Sharing information at the Going Green Environmental Fair are USY members, from left, Steven Klee, Morgan Dorsch, Halli James, and Sara Tepper.
Photos by Elaine Durbach
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April 2, 2009
Stewardship of our planet isn’t some trendy, modern notion; our parents were already onto a good thing when they nagged us to “waste not, want not.” But — according to the speakers at the Going Green Environmental Fair in Clark on March 29 — Jewish sages were teaching the importance of “green” principles long before that.
The fair was a cooperative venture sponsored by the men’s clubs and United Synagogue Youth chapters of the host congregation, Temple Beth O’r/Beth Torah, and of Congregation Beth Israel of Scotch Plains.
The turnout was lower than hoped, but a steady stream of people explored the displays and attended the talks and demonstrations from a spectrum of local environmental groups — from the Purple Dragon cooperative organic food growers to big stores like ShopRite and Barnes and Noble — and from religious groups like GreenFaith and the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life and organizations overseeing water and nature conservation in New Jersey and in Israel.
For those interested in saving fuel, there was a truck on display that runs on electricity — it will go around 450 miles for the cost of about $25. Or you can take a reusable bag to the supermarket; according to the folks from ShopRite, the petroleum needed to make just 14 plastic shopping bags can fuel a car for a mile — and 380 billion of those bags are used each year in the United States.
Rabbi Akiba Lubow of Temple Beth-El Mekor Chayim, the Conservative congregation in Cranford with which the Clark temple shares a morning minyan, was a guest at the event. He set the tone by discussing bal tashchit, the talmudic prohibition against wasting or destruction.
Lubow said he has been teaching this concept since the mid 1990s. In the early years, the subject didn’t get much response. “These days, maybe people listen a bit more,” he said. “This is the most important issue we face today — for our faith community and for all faith communities. We are running out of time.”
Mission of a leaf
Cantor Steven Stern, Beth O’r/Beth Torah’s religious leader, picked up that theme in his keynote address. He said that destroying even one leaf of a tree is wrong. “I remember such lessons in my own early education in a small Jewish school in Brooklyn. Do not waste resources — whether food, paper, or electricity.
Community members, from left, Claire Warech, Myrna Young, Arthur Gesten, and Audrey Silverman discuss green products with ShopRite’s shoppers advocate Jame Pekarofski and Clark store director Seth Wertz.
“And there was something else we were taught not to waste: Do not waste time — because time is a resource as well, a resource that could be used for Torah study,” said Stern. “And if we respected the Torah that God gave us, we would learn to respect the natural environment as well, for we are the custodians charged with its care.”
He continued, “The rabbinic tradition is suffused with the awareness of our role as custodians of the divine creation and all living things.” That can take a sacrifice of time and energy — not just for our own good, but for the good of what we cherish,” he said.
“Creatures have a purpose and value that transcends the mere serving of our needs,” he said. “Maimonides taught us: ‘It should not be believed that all living beings in the world exist for the sake of the existence of humanity. On the contrary, all the other living beings have been intended for their own sakes and not for the sake of something else.’”
And so, said Stern, “the endangered species, the rain forests — true, they are important for our sake — but even if they were not, they are deserving of our respect and protection.”
The reward of such care is more than our ongoing survival, he said; there is also the wonder available to those who open their eyes to it.
Stern concluded with a challenge: “Let us think broadly and let us think Jewishly. Yes, we must change to more efficient lighting; and a solar ner tamid is a wonderfully appropriate symbol of our commitment to the cause; recycling efforts are vital. But let us inculcate in our children such respect for all that exists that they too will know to conserve, protect, and respect even a single little leaf on a single tree, so that that leaf may fulfill whatever mission it was that God has assigned to it.”
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