blogs/rabbi-noah-farkas

This fall we celebrate the 50^th anniversary of Rachel Carson's “Silent Spring,” the book that launched the modern environmentalist movement. Carson's genius was in her ability to arrange opaque facts and smith compelling prose in order to make her case. She describes her habit of walking into the woods and listening the chorus of nature, and when on a particular morning, she noticed its absence:

“On the mornings that had once throbbed with the dawn choirs of robins, doves, jays, wrens and scores of other bird voices there was no sound; only silence lay over the fields and woods and marsh.” (Silent Spring)  

To Carson, the silence of nature itself was a wake-up call. “Where had all the birds gone? Why did they leave?” She set off to explore the causes of nature's demise finding that human progress �" modernization, mechanization, and civilization �" have made us conquers over nature.   She found a particular villain in the chemical pesticide DDT.   She was aghast that an innovation to help grow supposedly safer food led to the all out destruction of the environment.   Her passionate testimony before Congress helped to convince President Nixon to form the EPA just a few years later.

One only needs to look out the window to see the world the way Rachel did a half-century ago. We mastered the skies with airplanes, we jumped from space, we tamed the seas with mighty ships, we spread across the land plowing it for crops, and we constructed buildings and vast networks of concrete and fiber optics. In fact, it hardly seems like there is a single tract of arable land left in America that has not seen the spade. Just look outside the window the next time you fly across the country to see the checkerboard pattern of greens and browns signifying the various cycles of industrial agriculture. The view from 30,000 feet is clear. As Jean Baudrillard wrote, the word “wilderness” carries no meaning anymore because it describes no place on earth. When I can see any place on earth at any time through my computer, there is no more mystery. We have indeed filled the earth and mastered it.

The silent protest found in nature by Carson was not a cry of defeat, but a calling of partnership. Not to be masters of the land, but its stewards. The root of this calling is found this week's Torah portion, Bereshit. When God created the world, according to the Torah, the world was disordered chaos. Then God said “let there be light” and there was and God said it was good. God said “separate the waters and form dry land” and there was a separation and God pronounced this to be good. The same went for the fish and birds �" God said, “fill the seas and the skies,” and as they did, God pronounced this to be, tov, or good. The sun, the moon, and the stars, as their light burst forth God said, you know this one, �" Good. Grass and trees �" Good. All the Animals �" Good.

Ever wonder what God is teaching by saying that each day is “good?” Especially when God, the all knowing and all powerful Creator in this story, already knows how good the earth already is? Here is the majestic subtlety of the Torah: Beyond being good for doing something for someone else, the world has an intrinsic goodness. Each stone, each drop of water, each leaf, and each living breathing-creature is itself inherently tov - good, capturing, as the mystics believe a small piece of the divine within.

The Psalmist crystallizes this truth when he exclaims, “Praise God, sun and moon/​ Praise God, all the stars of light…Praise the LORD from the earth…all mountains and hills, fruit trees and cedars, all wild and tamed beasts, all creeping things and winged birds, all kings, princes, judges and peoples of earth, all maidens and young men, old and young alike. (Psalm 148 3-4, 7-12). There is a symphony in the universe, the Psalmist states, that allows for every heart song to connect to the Divine through the polyrhythm of vibrating electrons, colliding atoms, rushing of leaves, crashing of oceans, and- most importantly-the beating of trillions of hearts, each affirming its own sacred existence.

The Torah does call for human exceptionalism �" God did not intend for the earth to be a level playing field. Unlike the other six days, in which God merely said tov, or just good. On the day when the Holy One inflated the lungs of humanity and caused its heart to beat, God called this act of creation tov ma'od, exceedingly good. Unlike the animals, plants, fish and birds, we are invested with the capacity to reach higher, stretch farther, and exceed the limitations of our natural instincts. It is our ma'od that makes us unique.

From the initial sounding of ma'od in Genesis, the echo is heard in Deuteronomy. "V'ahavta et Adonai Elohecha b'chol levavcha b'chol nafshecha u'vchol ma'odecha” (Deut. 6:5) “You will love the LORD your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your ma'od.” Our might, our ma'od, is our capacity to transcend our creaturely selves, for making moral choices, and for reflecting the image of God (M. San. 4:2). Ma'od is our innate, God-given capacity to transcend our creatureliness �" to look at the environment and see its existence as a value that is not for our benefit, but for itself Ma'od �" we have the opportunity to change, to make teshuvah, by recognizing our partnership with God in the project of Being itself. Ma'od �" we celebrate God's creation casting our relationship to the environment as a spiritual and moral issue.

Our Torah says that God planted (vayita) a garden in Eden and put humanity in the garden “l'ovda u'lshomra, in order to plant it and to protect it.” (Gen. 2:15) We have divine permission to build homes, to cultivate crops, and earn livings. But we must balance our personal gain with our personal responsibility. We must use our ma'od to become stewards of the garden as much as we are masters of it, for our choices matter.

Two years ago, I founded Netiya with some of these ideas in mind. Since then we have planted organic gardens, taught parents to make better food choices for their families, and are working with our 30 institutional partners to help create a restorative food system that protects our health and our environment.  Our hope is to become stewards of our little melting jewel of a planet and respond to silent call of nature that Rachel Carson heard fifty years ago.