Written by Alex Weisz

“Take care lest you forget the LORD your God and fail to keep God’s commandments, rules, and laws, which I enjoin upon you today. When you have eaten your fill, built fine houses to live in, your herds and flocks have multiplied, and your silver and gold have increased, and everything you own has prospered, beware that you do not let your heart grow haughty and you forget the LORD your God...and you say to yourselves, ‘My own power and the might of my own hand have won this wealth for me.’ Remember that it is the LORD your God who gives you the power to get wealth...If you do forget the LORD your God and follow other gods to serve them or bow down to them, I warn you this day that you will certainly perish.” -Deuteronomy 8:1-15, 18-20

A fire in the Amazon rain forest on Tuesday near Porto Velho, Rondonia State, Brazil.

In this week’s parsha, Moshe presents the Israelites with the chilling warning above. Among their many benefits, the mitzvot are vehicles for humility and recognition of one’s place within creation. Humanity at large has been given incredible gifts of creativity, ingenuity, and innovation - gifts that have been corrupted by humanity’s most primal urges of destruction and greed. Our divine commandments are intended to refine humanity towards reflecting God’s best characteristics: mercy, kindness, forgiveness, etc. To paraphrase Rabbi Heschel, goodness is not enough for the Jew - goodness is secondary, a vehicle towards holiness, the pathway towards the reunification of Shamayim u’varetz.

Through remembering our place in creation, we radiate God’s light throughout the world; conversely, pursuing our worst impulses of greed and consumption leads to death. We are seeing the latter today, as the Amazon rainforest, one of the most incredible displays of the majesty of God’s creation, has been burning for over 2 weeks straight. Scientists have been very explicit about the need for global concern regarding the Amazon: without tropical rainforests, there is no solving the climate disaster. 

Despite this reality, the Amazon rainforest is being deforested at record rates. How and why could this be?

Very simple: the idolatry of greed. Over the last 30 years, the Amazon has lost an area larger than the entire country of Germany by ranchers illegally burning sections of the forests to clear the land to produce meat, dairy, and eggs to sell internationally. The lamentable policies of Brazillian president Jair Bolsonaro will only increase the rate of decimation. By threatening to dissolve the ministry of environment, to dismissing top scientists within his own government, Mr. Bolsonaro and his wealthy supporters exploit the desperation of ranchers in the name of slight economic gain - while at the expense of irreplaceable biodiversity in the Amazon.

Though the crisis in the Amazon is one particular example of paramount importance, the use of land for meat and dairy production worldwide is growing unsustainably, utilizing far too much carbon & water to justify, in the worship of the idolatry of Greed. All of these consequences for the name of short-term profit - and that’s before addressing the inhumanities towards these animals.

The legendary Rav Kook (1865-1935) was a major proponent of Jews adopting plant-based diets - nevertheless, he did note that prioritizing animal welfare over human welfare was unjust. However, Rav Kook did not live in our time, in which we are aware of the ramifications that the factory farming industry has upon all of creation! It decimates biodiversity, the majesty of God’s creation; it leads to the economic prioritization of growing crops to feed livestock instead of the 821 million people globally who are undernourished; and it is one of the leading global producers of carbon emissions, while our planet is hurtling towards the cliff of environmental disaster.

In our time, we are faced with the same warning that Moshe gives the Israelites: we recognize that creation is not a commodity for our disposal, and choose to live up to our fundamental purpose as stewards of creation, rejecting the abominations of factory farmed animal products in favor of the plants provided by our creator for our consumption (Genesis 1:8).

Many people wrestle with the notion that, in addition to being merciful, compassionate, and kind, God “visits the iniquity of parents upon children and children’s children, upon the third and fourth generation” (Exodus 34:6-7). The climate crisis is precisely this phenomenon: the consequences of greed and excess of 150 years of industrialization are coming to fruition today. These same material excesses are enjoyed in our generation as well - the question is will we recognize the perils we face and take comprehensive steps, or will our lust for cruelty, greed, and excess lead to our mutually assured destruction?

As the month of Elul approach, let us do some reflecting of our own actions, and have the humility to fully repent by changing our behaviors. No longer can we line the pockets of the heretical factory farming and fossil fuel industries. We must end our consumption of products and services that grow the profits of the people in our generation “who trample the heads of the poor into the dust of the ground...and thereby profane My holy name” (Amos 2:7), purging their influence from our communities and governments alike, removing these festering wounds from our society and world. May we overpower their blasphemous greed with our righteousness, love, and truth.

In our time, the fate of the world is truly at stake.

​​Alex Weisz is the Content Manager of SHAMAYIM: Jewish Animal Advocacy. He is a Jewish educator in Las Vegas, NV, and is a Rabbinical student at the Academy for Jewish Religion, California.

“The love of all creation comes first, then comes the love for all humanity, and then follows the love for the Jewish people...all these loves are to be expressed in practical action, by pursuing the welfare of those we are required to love, and to seek their advancement.” 
​- Rabbi Abraham Isaac HaCohen Kook
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As we light the Shabbat candles tonight, it will mark the conclusion of Tu B’Av, the day of love on the Hebrew calendar. To Jews, love is not just a pleasant ideal - it is a religious obligation, as it is written: “and you shall love the LORD your God” (Deut. 6:5); “you shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Levit. 19:18); “you shall love the stranger as yourself, for you too were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Deut. 10:19). Time and again, the Jewish people are commanded by God to love. As my teacher and Rosh Yeshiva Rabbi Mel Gottlieb so frequently observes, the Torah begins with the letter bet, and ends with the letter lamed. Together this creates the word lev, Hebrew for heart, signifying the Torah’s fundamentally loving nature.

In this week’s Torah portion, Parashat Vaetchanan, Moshe recounts the Ten Commandments as they were revealed at Mt. Sinai. The fourth commandment is to observe Shabbat and to make it holy, as a day of rest to be observed by “you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your ox or your donkey, or any of your cattle or the stranger in your settlements” (Deut. 5:14). Shabbat is to be observed by one’s family, one’s slaves, one’s guests, and even one’s animals. Even in its foundational command at Mt. Sinai, there is a common thread running through who must keep Shabbat. It's not only people that get the privilege of observing a day of rest, it's animals too, and it is clearly stated that it is our duty to love them as well.

Though the commandment to love animals is less explicit regarding the loving relationship between humanity and animals than the above examples (Deut. 5:16, Exodus 21:5-6, Deut. 10:19) it is heavily implied. God commands Adam and Eve to “fill the earth and master it...rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and all the living things that creep on the earth” (Genesis 1:28). Sadly, this verse has been perverted throughout the generations to justify the heretical pursuit of greed, most recently by the fossil fuel and factory farming industries. The intended rulership of humanity over animals was not as ruthless demagogues, but as the gentle shepherds of creation. Humanity was created in the likeness of God, and therefore was intended to rule in alignment with God’s goodness: compassionate, merciful, kind, and forgiving. In short, humans are supposed to be loving to all creation.

Humanity has failed severely in this regard. Factory farms have plagued the global food supply with the products of cruelty, inhumanity, indignity, and greed. Multiple sources indicate that over 150 billion animals are killed for food every year, with significant percentages of which go unused as food waste. As the great biblical commentator, the Ohr HaChayim, wrote “We have no right to kill an animal needlessly” (Ohr HaChayim on Levit. 17:11), and current poskim (legal decidors of Jewish law), including Rabbi Dr. David Rosen, the former Chief Rabbi of Ireland, have ruled that the contemporary meat production render all meat unkosher, under the grounds of causing excessive waste and cruelty towards animals.

As we learn in a Midrash, God warns Adam in the Garden of Eden not to allow the world to spoil and be destroyed, for there will be no one to fix it. We humans have done irreversible harm to biodiversity in our world, and we are on pace to further decimate the grandeur of God’s creation. Our consumption of meat, dairy, and eggs play a major role in deforestation, soil erosion, and the steep carbon emissions that present an existential crisis to humanity in the coming decades. Let us reject the blasphemous greed of the factory farming industry, overcome our inner desire for destruction, and return to our fundamental purposes: justice, love, and walking humbly in the ways of our creator (Micah 6:8).

Shabbat is an inherently loving occasion: the blessing of the children, a delicious family meal, and even intimacy between spouses is strongly encouraged on Shabbat evening. This Shabbat, let us commit to sustaining ourselves and treating all of creation exactly as God intended (Genesis 1:28): with a heaping portion of love.

​Alex Weisz is the Content Manager of SHAMAYIM: Jewish Animal Advocacy. He is a Jewish educator in Las Vegas, NV, and is a Rabbinical student at the Academy for Jewish Religion, California.