By Julie Schonfeld
Note: Julie originally gave these remarks on February 6 at the Jewish Energy Covenant Campaign signing.
The Torah describes a quieter world, a world quiet enough to hear God’s holy intentions for us. The stories we read take place amidst the struggles for survival of an agrarian community, a basic subsistence society. The principles of our Torah, the striving after justice and kindness that we understand to be the foundations of our Tradition emerge from a world in which people’s interdependence was present and immediate. In Parshat Mishpatim we will read:
ושש שנים תזרע את ארצך ואספת את תבואתה: והשביעת תשמטנה ונטשתה ואכלו אביני עמך ויתרם תאכל חית השדה כן תעשה לכרמך לזיתך:
“Six years you shall sow your land and gather in its yield; but in the seventh you shall let it rest and lie fallow. Let the needy among your people eat of it, and what they leave, let the wild beasts eat. You shall do the same with your vineyards and your olive groves.” (Exodus 23:10-11)
The notion that all people and things would require a Sabbath was not a theoretical construct, but a reality born of experience. Decent and just treatment of workers, kindness towards animals, and stewardship of the land were necessary disciplines to survival. If we did not treat laborers with care, they would cease to work productively and to be in a positive relationship to the community, if we failed to treat animals with kindness, they would suffer and fail physically, if we neglected our stewardship of the land, it wouldcease to give forth sustenance. The Torah’s sacred precepts were not a quid pro quo, they were the building blocks of a sustainable community.
Today, in our global society, the wisdom of Torah and the necessity of maintaining these sacred practices are only more urgent. It is harder to comprehend effects of unsound agricultural practices when our food, grown and cultivated by people we never see, is flown in from thousands of miles away. The collective carbon footprint of these transactions creates energy insecurity for developed nations that makes all of us, and especially Israel, more vulnerable.
The COEJL energy covenant campaign calls upon all of us within the Jewish community to act responsibly and to remember that we remain one world community, with one sacred agenda for a peaceful and sustainable world. What was true thousands of years ago in the quiet world of the Torah is more true than ever before.