Passover and Earth Day

From COEJL

Earth Day and Passover:

Earth Day and Passover occur in the same month this year. This allows us to consider the relationship between two holidays, which at first do not seem connected. Passover is an ancient religious festival described in the Torah and practiced by Jews for thousands of years. Earth Day is a human-created universal celebration started in 1970 as concern for the environment rose to new levels. One connects to sacred history, the other calls for a new relationship with our planet. Yet there is a deeper and more profound way in which they share a vision.

According to Rabbi Irving Greenberg in his book, The Jewish Way, Passover is not only a commemoration of a past event. It marks a morally significant moment in human history. “The overwhelming majority of earth’s human beings have always lived in poverty and suffering…Statistically speaking, hauman life is of little value…Power, rather than justice seems always to rule.” But Judaism asserts that this is not always the case. Some day history will be perfected and “much of what passes for the norm of human existence is really a deviation from the ultimate reality.” We know this because of the Exodus, the liberation of Israelite slaves. This event, says Greenberg, is more than a minor historical anomaly. It is a paradigm and inspiration for human liberation. It shows that humans are meant to be free and that God is concerned with humanity. While this redemptive experience did not immediately stop all oppression and evil in the world, it created an alternative reality of how life can and should be. It creates a “dream of perfection and thereby creates the tension that must exist until reality is redeemed.” Earth Day does the same thing for the environment by creating a tension which drives our efforts towards sustainability.

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