To Forever Inhabit this Earth

"Wise and empathetic, this inspires."—Publishers Weekly

"Rig­or­ous, yet lyri­cal, lofty yet prac­ti­cal, To For­ev­er Inhab­it This Earth belongs on the book­shelves of those who cher­ish Jew­ish texts and the envi­ron­ment around us." —Jewish Book Council

The great work of today’s generations is nothing short of saving the earth. We know enough, are capable enough. The question is: do we care enough? Will we work hard enough? Do we even recognize when we have enough?
Now noted environmentalist Rabbi Nina Beth Cardin challenges us to develop the individual and collective will needed to create change and offers spiritual and practical guidance to invigorate that effort.

To Forever Inhabit This Earth is a powerful must-read for anybody interested in the intersection of environmentalism and spirituality.
Cardin implores us to envision the world, not as a commodity but as a fragile, improbable, extraordinary gift whose well-being and future now depend on us, and using meticulously researched Jewish texts and the teachings of other faith traditions, she makes the case that environmental sustainability is a fundamental religious principle—and something we can address, if we have the will to do so.

"Despite the harms we as humanity have caused, if we dare to act boldly (which we can), based on the best guidance of our advisors (which we have), and recruit willing hearts (which we possess), we can heal the wounds, remedy our mistakes, and remake a safe and vibrant world for ourselves and all the generations to come. It is up to us."

Cardin asks us to consider spiritual questions, technical questions, and ethical questions about how we live in the world, and provides both spiritual and practical guidance on ways to rethink that, including:

• A contemplation of our spiritual connection to ‘the land’ and the call upon humanity to establish, preserve, and maintain a habitable world here on earth
  
• The biblical framework that urges us to see that life is awe inspiring and order is its essential ingredient, providing the stable environment that brings forth and sustains life
  
• A close look at texts from Genesis to consider two ways humans inhabit our world
• A daily meditation for preserving a habitable world
• Eight guidelines for ethical consumption
  
• A chart for a one-week self-assessment of our buying, consumption, and discarding practices

"An essential contribution to the work of forging the ethics we need to face the global environmental crisis."

—Karenna Gore, executive director of the Center for Earth Ethics at Union Theological Seminary

"Her Bible-based argument for taking care of the natural world is powerful and convincing."

—Reverend Sally Bingham, founder and president of Regeneration Project

"Guidance for how to grapple with our greatest environmental challenges."

—Dr. Jeremy Benstein, author of The Way into Judaism and the Environment

"Whether you are more familiar with Mary Oliver, Wendell Berry, and Aldo Leopold, or Ben Zoma, Nachman of Bratslav, and Rav Kook, you will be surprised, challenged, and inspired by this passionate call to engage in the sacred task of repairing and maintaining a habitable world."

—Dr. Mirelle B. Goldsmith, co-founder of Jewish Earth Alliance

"This book is a treasure . . . Rabbi Nina Beth Cardin's depth of knowledge, and her capacity to pull from a vast catalog of sources—nimbly quoting a sixteenth-century sage on one page and the creator of Calvin and Hobbes on another—brings forth a rich tableau, layered in story and midrash and little know esoterica . . . This belongs on a shelf with the classic tomes--alongside Rachel Carson's and others."

—Barbara Mahany, author of The Book of Nature: The Astonishing Beauty of God's First Sacred Text.

"At this time of climate destruction, when it can feel overwhelming to even know where to begin, To Forever Inhabit This Earth offers deep Jewish grounding for how to face the climate crisis, firmly rooted in our values."

—Rabbi Jeni Rosenn, founder and CEO of Dayenu: A Jewish Call to Climate Action

"Rabbi Cardin has gifted us with a deeply beautiful, accessible, and relatable framing for understanding and enacting Judaism as guidance toward earthly stewardship as both an inherited responsibility, and a path to Divine meaning in our time."

—Rabbi Andrue Kahn, editor of The Sacred Earth: Jewish Perspectives on Our Planet

"Jewish traditions can help readers reimagine their relationship with the Earth amid the threat of climate change, according to this innovative treatise from Rabbi Cardin (Tears of Sorrow, Seed of Hope). Drawing from such biblical stories as the creation narrative of Genesis 2, in which God instructs Adam and Eve to tend to the garden of Eden (an "eco-driven," nature-centered narrative that reverses the "ego-driven" story of Genesis 1, which presents nature as a wild resource to be "used and subdued"), she outlines an ethic of sustainability wherein humans "tend to the world's potential, serving the needs of all." Later chapters explore how to "renew, preserve, and reuse earth's resources" via personal and political efforts, with suggestions for blending environmental and spiritual practices with traditions like the Tu BiShevat seder, a festive meal held on the new year of trees that's been revived in recent years to reflect environmental concerns. Cardin expertly uses ancient Jewish ethics to add moral depth and clarity to pressing discussions of climate collapse and proffers a communal model of aid that reflects the interconnection of humans with nature and one another. Wise and empathetic, this inspires."

—Publishers Weekly

"For over two decades Rab­bi Nina Beth Cardin has been a major leader in the Jew­ish Envi­ron­men­tal move­ment. Her new book, To For­ev­er Inhab­it This Earth, is a cap­stone on her vision­ary focus on the see­ing the issues of cli­mate change and sus­tain­abil­i­ty through a unique­ly Jew­ish lens.

In a time when the cur­rent Fed­er­al Admin­is­tra­tion seeks to roll back recent laws and reg­u­la­tions to pro­tect the earth and anath­e­ma­tize the words ​“cli­mate” and ​“cli­mate change”, to pub­lish now harks back to an ear­li­er time when the move­ment was top of mind and action. But looked at anoth­er way, this book res­onates with those out of cur­rent pow­er who know what is des­per­ate­ly need­ed for the long game of chang­ing our behav­ior and pro­tect­ing the planet.

This book weaves togeth­er both the larg­er issues to focus on and the prac­ti­cal ways we can make changes in our own lives in a par­tic­u­lar­ly nuanced way.

The book is divid­ed into sev­en chap­ters, per­haps to mir­ror the sev­en days of cre­ation. The intro­duc­to­ry chap­ter sets forth the need to pro­tect and sus­tain the plan­et. Cardin’s ambi­tion is to deep­en Aldo Leopold’s ground­break­ing con­cept of a ​“land eth­ic,” through a Jew­ish per­spec­tive, to artic­u­late a Jew­ish land ethic.

In the sec­ond chap­ter, Rab­bi Cardin elo­quent­ly devel­ops the con­cept of Yishuv Ha’olam, pre­serv­ing a hab­it­able world, which she views as a mitz­vah, indeed as one of the 613 com­mand­ments we are enjoined to do as Jews. Of the con­cept of Yishuv Ha’olam she writes, ​“there is nev­er a time it can­not be pur­sued. It is impli­cat­ed in all our acts and deci­sions for almost every­thing we do affects the nat­ur­al world and thus life all around us.”

She fol­lows with a bril­liant read­ing of the first two chap­ters of Gen­e­sis, with Gen­e­sis 1 embody­ing the prin­ci­ple of Sur­viv­abil­i­ty and Gen­e­sis 2 incul­cat­ing an eth­ic of Sus­tain­abil­i­ty. This is a mod­el of how to read bib­li­cal text in a con­tem­po­rary way and feels nat­ur­al and unforced.

Chap­ter four is the most poet­ic of the book, ​“Holy Sparks.” Rab­bi Cardin cel­e­brates the holi­ness of the nat­ur­al world in mov­ing prose with both rab­binic and mod­ern respons­es brought to our attention.

If Yishuv Ha ​‘olam is the most impor­tant pos­i­tive com­mand­ment, bal tas­chit, do not destroy, is the essen­tial neg­a­tive com­mand­ment for the envi­ron­men­tal move­ment. Build­ing on past com­men­tary from Mai­monides, through Samp­son Raphael Hirsch to con­tem­po­rary thinkers, she shows how this seem­ing­ly sim­ple phrase can be enact­ed. Rab­bi Cardin even cre­ates a chart for us to show how on a prac­ti­cal lev­el we can fol­low this sim­ple com­mand­ment on a week­ly basis in our dai­ly lives.

For an eth­ic of enough­ness, it is no sur­prise that bib­li­cal laws of shmit­tah are adapt­ed in the penul­ti­mate chap­ter to chal­lenge a cul­ture of consumption.

In her last chap­ter — sev­en, just as God finds his cre­ation good on the sev­enth day, Rab­bi Cardin cel­e­brates the plan­et we have and the grat­i­tude we should feel for it. Rig­or­ous, yet lyri­cal, lofty yet prac­ti­cal, To For­ev­er Inhab­it This Earth belongs on the book­shelves of those who cher­ish Jew­ish texts and the envi­ron­ment around us." —Jewish Book Council