Tending the Garden: Jewish Environmental Ethics from Genesis to Today

What does Jewish tradition have to teach us about environmental ethics? From the opening chapters of Genesis, where God commands humanity to "till and tend" the garden, to the rabbinic principle of Bal Tashchit ("do not destroy"), Jewish thought has long wrestled with humanity's relationship to the natural world. Long before environmentalism became a modern movement, the rabbis were debating questions of stewardship, pollution, animal welfare, public responsibility, and our obligations to future generations.

Over three sessions, we will study original Jewish texts from the Bible, Talmud, and other sources, and discuss passages that are surprisingly nuanced, often counterintuitive, and startlingly relevant to the ecological crises of our own time. Together we will explore how the Talmud balances private property with the public good, why the Torah cared about cutting down fruit trees, what the Shmittah (sabbatical) year teaches about economic sustainability, and whether a hundred-year-old man planting a fig tree might actually be one of Judaism's wisest environmental philosophers. Come prepared to read, argue, question assumptions, and be surprised.