edited by Andrue J. Kahn ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2023
A well-researched and diverse collection of Jewish writings on our collective responsibilities to the planet.
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This anthology of essays, edited by Kahn, presents Jewish perspectives on the Earth and the environment.
While the concept of avodat ha-Shem (“serving God”) is central to the Jewish faith, Rabbi Kahn reminds readers in the introduction to this collection that avodat haaretz (“service of the earth”) is equally important. As he notes, “nature can teach us sacred lessons.” Divided into five parts and more than 30 individual chapters, the book begins with a theological reflection on how a spiritual relationship with God should guide our relationship with the Earth. Drawing specific examples from Scripture, the book’s second part reexamines religious texts in new contexts, yielding insights such as the way the Song of Songs unveils “a ritual journey of connection with creation” and how the Book of Job’s lessons on humility apply to nature. Part 3 explores how the physical environment serves as a setting in which humanity has encountered God, from ancient mountaintops to the modern-day “Shabbat Stroll.” Part 4 focuses on how the Earth shapes and informs the Jewish calendar. The book’s final section provides a more practical approach to Jewish environmental ethics, including concrete examples of sustainable eating practices, interfaith activism, and ways that synagogues can serve as “laboratories for the future” and model environmentally conscious practices. With more than four dozen contributors, the book is intentionally diverse in its perspectives; the authors represent views from across the Jewish denominational spectrum and include rabbis, activists, poets, and professors. Each chapter is accompanied by a wealth of endnotes and reference materials. While distinctly Jewish in its approach, the book is accessible to readers of all faiths, and many of its chapters include interfaith perspectives, including an entire section regarding Indigenous land acknowledgements. This impressive collection is a reminder that, in the words of contributor Karenna Gore (executive director of the Center for Earth Ethics at Union Theological Seminary and daughter of former Vice President Al Gore), “it is not the earth that needs fixing; it is us.”
A well-researched and diverse collection of Jewish writings on our collective responsibilities to the planet.Pub Date: June 1, 2023
ISBN: 9780881233858
Page Count: 376
Publisher: Central Conference of American Rabbis Press
Review Posted Online: May 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Rachel Carson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 27, 1962
The book is not entirely negative; final chapters indicate roads of reversal, before it is too late!
It should come as no surprise that the gifted author of The Sea Around Usand its successors can take another branch of science—that phase of biology indicated by the term ecology—and bring it so sharply into focus that any intelligent layman can understand what she is talking about.
Understand, yes, and shudder, for she has drawn a living portrait of what is happening to this balance nature has decreed in the science of life—and what man is doing (and has done) to destroy it and create a science of death. Death to our birds, to fish, to wild creatures of the woods—and, to a degree as yet undetermined, to man himself. World War II hastened the program by releasing lethal chemicals for destruction of insects that threatened man’s health and comfort, vegetation that needed quick disposal. The war against insects had been under way before, but the methods were relatively harmless to other than the insects under attack; the products non-chemical, sometimes even introduction of other insects, enemies of the ones under attack. But with chemicals—increasingly stronger, more potent, more varied, more dangerous—new chain reactions have set in. And ironically, the insects are winning the war, setting up immunities, and re-emerging, their natural enemies destroyed. The peril does not stop here. Waters, even to the underground water tables, are contaminated; soils are poisoned. The birds consume the poisons in their insect and earthworm diet; the cattle, in their fodder; the fish, in the waters and the food those waters provide. And humans? They drink the milk, eat the vegetables, the fish, the poultry. There is enough evidence to point to the far-reaching effects; but this is only the beginning,—in cancer, in liver disorders, in radiation perils…This is the horrifying story. It needed to be told—and by a scientist with a rare gift of communication and an overwhelming sense of responsibility. Already the articles taken from the book for publication in The New Yorkerare being widely discussed. Book-of-the-Month distribution in October will spread the message yet more widely.
The book is not entirely negative; final chapters indicate roads of reversal, before it is too late!Pub Date: Sept. 27, 1962
ISBN: 061825305X
Page Count: 378
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1962
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by Robert Greene ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1998
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.
The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.
Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-670-88146-5
Page Count: 430
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998
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