Perspectives in Jewish Sources was published. The book analyses the ideas of man’s relation to the environment, as well as the vast legislative material in this area, from Scripture, the Mishnah, and Talmud (second through fifth centuries) through the well-known codifiers, such as Maimonides and the Shulhan Arukh, and the rich responsa literature. The book also traces how principles of environmental protection were given expression in ordinances passed in Jerusalem’s new neighborhoods constructed outside the city walls in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Booklets on the Jewish sources concerning environmental protection were also prepared for use in the school system."
