Who doesn’t experience the joy and wonder of witnessing the first grassy shoots of bright green, the shocking yellow daffodil buds peeking through arched stems or the trilling notes of a tiny bird’s courtship lyrics?
But wait, do we take nature’s gifts for granted?
Let’s first imagine preparing for Pesach. Traditional foods for Sephardic, Mediterranean and Ashkenazi Jews include natural produce like romaine lettuce, parsley, celery, dates, apples, oranges and grape leaves. No matter whether Pesach occurs early or late in the season, we expect the foods of our springtime holiday to be available for us. Our expectations are based on our wants but not necessarily on what might be available on grocery shelves. We have become accustomed to getting our way.
We take too much for granted.
Looking into our valued heritage, perhaps, can change the ways we experience both springtime and Pesach. The deep meaning of living intimately with the greater world was inseparably linked with the Israelites of biblical times. The “Song of Songs” wonderfully explores the season of rebirth: “For now the winter is past, the rains are over and gone. The blossoms have appeared in the land. The time of the songbird has come; the song of the turtledove is heard in our land. The figs form on the fig tree, the blossoming vines give off fragrance.”
It was meant to be that nature and our people’s survival were woven together. This vital interconnection has been the Jewish people’s heritage in every generation.
Verses that lovingly appreciate nature bridge Jewish history with the present. Cherishing the movement of one season into another is timeless for the Jewish people. The borders of time become blurred when we value and protect wild life’s beauty.
Springtime reminds us of the promises of Pesach. We follow ancient rituals as we gather together to retell the story of our people. Pesach necessitates that we tell of the release from tyranny and bondage. Freedom was not easy. The appreciation for being free took many years of wandering for the Israelites to learn.
We are bidden to live by the same duties to sustain freedom in our generation. Freedom means that we have, like our forebears, responsibilities and obligations to the natural world.
The Book of Leviticus, for example, instructs the Israelites on how to live within the context of the greater world — that is, to care for natural resources. The Israelites were obliged to protect the land by leaving it unplanted every seventh year. The jubilee law required that on the seventh cycle of allowing the land to rest, the economic imbalances that had incurred up until that time were to be corrected. The goals were to protect the land properties and provide economic balance. Sanctified sabbaths for the land were built into the laws. These sabbaths shielded the land so that we would never exploit it. The land was given specifically to the Jewish people as an unshakable responsibility by G-d.
How do we understand these laws to protect the land in our generation? We have the obligation to protect, for instance, the groves and fields where our food is grown. Do we take actions to oppose pesticides and fertilizers that harm crops and the soil? Do we contest the use of these chemicals because they mix with water in the streams and rivers to pollute them? Do we recognize that drought is claiming more and more fertile land to turn barren? Do we urge our policy makers to regulate industrial farms owned by corporations? We may not be the people who till the fields, but we must still hold ourselves responsible. Who will defend nature from harsh demands, if not us?
Springtime holds promises of renewal and recommitment to our foundational values. The Torah and Pesach are powerful guides for us to pay attention to closely. When we respect the gifts of nature and explore the necessary actions to protect it, we become the people who make sabbaths for the land possible.
Mary Greenberg, Ph.D., serves on the State of Kansas Holocaust Commission. Her speaking engagements on preventing antisemitism are based on her research on the study of the Jewish people in the Diaspora.