Our Shared Environmental Future (Yaira Robinson, MATS)
For our Envisioning Transformation collection we asked Yaira, editor of Shmita Now (2021), “How do you envision transformation for our shared environmental future from your Faith perspective?” Here is her response.
Prior to the destruction of the Temple and most of Jerusalem in 70CE, Jewish peoplehood and identity was inextricably tied to one holy building in one holy city. But then quite suddenly, it was all gone. Having lost its center, Judaism could easily have withered away. Instead, it transformed! Ritual offerings to God in the Temple turned into the Friday night Shabbat meal, shared by family and friends in a new home-centered practice that people could take with them wherever they were. Rather than being defined by one central holy building in one particular place, Jewish communities created new places wherever they lived to gather, learn, and pray. By transforming, Judaism didn’t just survive—it creatively flourished.
In our shared environmental future, we will lose ways of being, familiar pathways, places, and ecosystems we love. Many of us will be forced to leave our homes. What should we take with us, and what should we leave behind? How will we welcome the climate migrants that have been forced to move? I don’t have all the answers, but I do know it is possible to grieve and still grow. Nearly 2000 years ago, a group of people suffered a great loss, but held onto and reimagined the things that were most important: connection to God and each other. Those are still the things that matter most. We have transformed ourselves before. To create new pathways of survival and flourishing—to build a new, beautiful, and durable community of diverse peoples in our new reality—we must reimagine and transform ourselves as a whole human family anew now.
If our shared environmental future is to be a hopeful and enduring one for our species, we must also come to understand and appreciate our place in the larger family of earth-life. Our traditions can guide us here, too. The Hebrew Bible tells us that we humans are made from dust of the earth, and that our life began in a garden. In fact, we were part of the garden—connected to it as part of Creation and responsible for its care. Jewish tradition remembers that after the first person was created, God led them around the Garden of Eden and said: "Look at My works! How beautiful and praiseworthy they are. Everything that I have created, I created for you. Take care not to damage and destroy My world, for if you destroy it, there is no one to repair it after you."[1] God’s concern here, as ever, is for the whole of God’s creation, for all life. As we reimagine and transform ourselves as a whole human family, we must also remember our place as part of this beautiful world, and the sacred guardianship role with which we have been entrusted.
[1] (Midrash Kohelet Rabbah 7:13)
Yaira Robinson believes economic and racial justice are part of creating true environmental sustainability. She has been a religious educator and a leader in interfaith advocacy and community organizing. She holds a Master of Theological Studies from Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary and completed one year of rabbinical study with the ALEPH Rabbinic Ordination program. See her excellent works on AllCreation here.
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