As the Deep River Rises

Abstract

The present essay seeks to offer a conceptual framework for grappling with climate change from within the sources of Jewish law (halakhah), a discourse rooted in the Hebrew Bible but developed in the rabbinic literature of Late Antiquity and then in medieval and modern codes and commentaries. Halakhah reflects deeply-held intellectual, theological, ontological, and sociological values. As a modus vivendi, rabbinic law—variously interpreted by Jews of different stripes—remains a vital force that shapes the life of contemporary practitioners. We are interested in how a variety of contemporary scholars, theologians, and activists might use the full range of rabbinic legal sources—and their philosophical, jurisprudential, and moral values—to construct an alternative environmental ethic founded in a worldview rooted in obligation and a matrix of kinship relationships. Our essay is thus an exercise in decolonizing knowledge by moving beyond the search for environmental keywords or ready analogies to contemporary western discourse. We join the voices of recent scholars who have sought to revise regnant assumptions about how religious traditions should be read and interpreted with an eye to formulating constructive ethics.