To Till and to Tend

            What does Teshuvah, the power to change our lives for the better that we attempt to actualize at this, the highest moment in the Jewish year, have to do with reducing one’s car    bon footprint? Isn’t connecting the two just a way of hitching a ride for one’s pet cause on the Jewish calendar?

             I raised this question in a blog two weeks ago introducing Jewish Climate Initiative’s Carbon Offsetting Guide, and want to continue pursuing it here.

            The place where the world is most stuck in combating climate change is at the point of connection between big and small, global and local, individual and government.  The most common reason for individual inaction is “it’s pointless for me to change my lifestyle/lightbulbs; I’m just an infinitesimally small part of this. It will take government, laws, and loads of money to deal with this.”

True it will, but the “big problem” is made up of billions of everyday decisions about how we choose to eat, shop, to heat our homes, and move around. Consumer spending represents 70% of the American economy. Somehow we have, as a civilization, contrived to so mismanage these primal areas of human life that the viable continuation of our civilization is in question.

            The stuckness comes from both directions. Governments are our agents, not our alibis. They won’t make far-reaching policy changes that will require us to alter our lifestyles until they see that we are ready to change and are not going to throw them out of power for requiring us to do so.

As I wrote then,

“We intuitively understand the solid-bodies physics of how an SUV, if driven without care, can flatten pedestrians. Knowing this, we are generally careful to make sure not to do so. The atmospheric physics of how careless driving of a different kind can contribute to flattening somebody’s mud hut in the Maldives is beyond most of our scientific ken and so outside our frames of conceptual and moral reference. After all, very few people would knowingly and deliberately drive their SUV into a mud hut. And if we did so by accident, most of us would certainly say sorry, and offer to pay.

“In Judaism, individual responsibility is the fundamental unit of social change. Teshuvah starts with me and you, (as my friend Jess Gold in England points out.)  ‘Great is Teshuvah, because through a single person repenting, the whole world may be forgiven,’ says the Talmud (Yoma 86b). This is the redemptive flip side of interconnectedness; the deep, sincere transformation of one person can change the world.”

I really think that’s true. But how can you put it across in a way that moves people to act? Let me introduce an idea that, I believe, will help.

              Rabbi Israel Salanter, the great nineteenth century founder of the mussar movement coined a famous saying: “My neighbor’s physical needs are my spiritual needs.” When I feed, clothe or shelter my neighbor, I am also fulfilling my deepest spiritual imperatives.

           Let’s be clear: Rabbi Salanter was not saying that, actually, it’s all about my spiritual needs. He didn’t believe that my neighbor is merely an incidental bit-part player in the great drama of me. Rather, he was pointing out that the world is so set up as to inextricably connect reaching out to sustain his material life with my spiritual growth.

            Today I believe it is no less accurate to say: “the planet’s ecological needs are my spiritual needs.”  When I engage with “ecological” issues, I fulfill some of the most basic and profound spiritual needs that Judaism identifies. This is true in manifold ways. I want to point out just one that has to do with Teshuvah the perennial power to fix and uplift  our lives  – surely one of the deepest spiritual needs that we have.

            An absolute prerequisite for Teshuvah is taking responsibility for harm we have caused. Maimonides says it unequivocally in chapter 1 of the Laws of Teshuvah: there’s no forgiveness for sins against others until you ask forgiveness from those you have hurt and make good damage you have done.

             There is no real Teshuvah for damage we do to people or their property until we identify and acknowledge the harm, and then do whatever we can to repair it.

            Back in the days when that meant redressing the damage of my ox goring my neighbor’s sheep; it was easy enough. I would say sorry to my neighbor, buy him another sheep and tie up my ox tighter in the future.

            But today the harm we can do every day is far more complicated and – scary. The vehicle I drive may be implicated in storms in Bangladesh or droughts in Mali; the food I put in my supermarket cart might have been produced with pesticides that poison water supplies and wreck eco-systems, before being trucked thousands of miles across the country to reach me. The manufacturing decisions made in the name of my everyday choices may, with or without my knowledge, cause havoc to the environment and to the lives of people far away.

            Striving to fix these things is not “environmentalism” or even “environmental teshuvah.” It is simply teshuvah. It is about redressing hurt and damage that we have caused in our daily lives just as if we had failed to repay a loan or smashed someone’s vase, or broken their leg in a car crash that was our fault. Whether or not we did these things knowingly and deliberately, once we do know about them; teshuvah means taking responsibility for putting them right.

            Today, the planet’s ecological needs coincide with each of our basic spiritual need for teshuvah; becoming aware of and repairing damage that we have done, and resolving to act more reverently and lovingly towards our surroundings from now on. And so we will each become part of the planetary fixing. As the Talmud says:

             “Great is Teshuvah because it brings healing to the world…

            “Great is Teshuvah because it brings closer redemption…

            “Great is Teshuvah because through an individual who does Teshuvah, the whole world may be forgiven.”

            Talmud Yoma, 86a-b.

I just returned from an extraordinary visit to Central America.  I will long remember the region’s natural beauty, its cobblestone streets, and friendly inhabitants.  But I will also remember something that is much less idyllic – the litter.  In particular, I will remember three very striking moments on my trip.

The first occurred aboard a “chicken bus” in El Salvador.  I recoiled as a young woman threw an empty bag out the open window.  I watched as the toddler on her lap placed a near empty juice bottle to her lips.  She ran her tiny finger along the rim, trying to gather the last drops of her drink.  I waited in anticipation for two hours to see whether the child would toss the bottle out the window as her mother had done.  For two hours she clung to the bottle, periodically shaking it about to see if she could make more juice appear.  As we approached our destination, the girl’s mother grabbed the bottle – and tossed it into the street.  I thought briefly of the words of the Senegalese philosopher Baba Dioum: “In the end, we will save only what we love, we will love only what we understand, we will understand only what we are taught.”  And I longed for an opportunity to teach this young child about the beauty of her country.

Days later, I would remember this child as I walked alongside Candido Melgar, a humble and kind Honduran.  We hired him as a guide one afternoon to explore Celaque National Park.  Candido was the perfect guide: knowledgeable, patient – and $20 for the day.  Moments after we entered the park, Candido pulled a plastic bag from his pocket.  For hours, he walked along, highlighting the flora and fauna – and bending to pick up discarded water bottles and candy wrappers.  Seven hours later when we descended the mountain, three bags of trash were tied precariously to his small pack.  “I’ve noticed Americans do not litter,” Candido remarked.  “I wish we could teach Hondurans to do the same.”  Candido bemoaned the environmental ethic of his countrymen – and thought wistfully of a national park that could somehow be protected from the people it was meant to serve. 

The third memory was perhaps the most disheartening. My husband and I were hiking along the beach in Livingston, Guatemala. Ultimately, we would arrive at a series of cascading pools – the “Siete Altares.”  The destination was spectacular.  But the journey was startling: The beach was completely covered in litter.  I thought briefly of Candido and his commitment to cleaning the national park in his backyard.  Yet, the scattered debris in Parque Celaque was no match for the Guatemalan shoreline, which was covered with abandoned fishing nets, bottles, and toiletries.  I thought briefly of collecting some of the debris – but quickly realized it was no use.  In fact, occasional clusters of trashbags were decomposing in several spots along the shore – evidence of well-intentioned visitors before me who lacked either the energy or resources to see their efforts to completion.

So, where does that leave me?  Two weeks in Central America.  Three countries and three stories that will long linger in my memories.  In truth, litter is the least of the problems our world faces.  Certainly, a plastic bottle along the shoreline is less concerning than rising temperatures that will cause our oceans to destroy adjacent cities.  Yet, I don’t think we can tackle these bigger problems unless we address the litter. 

Any student of sociology has learned of the broken windows theory  — broken windows left unrepaired lead to more vandalism and crime; uncorrected, graffiti begets graffiti.  And unadressed, litter begets litter.  Conversely, if we clean our beloved places, we teach our children the importance of caring for the world around them.  If the shoreline is clean, perhaps people will demand laws to protect the fish and water that live there. 

So, by my new theory, Woodsy the Owl is a “gateway” public service announcement.  As Candido acknowledged, Americans have taken tremendous strides to address litter.  Is this a meaningless victory – or is the first step to addressing larger problems? And if I’m right, what can we do to teach those in developing countries to “give a hoot”?

    I don’t knowabout you, but when I hear the word “Arctic”,the images widely circulating in the media (i.e. melting glacial ice caps and “cuddly” [now classified as threatened] polarbears desperately searching for stable ice floes), flash through my mind. However, after reading SilentSnow: The Slow Poisoning of the Arctic by Marla Cone (2005), I nowthink to also address the humansliving in the arctic region and how they are affected by their changing environment.

    TheInuit, who inhabit various parts of the Arctic including Greenland,Canada, and Siberia, are apeople whose culture and way of life are and have been shaped by the Arctic’s habitat for thousands of years. Especially unique to them is their diet ofgame – such as seal meat and whale blubber – rich in protein and fat, which enablethe Inuit to survive the harsh conditions of their environment and preventcertain diseases of malnutrition like scurvy. If you don’t believe me, take agood look at the history of American and European polar exploration, for it willtell you of travelers from “modernized” nations who had to adopt such a diet ifthey wanted even a chance at survival in the arctic regions. Yet, these sources of food, which have alwayssustained the Inuit, today, are becoming widely seen as detrimental to theirhealth.

        Cone’sbook, reminiscent of Rachel Carson’s groundbreaking SilentSpring (1962), goes beyond popular media, uncovering the presence ofthe world’s chemical residue in the region’s waters, ice, and complex foodchain. Even after global initiatives toreduce production of DDT,PCBs, and mercury, they haven’tdisappeared. Not only do they remain in the world at large, they disproportionatelysettle in the Arctic. Through evaporation and condensation, they arecarried north by the Earth’s water and air systems. Unfortunately, the story ofthese chemicals’ travels does not end there. Through bio-accumulationand bio-magnificationof these toxins from the environment, they build up in succession of arcticspecies along the food chain, so that the Inuit (the highest on the chain)today exceed the concentration of PCB’s, mercury, and other chemicalsconsidered safe under international health guidelines. Consequences are slowlybeing seen as many Inuit children suffer from high rates of infectious diseaseslike ear infections (leading to hearing loss) and complications with braindevelopment.

In2002, the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP) stated that the contamination raises”fundamental questions of cultural survival, for it threatens to drive awedge of fear between people and the land that sustains them.” While manyof us today in other settings can and do change our diet because of health concerns,the Inuit cannot. A few weeks ago, with the salmonellaoutbreak in tomatoes, did we not have the option of buying different typesof tomatoes or of simply abstaining from them altogether? The point is, we didnot have to radically change our eating habits and if we were to, would nothave to uproot our lives to do so.

We now need to be reminded ofwhat it means to be so dependent on our environment and the atrocity whenrealizing that formerly symbiotic relationship may need to be reconsidered. Yetagain, maybe, as Jews who draw an identity from the Land of Israeland reject the notion of completely abandoning it for security, we are moreunderstanding than we think. What weneed to do then is to connect our personal experiences to our neighbors’ upnorth and support the Inuit in maintaining their livelihoods. We can start by carefullydisposing our waste, continuing the fight for cleaner energy, and as always,educate ourselves with the latest news.

Although many of us are alreadyin the midst of our summers and are both mentally and physically removed fromthe ice, we should note that we are still in an InternationalPolar Year, ending in March 2009. Incommemoration of this year, Silent Snow has been made into a feature-length documentary(watch the trailer!) to be shown at the end of the IPY.

As you can see, information regardingtoxins and the Inuit has been around for some time. Just because we can’t see it, because itisn’t melting away or isn’t a cute, furry creature, doesn’t mean it isn’tthere. Let us take off the Arctic “goggles” we’ve allowed the media to let uswear, in order to see the bigger picture at hand.

For more, read a interesting interviewwith Jim Clark, former Alaskan King crab fisherman and lover of Inuit art andculture.