Before there was a climate and nature crisis, there was a covenant – a promise between people, land and God “to tend and protect the land” (Genesis 2:15).
What happens when that promise is broken? What we now call “environmentalism” was built into the Torah more than 3,000 years ago: no absolute ownership of land; let the land rest every seventh year; don’t waste; don’t destroy – even in war, even a single tree. This wasn’t poetry, it was law, embedding environmental responsibility and social justice into the foundations of Jewish life.
This week, I am in Yerevan, Armenia, representing EcoJudaism and the wider Jewish environmental response at the UN Biodiversity COP. As governments gather to confront the accelerating destruction of the natural world, I am reminded of something extraordinary; we, the Jewish people, have never accepted the world as it is.
We were the first people to insist there is one God, one moral order; slaves who defied the mighty Egyptian empire, walking into freedom to forge a new future based on hope, justice and human dignity; the first society to build a welfare state, mandating the redistribution of wealth, protection of the vulnerable and debt forgiveness.
This legacy runs from ancient to modern times. Our history is lit up by heroes such as Adolphe Crémieux, abolishing slavery across the French empire, to Lauterpacht, Cassin and Lemkin, writing human rights into law, and our disproportionate role in the fight for civil rights and the end of apartheid.
Again and again, we have risen to the great moral challenges of our time. Yet, for all the wisdom of our ancient teachings about humanity’s duty to care for the Earth, we have not, until recently, mobilised as a people to protect the natural world with the same collective determination.
The prophets warned us what happens when the covenant with God, the people and the land is broken: “The earth is withered; Everything that dwells on it languishes, Beasts of the field and birds of the sky, Even the fish of the sea…” (Hosea 4:3).
We are living this today. The question is whether we will rise to this challenge as our ancestors rose to theirs.
I think we will. Quietly, around the world, the covenant is waking up.
In the UK, EoJudaism is mobilising the Jewish community – transforming polluted, flooded highways into rain gardens and our synagogues and schools into hives of environmental action. Sadeh is transforming disused land into regenerative farms.
Across the pond, Adamah is cultivating a national American Jewish environmental movement, and in oceans across the world, Jews are restoring and advocating for our marine habitats.
The Jewish Climate Network is taking the lead in Australia, advancing renewable energy across the Jewish community. In Israel, a country that turns scarcity into some of the world’s most advanced climate technology, innovations are being used to feed crops and desalinate water across the Middle East, India and sub-Saharan Africa, helping Israel become a global force in climate solutions and resilience.
And some of the most hopeful climate work is happening across borders: Israeli, Jordanian and Palestinian scientists at SPNI and the Arava Institute are sharing data, water and biodiversity solutions that none could build alone.
This is what happens when “love your neighbour” and “repair the world” stop being verses and become infrastructure.
This is not one organisation. It’s a current running through the whole Jewish world, from Melbourne to Miami, from London to Lagos.
In his book Radical Then and Radical Now, the late Rabbi Sacks wrote: “Judaism is a protest against the world as it is, for the world as it should be.”
At this Biodiversity COP, that conviction feels more relevant than ever. Our inheritance is not simply a beautiful set of teachings about the Earth.
It is a responsibility to act, to restore the land, protect its inhabitants and safeguard its wonders for generations to come.
The covenant is ancient, the movement is growing and the work has already begun. Be part of it.
Naomi Verber is senior adviser for global advocacy and thought leadership at EcoJudaism
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