"Connected to the concern for growing things on the earth, Judaism also teaches the human responsibility to allow the earth to rest. We are enjoined from labor on the Sabbath (from sundown Friday to sunset Saturday), and part of that obligation is also to give our world an opportunity to slow down. As Abraham Joshua Heschel taught, the Sabbath directs our attention to the deep connection between time and space. 'The earth is the Lord's'; we do not own it. We are reminded that in the first creation story, the Sabbath was really the crown of creation, since humans were created on the sixth day and the Sabbath on the seventh. Jewish liturgy links Sabbath and creation, reminding us that the most creative act may be to rest and appreciate the world around us. On Shabbat we refrain from commercial activities — we give consumption a rest, too, and remind ourselves that life is about being with people who matter to us, not only about buying or doing things.
"The Torah also commands us not only to rest on the seventh day but also to give the land a rest, rotating crops in the seventh year (shmitah), and then in the fiftieth year (seven times seven, of course) to celebrate a jubilee (yovel), relinquishing ownership, forgiving debts, and starting over again. Of course, we don't know whether this was ever done, nor is the obligation meant to be carried out anywhere but in the ancient land of Israel; it surely reads more like an ideal than a reality that could be practiced. The biblical punishment for not carrying this out is famine, drought, and exile from the land. The commands of shmitah and yovel and their attendant consequences are what Arthur Waskow has called 'an ecologist's warning: poison the earth, and it will poison you.'
"These ideals encourage Jews to think about reducing consumption, being careful about land use, and questioning the value of acquisition of land. COEJL and the Religious Action Center have led the fight for protecting public lands such as national parks and wildlife refuges, the lands that belong to all the people. Given that many Jews live in the suburbs, we should also consider other land use issues. As many others are doing, Jewish institutions and individuals might consider renewing our commitment to living in smaller dwellings and in the denser housing available in cities. We should be working for housing policies that contain sprawl in suburban and rural areas. And we should support local farmers' access to land by buying locally grown foods and by opposing agribusinesses that use vast amounts of energy to put food on our table."
