Over this summer, my wife and I joined the New York City Zoo as a result of
our daughter Gabby’s love of animals. So
far we've been to the zoo in the Bronx, the zoo in Queens, the zoo in Central
Park and even the New York Aquarium and each time, Gabby has loved watching the
animals at play. She’s developed
favorite animals, she makes the noises of some of the animals, and she
generally has a wonderful time as a child looking at these wonderful creatures.
But for us, as her parents, while we appreciate the animals
and certainly do enjoy them, we’re also struck by the fact that across these
zoos, at various points, are all sorts of posters and signs reminding us about
the threat that some of these species are facing in the wild. Talking about our
responsibility to the environment and about the dangers of the way that human
behavior is really challenging the sustainability of animal life on this
planet.
It's worth noting that the Torah has an opinion about
this. In this week’s Torah portion, we
read the fascinating line “if a birds nest chances to be before you in the way
in any tree or on the ground whether there are young ones or eggs and the
mother sitting upon the young or upon the eggs you shall not take the mother
with the young, but you shall let the mother go, and take the young to you”.
While we might be a little struck, at least in our modern
world, and with our modern sensibilities about the idea of taking the young
from a nest, this was the way that society functioned. But, what’s striking here is that while you
could have made off with the mother and the young, or the mother and the eggs,
the Torah comes in and clearly prohibits this from happening.
And, a reward is even suggested immediately afterwards, and
it says that it may be well with you and that it may prolong your days. This is clearly an important enough
commandment that the Torah specifies the
reward for fulfilling this command. In
prohibiting the removal of the mother together with its young the Torah is
making a statement about how we use and abuse the environment and what is
appropriate and inappropriate.
But with the reward, it's striking to see that it says it may
be well with us, but it is also about prolonging our days. Now we may read this in the sense of
prolonging our personal life, that we will receive a long life by fulfilling
this commandment, or perhaps we should read this in terms of our planet and our
species as a whole.
If we don’t take care of the environment, if we don’t
invest in sustainable environmental projects, then our days on this planet are
numbered. And, so in many ways, as we
fulfill this obligation in this week’s Torah portion, we don’t just prolong our
personal days, we prolong our days as custodians of planet Earth. As those who back in the Garden of Eden were
told to till it and tend it.
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