The Genesis of Ecological Ethics
Examining the Origins of Jewish Law, and the Modern Efforts to Bridge Jewish Ethics and Ecological Thought
EcoKashrut — the fusion of Jewish law and ecological ethics — emerges from an ancient tension: How can commandments meant for a tribal past guide us in a planetary present? From Genesis’ call to ‘till and tend’ the Earth to the radical land-based laws of the Torah, the Jewish legal tradition has continuously recognized the foundational role of respecting natural laws to maintain human and ecological health. Yet today, as science redefines natural law while also revealing the perilous ecology of modern society, we face a pressing question: what good are universal natural laws if it cannot guide us into right relations with the more-than-human world. This article traces the journey of ecological Kashrut uncovering — from its roots in the commandments of the Torah to its radical reinvention in the Reconstructionists’ vision of ‘ethical kosher’ — how Jewish law has always sought human flourishing with the world. With an ecological lens, we’ll sift through Torah’s commandments, separating timeless wisdom from outdated context, and bring modern science into dialogue with ancient stories. Together, we’ll explore how ecoKashrut redefines what it means to eat, farm, and live well in an age of ecological crises. As the third installment in my series on Jewish ecological ethics, this article steps into the legalistic web of Halakhah to ask: Does tradition contain the insights needed for a just world, or must we radically reconstruct our ethics?
Our story begins with the creation of the world, when humans first emerge into a rich ecosystem. Placed in the Garden of Eden, man was tasked with naming all the kinds of life. Yet, lacking in knowledge of good and evil, how could they ever have learned to live in good relation with each other? In Genesis 2:15, following the creation of the first humans, it is said that G-d commanded us to take care of Creation and to cultivate its bounty — often translated: “to till and to tend”. In the first moment of humankind’s creation, already there is a sacred responsibility we are obligated to fulfill. With G-d’s words, we receive both a divine duty and an ethical demand, and yet these words — “ till” and “tend” — are ripe with ambiguity. What does it mean to tend to Creation? What does it mean to till the Earth?
In tending to nature, we participate in the living community, but only to the extent needed to support nature’s bountiful harmony. Tilling the soil disrupts this harmony, acting as a force of destruction. Plows tear up the plant roots and fungal fibers which bind the soil, damaging soil structure and function. And yet, in plowing we see a creative form of destruction: it is bound to the sowing of seeds, the preparing of the fields, and the labor needed for bringing new growth to tired soils. Bringing ecology and ethics into dialogue with scripture opens up new opportunities to refine the intentions of our commandments. The tensions and controversies that arise out of this dialogue act as fruitful terrain upon which an ethical system that is at once religious and also ecological can come to fruition.
Earlier in Genesis 1:28, we are given a very different vision for man’s duty in creation. To the first people, G-d says, “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over it all.” The contradictions between these two parallel stories of our creation – the first telling us to subdue Creation, the second telling us to tend to It – cuts deep into the ambiguous stance of scripture on ecological ethics. Are we to see ourselves as rulers of Creation or as G-d’s partners in Creation? This fundamentally ecological question remains contested throughout all our stories. And yet, within these stories, an ethical vision of living together and striving for justice shines through.
Finding peace within this ambiguity depends on refining our understanding of “dominion”. To have dominion over Creation is not right we are simply given by G-d. Rather, our belonging to nature (and it’s belonging to us) is something we must prove ourselves worthy of. We may be of this Earth, but to call it our rightful home, we must understand our responsibility to maintain the health and wellbeing of our cohabitants. Just as Moses was denied entry into the Holy Land for the sin of kicking a rock when G-d told him to ask it nicely for water, we have a responsibility to cultivate loving-kindness, justice, and holiness — without which we have no right to the “dominion” of Creation. Entering into the Holy Land and living in its plenty – finding all that we need in nature’s rich bounty – is to be earned through living well alongside all of Creation: with each living act being full of loving-kindness towards our community and everything within it– even a rock!
Kashrut — the body of dietary laws found in the Torah and debated in the Talmud — grows out of this same tension between dominion and stewardship. Rather than assuming dominion as a natural right, Kashrut emerged through the Jewish legalistic tradition’s struggle to find the ethical balance necessary to preserve our right to the Holy Land. These laws are structured to help us strive to build and maintain a pure and loving connection to the living world. By making concrete demands on how we relate to each other, to the land, and to the nested cycles of nature, Kashrut is structured to root us in an ethically (and ritually) pure relationship with nature as a whole community.
Touching every part of the food system within which Judaism evolved, these laws guide us to approach all our relations ethically: how to relate to land, to other organisms, to seasonal harvests, to the slaughter of animals, to eating and giving thanks to everything for making us partners in the creation of our meals. It shapes how we relate to Creation across days, weeks, months, years, and decades. Kashrut strives to define the ethical pillars indigenous to Jewish social ecology and culture. As we struggle week in and week out with the minutiae of our commandments, Judaism invites a constant reflection on how we ought to live as part of the wider ecosystem.
EcoKashrut in the Torah
The majority of Jewish ritual laws regarding Kashrut stem from the third and fourth books of the Torah: Leviticus and Numbers. Within these books, we find both stories following the exodus — as the Israelites were wandering in the Sinai desert following their liberation from slavery — and arcane descriptions of how we ought to perform the traditional ritual rhythms of our daily meals, the seasonal harvests, our annual holidays, and the many-year cycles necessary to maintaining healthy soil and right relations in community. Within these books, we find a key framework which lingers in modern approaches to Kashrut today: the division between Tahor, meaning purity, and Tameh, meaning impurity, as well as that between Kodesh and Chol — the holy and the everyday. These categories are by no means unique to Judaism, yet, they cut deep into what it means for something to be Kosher. The laws of Kashrut aim to provide a way for us to create a ritually pure and holy life.
How shall we live the one life we have in a manner that fulfills our mission to be a blessing to all families of the earth? (Genesis 12:3).
– Rabbi Rami Shapiro, Judaism Without Tribalism, 2022
The struggle today lies within the contradictions that emerge when we take the Torah’s mitzvot, commandments, as themselves intrinsically good deeds. When tension arises between religious faithfulness to the Text, and ethical demands of our relations to Creation, ethics must always stand unwavering. It is on us then to interpret (perhaps even, reconstruct) our commandments, ensuring our religious duties meet the ethical standards necessary to live well together.
When searching for ecological knowledge within the Halakhic laws we collectively call Kashrut — the prescriptions and prohibitions regarding how life ought to be treated when transforming organisms into our food — I am first drawn to the ritual traditions that continue to guide how many Jews prepare food. To maintain ritual purity, there is a proper, kosher way of doing everything: From how one harvests a field to how one slaughters an animal, from how one prepares a meal to how one gives gratitude — at each step in the kosher food system, ritual norms establish the right way to relate to land, food, and G-d, ensuring that we both maintain ritual purity and ground ourselves in our sacred connection to Creation.
If we look closer at some of these laws, we can see a general trend towards forging a loving relationship between our community and the living cosmos. In the laws regarding proper slaughter of animals, deep intention is given to minimizing the animal’s pain. Before and throughout the butchering, the health of the animal is inspected, as cleanliness is essential in ensuring the continued wellbeing of those who will be eating the animal’s meat.
Taking a life is never a small thing, and in the preparation of meals from an animals meat, prayers of gratitude and respect for the lives involved abound. Butchers often say prayers to pay respect to the animal and to G-d who permits and guides the proper method of killing the animal. Butcher shops and kitchens are designed to help maintain this ritual purity throughout the meal-making process, and before we eat, a prayer of gratitude is said again to reaffirm our thankfulness for all the lives that helped bring this meal to our plate. Depending on the foods involved in the meal, one of many prayers is recited here. Generally however, should bread be involved, a short prayer is said:
Throughout the process of food preparation, we are reminded of our place in nature. Regardless of where our food came from, we give gratitude for the fact that we are all “brought forth from the Earth”.
This sentiment is echoed again after the meal in the Birkat Hamazon prayer, the blessing said after the meal. This extensive prayer gives gratitude for our whole history, from creation and revelation to the ever present possibility of redemption. We give gratitude for the land and water, for our sustenance, and for our ongoing covenant with G-d and Creation. Gratitude remains at the heart of Jewish meal practices, and must remain in the center of any Jewish ethical traditions relating to food.
In Jewish mystical stories of Creation, it is not through G-d alone that Creation comes to completion: humans play a sacred role in finishing the divine work of Creation, and only in restful communion is it made perfect. In comprehending this duty — weaving revelation through science, compassion with stewardship every day as we strive to bring about our World’s redemption — we reach the culmination of our ethical and religious responsibility. Gratitude is always linked to this sacred duty. We are partners with G-d in creation, and while we ought to cultivate a worldview abundant in gratitude, this gratitude cannot remain passive. Just as we participate in the creation of our meals and still give thanks for all the daily miracles that brought about our sustenance, we are responsible for cultivating our partnership with G-d: in our bodies, in our households, in communities and throughout our planet.
A beautiful depiction of the Tree of Life according to Pirkei Avot 1:2, in which we learn that the world is build on three things: Torah (teachings), Avodah (work), and Gimilut Chasadim (acts of loving kindness). Paper cutting by the Jewish artist Lizzie Sivitz, available from the Jewish art collective Nireh Or, which explores Jewish teachings through art.
EcoKashrut Today
What distinguishes ecoKashrut from traditional approaches to Kashrut is the intentional reflection on ecological ethics — rooted in a scientific approach to our environment — that engages in a constant dialogue to balance human needs with the needs of our wider community. As scientific ecology began to see its time in the sun, and as the environmental movement began to see victories in both the hearts and minds of people, as well as the halls of governments, reconstructionist approach to Halakhah was ripe for ecological integration. For reconstructionist Jews, Jewish law is not binding, but rather serves as a vital front of dialogue, from which interpretation can guide us to find truths relevant to contemporary contexts. As Rabbi Mordechai Kaplan, founder of the reconstructionist movement clearly states: [Our method is] to interpret and develop the body of Jewish Law by the actual conditions and spiritual needs of modern life. (Kaplan 1948, The Future of the American Jew). If, as I strongly believe, modern spirituality depends on deepening and expanding our relation to the living, breathing, interconnected cosmos — in recognizing and affirming our active, life-supporting role within the ever-unfolding web we call G-d (or nature) — then ecoKashrut is a natural step in reconstruction Judaism. Indeed the phrase “EcoKashrut” was first coined in the 1970s, after the first Earth Day as the radical optimism of the 1960s waned as people wanted concrete life-style changed they could make to live a more ethical life.
Dr Braun- Glazer clearly articulated the evolution of this term in her article “‘EcoKashrut’: A Kashrut for Our Times”:
Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi is credited with coining the term “ecoKashrut[CMS3] ” in the 1970s, thus beginning a conversation about broadening kashrut to include ecological and ethical concerns. In 2011, Conservative Rabbi Morris Allen introduced the idea of Magen Tzedek or Hekhsher Tzedek certification as an ethical complement to conventional kosher certification, partially in reaction to the scandal at the Postville plant. Nathan Schumer followed with a piece in The Forward(https://forward.com/food/144962/can-food-justice-be-as-simple-as-a-label/), but there has been uniform opposition from the Orthodox community and thus far, despite independent financial support, the effort has been unsuccessful.
One major issue standing between the thorough integration of ecological ethics with Jewish Law is the precarious role that scripture plays in expressing G-d’s commands of us. Whereas Orthodox Jews see scripture at the unadulterated word of G-d, other Jews understand the historical context of this text, with some going as far as to emphasize the metaphorical and symbolic content over its literal words.
I want to find a balance. While some of the commandments in the Torah are clearly archaic and written for a time and social context entirely foreign to modern Judaism, others carry a deep ecological wisdom worth modern consideration and expression.
The observance of Shabbat is one such commandment that has deep value for modern life — even going as far as to having shaped the structure of the modern work week. The seventh day of every week is to be a period of rest. With the completion of life’s cycles, there must always be time to step back, reflect, and rejuvenate.
The Earth too must be given time to rejuvenate. Every seven years, Jews are commanded to let the Earth rest, not planting any seeds and only eating the sustenance naturally given and harvested from the environment. This is called the Shmita cycle, which stood prominently in the ancient Jewish agricultural system, but is only rarely practiced today. Every seven Shmita cycles — that is, in the fiftieth year after every 49 years — the Torah commands the ancient Israelites to forgive all debts, to let go over all slaves, all servants, to redistribute property ownership such that everyone has what they need to thrive. Through the Jubilee — as this event is formally known — ancient Judaism stood as a remarkable social system through which society was kept equal, just, and free.
The scholars of the Talmud and the Roman historian Josephus estimate that 17 Jubilees separated the striven of the Israelites in the Holy Land and exile, though others doubt whether this commandment was ever observed at the scale of a whole society — with evidence for this based on the lack of written or physical evidence of its practice. In modern Israel, the Jubilee cycle is not observed, as Orthodox Jews relegate its relevance to the age of tribes, not the age of private property and the state.
That being said, both Shmita and Jubilee remain relevant for the social and environmental welfare of people and the land. Simply implementing this system would mark a huge step for integrating ecological knowledge, environmental justice, and Jewish law.
Another commandment with clear relevance to reconstructing Kashrut along ethical and ecological lines comes from Deuteronomy 20:19-20. Rooted in a story of conquest and war, we are commanded to prevent needless waste and the destruction of natural life resources. The ethical ambiguities of this commandment are palpable. As the Israelites wage a campaign of conquest against the Canaanites, G-d commands the warriors not to destroy the cities’ fruit trees or fields. Without saying anything about the injustice of conquest or war, this prohibition against waste demands ethical reflection. War inherently produces waste — wasted labor, lost life, and ruined homes, lands, and waters — and our prohibitions against the destruction of life-sustaining systems ought to extend beyond orchards and fields during warfare.
Following the fall of the temple system and rise of Rabbinic Judaism, this commandment was extended into a broader approach to kosher living: waste should always be limited; we should always stand on the side of life. The deliberative processes that have shaped Jewish law have always been rooted in expansive interpretations, ethical reflection, and engaged dialogue — ecoKashrut serves to bring this effort more fully into modern practice.
Through these examples, I hope to have shown that the history and present of Jewish law remains bound to the ethical pursuit of living well with our wider more-than-human community. Through elevating the the Jewish law’s ethical heart — rooted in the pursuit of justice and the loving responsibility we carry for all our neighbors— we can collective guide ourselves towards living in a holier communion with our world.
EcoKashrut is a continuous unfolding system rooted in the modern struggle with G-d and our place on Earth. These tenets guide us to recognize the destruction we are capable of causing, guiding us to instead work together to bring about a culture capable of maximizing our life-giving tendencies while minimizing our collective ecological harm. Developing an ecological kashrut depends on reckoning with our ecological contexts while bringing this into dialogue with both the wisdom of Jewish agricultural laws and contemporary insights in environmental ethics. Through giving concrete form to an ethics rooted in the language and insights of our holy commandments, ecoKashrut can help us transform how our society relates to religion, ethics, and our wider ecosystem. By bridging secular ecological ethics and traditional religious values, ecoKashrut offers a fertile ground for synthesis — one where ancient wisdom and contemporary science can converge to heal our relationship with the Earth.
Thank you for joining me on the journey through Jewish Ecology. This blog aims to build a participatory dialogue in which important ideas at the intersection of Judaism and ecology can help us root ourselves in the World. This blog is not just for Jews; I aim for these articles to be accessible and impactful for anyone that is interested in building up an understanding of the role that spirituality, philosophy, and ethics play in bringing about a more peaceful, ecological, and sustainable future for all People and the World. If you can think of someone who might enjoy these articles, please consider sharing this blog!
