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I. INTRODUCTION
In 1967, the historian Lynn White published an article in the journal Science asserting that Western attitudes toward the environment had been corrosively influenced by Judeo-Christian thought.1 White argued that the Abrahamic religions commanded that "no item in the physical creation had any purpose save to serve man's purposes."2 This inevitably led to Western man's alienation from nature, said White, and all but required him to carelessly exploit his surroundings, leading to the ecological crises of the present.3
White's article soon became both famous and controversial. The response to White from religious quarters was swift and continues to this day-there is now a large body of literature debating White's thesis.4 In challenging White's claims, spiritual leaders re-examined their own religions' relationships to the environment.5 Many sprung into action as well, particularly after thirty-two Nobel laureates, led by Carl Sagan, penned "An Open Letter to the Religious Community" in 1990, urging religious leaders to take environmental action.6 Today, there are numerous environmental activist groups worldwide whose founding theme is religion.7
Yet the contemporary religious embrace of environmentalism is not free of difficulties, particularly when it comes to traditional Judaism. If there is an echo of truth in White's argument, it is because the millennia-old teachings of Jewish law often do not align with the ethos of the modern environmental movement. This apparent contradiction does not mean that Judaism is hostile to environmentalism as we commonly understand it today. To the contrary, a critical analysis of the most important Jewish environmental principles can offer an understanding of the role that traditional Judaism can and should play in modern environmental activism.
The foremost environmental precept in traditional Judaism is known as bal tashchit, which is the Aramaic translation of the Hebrew biblical injunction "do not destroy."8 Indeed, so fundamental is this maxim that one commentator has observed it would be no more possible to begin a discussion of Jewish environmental law without mentioning bal tashchit than it would be possible to explore the history of American constitutional law without referring to Marbury v. Madison.9
Regrettably, bal tashchit's ubiquity, if not overuse, has led to frequent misunderstandings of its origin, meaning, and purpose, a problem which can be traced back to no less a figure than...