There is, in fact, a matter that is too difficult for me that I would like to bring, if not to Moses, then to the leaders to whom he delegated the power to “decide justly between any man and a fellow Israelite or a stranger” (Deuteronomy 1: 16).
I would like to ask the contemporary Jewish court of opinion whether, in a time of climate crisis, it is legitimate to also “hear out” the petition of the suffering earth as if it were a stranger, its face ravaged by drought, storm, wildfire and deforestation.
For with plastic-filled seas and light-polluted skies, its animals pushed to the margins of human industry and habitation, the Earth is surely more than just analogous to an alien or displaced person in urgent need of sanctuary.
And more than that, I wonder if the case for environmental justice requires, before the introduction of any new and particular halachic judgment, a commandment to love the Earth.
