Eco-Judaism: Does It Exist? 17

Another broader view seeks to protect the natural world on the grounds that as yet unknownt economic or health benefits may exist. Because the wild jungle may help us with our human ail­ments as a source of drugs, it should be preserved. This is an eco­nomic argument taken into the future. Another argument, which deals with human welfare tangentially, states that we should preserve the splendors of nature for succeeding generations. Wild animals should continue to exist not only in national parks, but everywhere for our enjoyment. Scenic areas should be pro­tected for our benefit. In a world with more leisure time, we should be able to take pleasure from these aspects of nature.

A humane thrust of environmentalism seeks to protect domestic animals from a machine-like factory regime in which ihey are raised without any freedom but simply fattened and prepared for slaughter. Animal rights are then extended to wild animals and sometimes to species of bird, fish, and insects.

Some environmentalists go further and claim that the nat­ural world and its species deserve our protection without con­sideration for any human benefit. Species of plants and animals that are unlikely to have any impact on human life should still be protected and saved from extinction, even at some economic cost.

The rhetoric of environmentalism runs along these lines. The discussion in the twenty-first century will grow much more intense. How can Judaism respond as there is so little in the prac­tical halakhic tradition that can motivate us in this direction?

A Jewish Approach to Environmental Concerns

We have seen that several thousand years of tradition have taken us in the direction of protecting ourselves from the natural world. In the past, nature needed no protection from us. As with so many other areas, the changes brought about by the modern world have left us unprepared, and so we need to look at the tra­dition again with entirely different eyes."> We need to be creative as in other areas such as feminism, medicine, gender issues, and so on. As Liberal Jews we are in a good position to engage in a reinterpretation of the halakhah and our understanding of Judaism ’s mandates. The short answer to the question,“Eco­Judaism: Does It Exist?” posed at the beginning of this essay is, “no,” because Judaism has demonstrated only limited concern in