Creation, Covenant, and Strange Climate

Introduction

Most people are worried about the strange, changing climate, but are unsure what to believe or do. Accelerated climate change is one consequence of poor human stewardship of the environment, resulting from an unbalanced view of our role in the world, ultimately a spiritual flaw. Trying to scare people into action does not work; rather, it produces paralysis. Instead, there are sources of trustworthy scientific information combined with a biblical framework and actionable steps.1

I first make the scientific and biblical case for environmental stewardship. Next, I tie it into material from Genesis Creation stories, sin and the flood, Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, the Exodus, Passover, and Esther, and show that Solomon’s wisdom included lessons from his ancestors. I argue that the consequences of human evil and folly can be severe, but God in covenant with his Creation will bring both judgment and ultimate redemption. Following, I integrate Messiah Yeshua into the image.

This essay is indebted to Rabbi David Fohrman’s close reading of the Hebrew Bible, illustrating traditional teaching2 that that the Torah contains multiple layers of meaning. A phrase in the Chumash (five books of Moses) when repeated elsewhere in the Bible uses each passage to interpret the other.3 This strengthens faith by demonstrating God’s faithfulness in all times. Blessed is the Infinite God, who calculated the end from the beginning! (Isa 46:10).4

The Need for Earth Stewardship

Burning coal, oil, and gas has brought us longer lifespans on average, larger population, upward social mobility, medical breakthroughs, useful consumer products, and leisure. It has also brought us extreme inequality, global warming including adverse weather and health effects, plus pollution and destruction of ecosystems, with their food and water sources. Humans are using resources more quickly than they can be replaced and regenerated.5

These effects will worsen due to a delay in experiencing the full consequences of past behavior, with further damage if humans fail to improve our stewardship. Ecological disasters will inflame political instability and create climate refugees. Such instability already affects America’s food security since our supply chains extend around the globe.

Unpleasant solutions to unsustainable growth and resource use include war, genocide, famine, epidemic disease (Lev 26:25-26; Rev 6:8), or our own extinction. Some optimists think that technological innovation, such as leaving earth to colonize other parts of the solar system, will solve our problems.6 However, many environmental damages are not quickly reversible, nor is Mars easier to live on.

Religion has been misused to justify neglect or abuse of the earth. Christians may hope to be raptured from our ruined planet.7 Aum Shinrikyo, combining elements of several religions, sought to hasten redemption by releasing nerve gas in the Tokyo subways. Messianic terrorism and messianic escapism each have appeal within a number of religions.

In the secular realm, social media prioritize outrage-provoking content and users share sensational false stories more widely than true ones. Several fossil fuel companies promote doubt about science and spread disinformation so as to continue polluting without accountability.8

In contrast, humankind was put in Eden with a mandate to guard and serve (Gen 2:15), for which we are accountable.9 Noteworthy is the Midrash: “If you are planting a tree when you are told that Messiah has arrived, first finish planting the tree and then go to greet Messiah.”10

Biblical prophets do not usually predict the future; they warn of judgment unless people repent. One possible future is a miraculous intervention, another is a natural change. Repentance may be motivated by love or fear. Any of these visions are possible. “[Messiah will come] today, if you would but hearken to his voice.”11

Humankind has sought to fill the earth and subdue it, to rule over the rest of creation (Gen 1:28). Yet humanity has not imitated the One who said “Enough” and ceased creating on the seventh day. We have too rarely seen ourselves as a part of nature and dependent upon it. We have little chance of averting environmental catastrophe unless we recognize that we are not the masters of Being, but only a part of Being.12

Jared Diamond is cautiously optimistic because he thinks we know what we need to do to address our problems. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks illustrated his hope through recounting the journey of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt to living as free people, under God-given laws, in the land promised to their ancestors. A generation left Egypt physically but not mentally, and died in the wilderness, but God kept covenant and brought their children into the land.13

Rabbi Sacks tied the rise of the West to biblical religion, which puts emphasis on the individual, created in the image of God. Yet science and biblical religion may be blamed today as tools in despoiling the earth. Such charge is only partially true, for there are two Creation stories in Genesis.

Evidence from the Tanakh

Two Creation Stories

The Almighty is not limited by time or space. Yet God loves and interacts with his creation in the physical world. The Bible’s two Creation stories convey complementary aspects of reality. In like manner, the theory of light being both waves, which are spread out, and photons, which occupy discreet places, convey the truth about light better than a simpler theory. The right and left sides of the brain are themselves complementary, as are reason and emotion, and verbal and nonverbal modes of perception.

Genesis 1:1-2:3 depicts Creation from a human perspective. It calls the divinity Elohim, which means king and judge. God creates in six days by speaking: creation obeys. God is a builder, and humans, his image, are also builders. God evaluates his creation as Good, and introduces order by making distinctions and separating. Perhaps God’s greatest separations are time and space themselves.

The first Creation account remains important for humanity’s future course. The wave of information technology that brought us nanotechnology, computers, the internet, and smart phones, must and may be followed by a wave of sustainable technologies.14 Humans will be compelled by environmental degradation to end the era of fossil fuels. We can and should transition to renewable energy sources. Yet there is also a spiritual aspect to our transition.

The second Creation story supports a humble and holistic relation to the natural world. The pivot to the second story is through the seventh day of rest concluding the first story.

Genesis 2:4-25 depicts Creation from God’s perspective. It calls the divinity YHVH-Elohim, which adds a relational, merciful, and covenantal aspect of God. All of Creation and human history is one day, because the Lord God sees past, present, and future together. God does not issue commands, yet still facilitates the growth of his creatures.

Creation story two mirrors the end of story one and comments upon the sequence of the first Creation story in reverse order.15 The first account is an orderly sequence in time while the second account is a sequence outside of time. In the first story God creates by his Word, while in the second, things happen through the vitality of God’s essence. In the first story, creation is organized so that things are self-perpetuating. In the second story God is intimately involved all along. The first story limits descriptions to function, while the second story notices beauty. Because in story two, things that were once together long to reunite, it presupposes story one in which God creates and then separates things.

A judge evaluates situations as good or bad. In the flood story, Elohim destroys life which has corrupted itself. In Genesis 2, YHVH-Elohim acts otherwise. It is not good for the man to be alone. Rather than destroying what is not good, God improves the situation by making woman. In the first Creation story, male and female cooperate in raising children and ruling as God’s representatives. Like God, their power is in what they can do. In the second story the woman fills the man’s need for companionship. The man praises the woman as “flesh of my flesh and essence of my essence” (Gen 2:23), where “essence” (עצם) means the breath that God breaths into, that part of man that comes from God and not the earth.

Heaven and earth are products of story one creation, but in story two they themselves become creators, reuniting what had been separated, with the aid of water, to produce new life. Humans and God are midwives to the rest of creation. By serving the land humanity connects from whence it came.

The man is commanded to enjoy the fruit of every tree, except one. One tree is prohibited. Love must be combined with respect. The temptation to eat of the forbidden tree is the temptation to believe that I am the master of the garden, or that eating desirable fruit will make another person love me more. When the woman loves the man for who he is, he does not need to pretend that he is God, the ultimate judge of what is good or evil.

On the seventh day, God abstained from all his work and sanctified the day (Gen 2:3). The extraneous final word “la-asot” (to do) suggests that God ceased one kind of work to begin creating in another way. The Sabbath, a timeless day, continues into the day of story two (Gen 2:4) in which God creates through wholeness. The man and woman live a version of Sabbath in the Garden of Eden in the east (2:8), literally “from before,” meaning before time. For humans to observe the Sabbath is to cease, like God, from creating by artifice in order to begin creating through togetherness.16

Sin and the Flood

The first sin was for us to deny our Creator by deciding ourselves what is good and evil instead of what God had already told us.17 As a result, we were alienated from our sources (God and the earth), expelled from the Garden, and cursed (Gen 3:16-19). The purpose of the curse on the land was to prompt humanity to return to our sources in repentance.18

The curse deepened after Cain killed his brother. God had warned Cain that inadvertent sin (chatat, חטאת) crouches at the door. After being confronted by God, however, Cain called his deed “my willful sin” (avoni, עוני), which was greater than he could bear (Gen 4:13). Before committing sin, one does not perceive its true consequences.19 There is a tendency to
ignore warnings until faced with sober reality (1 Sam 25:37). The consequences of poor earth stewardship repeatedly ambush humanity and lead to regret.

Generations after Cain, Lamech named his son Noah, sensing that he would comfort mankind from the sadness that comes from the ground that the Lord cursed (Gen 5:29). Comfort often involves no longer trying to change a painful fact. Yet not all painful facts should be accommodated; sometimes we ought to address their root causes. Rashi, commenting on Genesis 5:29, cites the Midrash that Noah created the plow, which comforted humanity by making it easier to grow crops. The biblical text suggests, however, that this technical solution anesthetized humanity to its spiritual plight.

Lamech’s hope for Noah used words for comfort (yinachameinu, ינחמנו), work (mi-maaseinu, ממעשנו), sadness/toil (umeitzvon, ומעצבון), and ground (ha-adamah, האדמה). In response, God regretted (va-yinachem, וינחם) that he had made (asah, עשה) man, was saddened (va-yitatzeiv, ויתעצב), and determined to wipe out man from the earth (ha-adamah, האדמה). Scripture, by citing similar words of Lamech and God, indicated that the sadness intended by the curse upon the ground was not achieving its purpose. Humanity was not trying to overcome alienation from its sources. Hence, God would destroy and begin anew.20

After the flood, God gave the rainbow as a sign that he would never again destroy the world that way. Mankind had not morally changed, but God nevertheless granted it more scope for action. After the flood, eating meat and the technology of ploughs and bricks were permitted. Mankind’s task was to come as close to the Creator as possible without letting their power and inventions blind them to their spiritual life. Yet this immediately happened at the Tower of Babel.

The Bible is a book of instruction in all generations. Two principles of objective morality from Genesis 8-9 have been demonstrated scientifically in computer simulations: the need in our world for both justice and forgiveness.21 Why then, asked Rabbi Saadiah Gaon, was revelation necessary? Because, he answered, it takes mankind time to arrive at truth, with many slips and pitfalls along the way.

Popular depictions of Noah’s ark include lions, elephants, and zebras. Animals such as these have suffered catastrophic population declines since 1950. The buffalo, once abundant on the North American plains, was nearly exterminated in the 1870s. Over earth’s geological record, five mass extinction events have been identified. Humans are the cause of an ongoing sixth mass die-off of species.

Periods in the earth’s history may be identified by the different characteristics of rock layers. A new geologic period has been unofficially named the Anthropocene era, because of the unique ability of humans to change the earth. Plastic and cement suddenly appear in
the geologic record, a kind of ruined Tower of Babel. Malign evidence of human activity also persists in polluted air and water.22

Abraham’s Legacy

The builders of the Tower of Babel were obsessed with making a name for themselves (Gen 11:4). By contrast, God chose Abram because Abram was more concerned with others.

After Abram’s brother Haran died, he and his brother Nahor took wives (Gen 11:29). Nahor married Haran’s daughter Milcah. According to Midrash, Abram’s wife Sarai is Iscah, the other daughter of Haran (both Sarai and Iscah mean princess, and Sarai was Abram’s niece). Abram and Nahor intended to build up Haran’s legacy through care of his children and by producing additional offspring. However, Sarai was barren.

God called Abram to leave his country and go to a land that God would show him. God would make him a great nation and one by whom all peoples would be blessed (Gen 12:3). Thus, Abram and Sarai left, and took Lot, the son of Haran.

In the land of Canaan, Abram built altars, rather than towers, and called on the name of God. He was concerned with God’s name rather than his own.23 God intensified his promise of land and children.24

It became clear that Lot would not produce Abram’s legacy. God renewed his promise, but, after ten years without children, Sarai gave her Egyptian slave Hagar to bear children with Abram on her behalf. The verbs, “she took,” “she gave,” and Abram’s heeding of his wife mimic actions in the Garden of Eden where Eve gave forbidden fruit to Adam. Here, Hagar is the forbidden fruit.

Based on Rashi, Rabbi Fohrman suggests that Sarai was angry at Abram because he had asked God what “I” (Gen 15:2-3, 8) rather than ‘’we” would inherit. Sarai therefore sought to become the surrogate mother of Hagar’s child. This plan would be foiled if Hagar was a full wife. Consequently Sarai, by subjugating Hagar, reasserted that she controlled her. This foreshadows the slavery of the Israelites. When you overreach for legacy, and innocent people are involved, those terrible results will have large repercussions.25

In Creation story one, humans were to populate and rule the world. Correspondingly, Abram was promised land, descendants, and that he would bless the whole world. In Creation story two, God brought animals to the man, but none was a suitable companion. God put the man to sleep and built (Gen 2:22) the woman from his rib. Similarly, Abram appeared to have no suitable companion because Sarai was barren. At the covenant between the parts (Gen 15), God put Abram to sleep. His story could have immediately continued with Abram being built up by God through Sarai, but instead she took God’s role, hoping to be built up (Gen 16:2) through Hagar. After Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, their perception changed.
After Hagar became pregnant, she and Sarai perceived one another differently. The Abraham story continues to echo the Creation.26

Our creativity is what it means to be the image of God, but creativity needs to be rightly directed. Eating the forbidden fruit causes creative passion to become no longer something you possess but what you are, which is a dangerous mix-up.27 Classical Torah commentators say that yetzer ha-ra, the evil inclination, or creativity gone awry (y-tz-r, means to create)28 became internalized when humanity ate of the Tree of Knowledge.

The place of Sabbath in the Creation story is filled by circumcision in the Abraham story. Borrowing from later Scripture, Sabbath and circumcision are signs of the covenant to guard (שמר) forever, for all generations (Gen 17:7- 8; Ex 31:16). Structurally, both Sabbath in Creation and circumcision in Genesis 17 are chiasms — the second half of each passage is a mirror image of the first half. In Genesis 16:6 -17:26, Abram is renamed Abraham, mirrored by Sarai being renamed Sarah. In the beginning of the chiasm, Abram allows Sarai to subjugate Hagar, an act not commanded by God. At the end of the chiasm, Abraham circumcises his household as God commanded.

The chiasm’s center contains three points: walk before God and be whole, covenant, and that God will make Abraham very great (Gen 17:1-2). The symbolism of covenant on the male reproductive organ, like the symbolism of Sabbath, is disciplined creativity. If you set bounds, your creativity will flourish.29

Threat and Protection in Every Generation

The Passover Haggadah cites the story of Jacob and Laban as proof that “in every generation, men rise up to kill us, but the Holy One saves us from their hand.” The covenant between the parts has protected Israel in every generation. In that covenant God does not promise to send Abraham’s descendants into exile, but rather to redeem them from exile.

Parallels between Jacob leaving Laban (Gen 31:22-23) and the Israelites leaving Egypt (Ex 14:5-9) suggest that the prophecy that Abraham’s descendants would be enslaved in a foreign land could have been fulfilled earlier. Jacob sought to fulfill the prophecy by returning home. He had been oppressed by Laban by being cheated out of wages and tricked into a marriage.

Immediately after Joseph — the fourth generation from Abraham — was born, Jacob asked Laban to send him away (Gen 30:25). Jacob could have fulfilled God’s promise to Abraham if not for the sale of Joseph into slavery. Instead, the children of Israel made history repeat itself. As one son’s deception of his father with a goat and a coat led to 21 years of exile with Laban, ten sons’ deception of their father with a goat and a coat led to 210 years of exile in Egypt. The Egyptian exile was longer, harsher, and involved far more people than exile with Laban. Perhaps if Jacob had never deceived Isaac, fulfillment of the prophecy to Abraham would have been even milder than exile with Laban.30 The Haggadah teaches that as the covenant between the parts was fulfilled more than once in Scripture, it will continue to be fulfilled throughout history.31

Jacob’s Burial and the Exodus

Elements in the story of Jacob’s burial appear in the Exodus, suggesting that the latter could have been amicable like the former, but human choices made it hostile. Leaving Egypt to bury Jacob was potentially difficult as Joseph was a high Egyptian official. However, Pharaoh gave permission to leave. Egyptian officials and soldiers accompanied the funeral party as far as the Jordan River. After mourning Jacob alongside the Egyptians, his children crossed the river and buried him. The inhabitants of Canaan noticed but did not interfere (Gen 50:7-14).

The Exodus was full of conflict because Pharaoh refused to let God’s people go. The Israelites, with Moses, formerly a prince of Egypt, and accompanied by Joseph’s bones, were chased by the Egyptian army. That army was wiped out at the Red Sea, which only the Israelites crossed. Egypt mourned but Israel rejoiced. The inhabitants of Canaan heard and some determined to fight.32

Esther, Eden, and Esau’s Tears

The book of Esther captures the recurrent, fragile Jewish experience in gentile cultures. Seemingly out of nowhere, virulent antisemitism arises and threatens the annihilation of Israel, but relief arises from an unexpected place. The world cannot exist without both justice and forgiveness, but consequences may be long delayed.

On one level the book of Esther replays the temptation in the Garden of Eden. Haman as Adam has everything he could want, except that Mordechai will not bow to him, which represents the forbidden fruit. Haman’s wife Zerah, in the role of Eve, advises Haman to give in to his desire to hang Mordechai on a tree. Haman goes to the king to put this plan into action. Thinking that the king wants to honor him, Haman recommends putting the honored man on the king’s horse, and wearing the king’s clothes. Haman wants to be king, which for him, as Adam portrays, he wants to be God. This ends badly for Haman as it did for Adam.

On a second level the book of Esther again replays the temptation in the Garden of Eden, but the king corresponds to Adam, because he seeks a companion. Queen Esther corresponds to a redeemed Eve, and Haman to the snake. Esther saves the Jewish people by teaching the king to distinguish between aesthetic good (Esther 5:4, 8) and moral good (Esther 8:5, “kasher”). This is how the original Eve was meant to help Adam.

On a third level the book of Esther links to the stories of Jacob and Esau. Jacob deceived his father and took the blessing intended for Esau. When Esau learned of it, he let out a great and bitter cry (Gen 27:34). This cry evoked justice from heaven which caused Jacob to cry when he met Rachel, not in joy but (according to midrash) in sorrow. Esau’s cry also caused Jacob’s descendant Mordechai to cry bitterly when he learned that Esau’s descendant Haman had plotted to kill the Jewish people (Esth 4:1), the only other place that “great and bitter cry” appears in Tanakh (cf. Bereishit Rabbah 67:4).33 However, relief arose from Jacob’s reconciliation with Esau. Jacob prayed that God deliver him (Gen 32:12), then sent a gift to Esau, putting space or relief (revach) between the flocks (Gen 32:17). This, suggests Rabbi Fohrman, is the revach and deliverance (Esther 4:14 ) that Mordechai knew would come.34

Solomon, Joseph, and Judah

God’s gift of wisdom to Solomon (1 Kings 3:12) is followed in Scripture by the case of two mothers who claimed one living baby. Solomon ruled that the baby be cut in two. The false mother revealed herself by callously agreeing to divide the baby, while the true mother out of compassion for the baby asked Solomon instead to give it to the other woman. Solomon gave the baby to the true mother. Scripture demonstrates the king’s wisdom, but also suggests why he failed to teach his son Rehoboam how to rule, and how God imparts wisdom.

Solomon was like the contested baby. He loved God (1 Kings 3:3), but he also loved Pharaoh and Pharaoh’s daughter. He built one house each for God and for Pharaoh’s daughter. In building the temple Solomon put the Israelites to hard labor under taskmasters just as Pharaoh had in Egypt.

In the next generation Rehoboam thought that kingship was about personal power, the path of Pharaoh, not loyalty to YHVH, and not looking after the people. If his father disciplined with whips, he would discipline with scorpions (1 Kings 12:11). The tribe of Judah followed Rehoboam while the tribe of Ephraim, a son of Joseph, followed Jeroboam.

Through intertextual echoes the story of Joseph and his brothers parallels the split baby case. Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers. When he became second only to Pharaoh, he tested the brothers, who did not recognize him when they came to Egypt to buy grain. Joseph arranged for his brother Benjamin to be falsely accused of stealing, then decreed that he keep Benjamin as a slave. Benjamin represented the baby of the Solomon story, while Judah and Joseph represented the rival mothers. Joseph even called Benjamin his son (Genesis 43:29). Judah was revealed as the true claimant when he pleaded with Joseph to keep Judah as a slave and let Benjamin return home. Joseph then revealed himself as their lost brother.35

Joseph was a Solomonic figure who tested Judah to show that Judah’s highest concern was for Benjamin. By contrast, Rehoboam’s highest concern was for himself. Consequently, Rehoboam’s kingdom was divided in two.36

These stories teach that a true leader will put the interests of the “baby” above their own selfish interests. The flourishing of humanity (cf. Jer 29:7) within earth’s ecosystems (which humanity actually depends upon for existence) is such a baby. The linked stories of Joseph and Solomon also suggest that God gives wisdom by directing us to remember our origins. One of humanity’s sources is YHVH-Elohim and another source is the earth.

Messiah Yeshua and the Rebirth of Community

It is eleven days journey from the mount where the Torah was given to the land of Israel. Yet the journey took the Israelites forty years (Deut 1:2-3). The journey lasts as long as it takes for people to change. The book of Numbers opposes two political ideas: never, and immediately.37

The task of halting human-caused climate change is intertwined with other large problems. The international community intends to combat climate change through sustainable development goals — firstly the eradication of extreme poverty.38 Third World nations will seek to increase per capita energy use to raise their standard of living. Burning fossil fuels would accelerate climate catastrophe, but denying people the means to escape poverty would be unfair. Switching from fossil fuels to renewable energy is the solution. The sustainable development goals appear to be technically feasible but politically utopian. Recommendations for accelerating decarbonization by America’s National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine recognize that a strong social contract will be necessary. Society cannot be strong without justice, equity, and listening to everyone’s voice.39

This is the territory of politics and religion. Martin Luther King, Jr. addressed pressing issues with biblical language of justice and forgiveness, and of a common fate that unites all. We will either live together as brothers or perish together as fools, he said.40

The Jubilee is a redistribution of land and cancelling of debts every 50 years. Jubilee prevented Israelites from falling permanently into poverty and landless servitude. Otherwise, levelling is obtained with violence and misery. Every few generations the world economic order is overthrown due to the extreme inequality it generates. Inequality in the United States recently reached a level not seen since 1929 on the eve of the Great Depression.41 Under Babylonian threat, the Judahites briefly freed slaves. When they again enslaved them, the Lord proclaimed sword, plague, and famine upon them (Jer 34:17).

The Synoptic Gospels situate the Last Supper within a Passover seder. John’s gospel depicts Yeshua as the Lamb of God who is crucified on the eve of the festival when the lamb is slaughtered. For Paul, Messiah our Passover has been sacrificed (1 Cor 5:7). The Eucharist and the New Covenant come into focus when related to Pesach. The Passover was a judgment upon Egypt which saved and created the community of Israel.

The first Passover symbolized birth. The lamb was tied with its head over its knees (Ex 12:9), the fetal position. Each family that gathered for the meal was to stay in the house until morning, then leave the house hastily through a bloodied doorway. Nisan was to be the first of months, for the Jewish people were being born as a nation.42

Pesach bears a profound connection to the cleansing of the metzora, the person with a skin disease. The Hebrew word for plague (nega, נגע) appears in the Torah only for these two matters. Hyssop and a piece of wood are dipped in blood in the ceremony cleansing the metzora (Lev 14). Hyssop dipped blood is painted on the wood doorposts of the home at the first Passover (Ex 12). To purify the metzora, a bird is killed and another is set free in an open field. At the founding Passover, the firstborn of Egypt perished while God’s firstborn Israel went out free into the wilderness. The blood of the dead bird seeps into flowing water; the Egyptian army dies in the Red Sea.

Traditionally, tzara’at was interpreted as punishment for lashon ha-ra (evil speech), or haughtiness, sins which corrode society. The one afflicted with tzara’at was required to live outside the camp, ritually unclean, for seven days, the same length as the Passover festival. Exclusion from the camp is like excommunication. The metzora experiences a kind of partial death.43 His cleansing ceremony is a spiritual healing that follows physical healing. Modeled on the Passover, it is rebirth into the community of Israel.

Yeshua’s suffering, death, and resurrection resembles the affliction, ostracism, and cleansing of the metzora. The New Covenant in his blood establishes a community that crosses social barriers. It also strengthens Yeshua-followers to reach across social barriers for addressing the changing climate and intertwined problems. The challenges are very great. Perhaps one can do no more than to both hate and love at the same time. Therein lies hope.44

Tzara’at is often translated as leprosy, although each has different symptoms. In Isaiah 53:4, “stricken” or “plagued” (nagua, נגוע) has been identified with leprosy. In Talmud (Sanhedrin 98a) the messiah son of Joseph is a leper who humbly sits among fellow lepers until he is called. He will come “today, if you would but hearken.”

Conclusion

Scripture demonstrates that sinful human choices have consequences in history, but that our covenant-keeping God works through our decisions to ultimately redeem us and the world. Joseph’s brothers recognized that their misfortune in Egypt while purchasing grain during a famine was a delayed consequence of selling Joseph into slavery (Gen 42:21). Yet, Joseph saw that God had worked that betrayal into a larger narrative of great redemption (Gen 45:5-7).

After Pharaoh decreed that Hebrew baby boys be cast into the Nile, the parents of Miriam and Aaron resolved to separate, so as not to have more children.45 According to midrash, Miriam received a prophecy and convinced her parents to remarry. Moses was born, but after three months, his mother put him in a basket on the river. Pharaoh’s daughter came to bathe, noticed Moses, and was filled with compassion. However, Moses was under a death sentence by her father. Would Pharoah’s daughter save him? Miriam stepped forward with a proposal that tipped the princess toward redemption. “Shall I go and get you a Hebrew nurse to suckle the child for you?” (Exod 2:7).46

Pharoah’s daughter may be analogous to the most privileged people today — those who burn the most fossil fuels. Also, she represents humanity, ruler over other creatures. Everyone has conflicted emotions — on the one hand compassion for those parts of the world that are endangered; on the other hand, realism, revulsion of the other, or haughtiness. The message of the Bible, interpreted through a close reading of Hebrew, can tip us toward redemption. Perhaps this is the milk the world needs on which to suckle. Humanity has accomplished in an unbalanced way its Genesis 1 mandate to rule the world as God’s representatives. We have poorly understood and badly reflected the complementary Genesis 2 invitation to midwife life, with God, among the creatures with which we share earth. In the flourishing of ecosystems we will find our own flourishing. We are challenged to integrate both Creation stories so as to innovate and also observe Sabbath and enjoy each other. We are accountable to our Maker, who made a covenant with us and who sustains us. Human misrule brings severe climate consequences for all living things. Yet close reading of the Hebrew Bible reveals that God will ultimately accomplish his redemptive purposes. Halting human-caused climate change and adapting to unstoppable effects will likely force humans to cooperate in unprecedented ways. Torah and Messiah Yeshua’s community-creating sacrifice and New Covenant may provide strength and wisdom to his followers to participate in humanity’s necessary repentance and transition.

Jon C. Olson is a retired epidemiologist living in Connecticut. He volunteers for Citizens’ Climate Education and the nonpartisan Citizens’ Climate Lobby.

---

• 1 Katharine Hayhoe, Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World (Atria, 2021); see also her talk, “Christians, Climate, and our Culture,” Affiliation of Christian Biologists, April 14, 2024; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yonjvRgB0Bo; Jon C. Olson, “Rejecting the Premise,” First Things no. 350 (February 2025), 4.

• 2 “Turn it over and over, for everything is in it.” Pirkei Avot 5:26

• 3 A review of Fohrman’s Genesis, Exodus, and Leviticus Parsha Companion books appears in Kesher 45 (2025).

• 4 The interplay of God’s faithfulness and varying human responses continues in the New Testament. “If their rejection [of the good news] is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead?” Rom 11:15.

• 5 Jared Diamond, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (Penguin Books, 2006), 486-528.

• 6 Martin Rees, On the Future: Prospects for Humanity (Princeton University Press, 2018), 8, 150.

• 7 Yet Billy Graham, despite being a soft dispensationalist, also believed that God’s plan for the future could be altered or delayed by Christians, https://directionjournal.org/53/1/indispensable-dispensationalism-book.html.

• 8 Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming (Bloomsbury, 2010).

• 9 Jon Olson, “The Conservative Jewish and Christian Case for Climate Action,” CT Mirror, July 30, 2024, https://ctmirror.org/2024/07/30/climate-change-conservative-jewish-christian/. Kesher 28 (2014) dealt with responsibility for earth’s resources and the ethics of meat eating.

• 10 Avot d’Rabbi Natan 31b; also attributed to Muhammad about the Day of Resurrection and to Luther about the world ending tomorrow.

• 11 Ps 95:7; Talmud Bavli, Sanhedrin 98a; Heb 3:15; 4:7.

• 12 Vaclav Havel, cited in Jonathan Sacks, Covenant & Conversation, Deuteronomy (Maggid Books and the Orthodox Union, 2019), 180.

• 13 Jonathan Sacks, Covenant & Conversation, Numbers (Maggid Books and the Orthodox Union, 2017).

• 14 Jeffery D. Sachs, The Age of Sustainable Development (Columbia University Press, 2015), 85.

• 15 https://members.alephbeta.org/playlist/elokim-and-ykvk.

• 16 https://members.alephbeta.org/playlist/elokim-and-ykvk.

• 17 The Tree of Knowledge was desirable. Beasts of the field know God’s will through what is inside them (instinct), rather than from God speaking to them. The snake tempted Eve to act like an animal; even if God said not to eat of one tree, God is speaking to you through your desire, https://members.alephbeta.org/video/history-from-adam-to-abraham/genesis-historical-background-context.

• 18 David Fohrman, Genesis: A Parsha Companion (2019), 26.

• 19 David Fohrman, Leviticus: A Parsha Companion (2024), 35.

• 20 Fohrman, Genesis 27.

• 21 Jonathan Sacks, Covenant & Conversation, Genesis (Maggid Books and the Orthodox Union, 2009), 57-60.

• 22 For aid against despair “Grappling with Loss: Why Does God Let Us Suffer?” uses the book and movie Arrival to discuss Isaiah 45:7; https://members.alephbeta.org/playlist/why-does-god-allow-suffering.

• 23 https://members.alephbeta.org/video/abrahams-journey/2lot-land-and-lega.

• 24 https://members.alephbeta.org/video/abrahams-journey/6egypt-redux-the-a.

• 25 https://members.alephbeta.org/video/abrahams-journey/7hagar-sarai-and-e.

• 26 https://members.alephbeta.org/video/abrahams-journey/8the-i-of-the-beh-2.

• 27 https://members.alephbeta.org/video/abrahams-journey/9where-in-the-world.

• 28 David Fohrman, The Beast that Crouches at the Door (Devora Publishing, 2007), 66. Torah, which is compared to spice for the yetzer ha-ra in T.B. Kiddushin 30b, gives direction to our most powerful drives.

• 29 https://members.alephbeta.org/video/abrahams-journey/10sabbaths-third-w.

• 30 David Fohrman, The Exodus You Almost Passed Over (Aleph Beta Press, 2016); “God, Moses, and the Worst-Case Scenario,” 265-74.

• 31 https://members.alephbeta.org/vidoe/how-to-read-haggadah/jacob-enslaved.

• 32 https://members.alephbeta.org/vidoe/how-to-read-haggadah/jacob-enslaved; https://members.alephbeta.org/playlist/passover-exodus-story.

• 33 Fohrman, Genesis, 126.

• 34 Fohrman, Genesis, 139. Esther, descendant of Benjamin, also saves descendants of Judah as he had saved Benjamin, using words from the Joseph story, David Fohrman, The Queen you Thought you Knew (OU and HFBS Press, 2011), 145-58.

• 35 Scripture replays the sale of Joseph story, offering characters the opportunity to make better choices. See “From Pit to Palace: The Meaning of Joseph’s Groundhog Day;” https://members.alephbeta.org/playlist/joseph-from-pit-to-palace. Judah repents in the Tamar story; Joseph repents in the Potiphar story.

• 36 https://members.alephbeta.org/video/beginning-of-the-end/was-god-toying-with-solomon.

• 37 Sacks, Numbers 13.

• 38 Sachs, Age of Sustainable Development.

• 39 The National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine, Accelerating Decarbonization in the United States: Technology, Policy, and Societal Dimensions (2023). https://doi.org/10.17226/25931.

• 40 ML King, Jr. from a March 22, 1964 speech in St. Louis.

• 41 Ray Dalio, The Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed and Fail (Avid Reader Press, 2021), especially chapter 3.

• 42 Fohrman, Leviticus, 77.

• 43 Fohrman, Leviticus, 73-76; T.B. Moed Katan 14b-16a.

• 44 Marc Gopin, Holy War, Holy Peace: How Religion Can Bring Peace to the Middle East (Oxford University Press, 2002), 176; see also Jon Olson’s review in Kesher 16 (Fall 2003), 146-58.

• 45 Rashi to Ex 2:1; B.T Sotah 12-13.

• 46 David Fohrman, Exodus: A Parsha Companion (Aleph Beta Press, 2020), 63-74.