The words of the High Holy Day prayer Unatanah Tokef felt uncomfortably poignant last week while Cincinnati was enduring a once-in-a-generation snowstorm and California was inundated with devastating fires. Many Midwesterners were forced to bunker inside their homes while our West Coast family and friends fled theirs for safer ground. While the circumstances, contexts, and aftermaths may differ, the message felt the same: this is what climate disaster looks like in its most vicious form.
This is hardly the first time we would have been justified in feeling this way. It seems that every year, there is a record-breaking hurricane that demolishes cities and leaves hundreds of thousands in need of support and care. Record-breaking heat waves and cold snaps have demolished the idea of normal, and we are left with an impending sense of doom that whatever lurks around the next corner might just be a leveling up of the environmental terror that has become a consistent part of our lives.
From our earliest conceptions of human purpose, we have known that our identity is thoroughly wrapped up in our connection to nature. In the first chapter of the book of Genesis, we are told, “God blessed [Adam and Eve] and said to them, “Be fertile and increase, fill the earth and master it; rule over the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and all the living things that creep on the earth.” (1:28) This is a lot of power, but it is also an incredible obligation to take care of the earth, which we have struggled to execute throughout our history.
Judaism has always pushed us to be the best version of ourselves in the face of hardship, and this is certainly true ecologically. So many of our green initiatives and environmental consciousness have stemmed from our Jewish values, with organizations like Shomrei Olam in Cincinnati leading the charge. And yet, the devastation of these last few weeks bring a level of despair that makes it difficult to see individual environmentalism as the path forward. Are we shorter showers away from solving an environmental disaster at this scale? And if not, what are we, as individuals, supposed to do to participate in the healing when so often it is major corporations and manufacturing giants that are the greatest contributors to the problem?
Once again, our tradition helps to point us in the right direction. In the Talmud, we are taught that to save one life is as if we have saved the whole world (Sanhedrin 37a). And right now, climate change is causing so many people to struggle on an individual level. Countless people are displaced from their homes and don’t know where to find their next meal or a clean change of clothes. We have incredible power to look out for one another, and to find ways that we can use our resources to help those who have been caught in the crosshairs of this nightmare. Elsewhere, the Talmud reminds us that all of Israel is responsible for one another (Shevuot 39a). In a world that is growing smaller and smaller thanks to the connective power of the internet, we are both more aware of the suffering of our fellow Jews around the world and also better positioned to deliver the care our people need in an efficient and impactful way.
Every one of us knows someone personally impacted by the destruction of the past week. Finding deep despair and hopelessness in the wake of such suffering would be incredibly easy. But we also have a sacred opportunity here to remind those who are struggling that they are not alone and to use our collective power and resources to ease the pain and suffering. We might not be able to individually fix the weather, stop a fire, or clear a road, but we can feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and heal the sick. We might not have the power to save the whole world, but we always have the power to make a huge impact on a member of our community, and so often, that can feel an awful lot like the same thing.
Austin Zoot is the Rabbi Educator at Valley Temple.
