Repairing the Order of Creation: A Jewish Perspective on Environmental Ethics

Abstract

which most of the world’s religions developed. Jewish environmental ethics is a very new area of Jewish ethics and tradition. In the last 10 years, however, there has been a growing body of Jewish scholarship and theology on the environment, but the translation of much of this material into practice is still in the future. Environmentalism is a radical critique of the relationship between humanity and the natural world. Environmentalism challenges all ideologies derived from the Western humanist tradition, which asserts the centrality of human power and reason. This tradition developed with the rise of Western capitalism, the scientific revolution in the 16th and 17th centuries, and the growth of industrial revolution in the 19th century. This tradition is anthropocentric (human centered) and denies the Biblical doctrine of the divine creation of the natural world. Instead, the natural world is solely an object for human exploitation. This objectification of the natural world also nullifies the Biblical concept that human beings are created in the image of God. While the Biblical worldview sees God, humanity, and the natural world linked together in a sacred order, the Western humanist view denies that this order exists.