Planet Green
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I believe I'll recycle.
The Gaia theory of the earth as a self-moderating system—that I have mentioned before—is named after an Ancient Goddess of the earth. And, as far back as any history or story can reach, the planet and its systems have been seen as either symbols of the gods' strength, or the gods themselves. So religion and love of the planet are, in many ways, very closely mated. This most recent election was swayed in part because a large number of Evangelical Christians were turned back towards their deeply felt responsibilities as stewards of the land, and they left the environmentally-challenged Republican Party's voting ranks as a result. The planet and the gods are, as often as not, one and the same.
When we set out to help the Ehrlich family, we were a little concerned that their faith—they are Modern Orthodox Jewish—would either hamper their ability to help the planet or run us the risk of offending them with our ideas for a greener life. And it turned out (as happens sometimes) we were totally wrong. And it made me realize that their faith and mine, while totally different, are readily compatible, at the compost level.
Modern Orthodox Judaism is an older and more rigorous form of the religion than one tends to see in America outside certain communities, and it comes with more of the ritual, trappings, and regulations of a less evolved (or more fundamental) version of a belief system. Which is not to judge anything one way or the other: the tenets of Modern Orthodox Judaism are based on an adherence to an older, unchanged way: it is sort of the point. Hence the name.
But that adherence actually makes for a family very willing and ready to fold valuable new rituals and regulations into their lives.
Some Green/Modern Orthodox areas of compatibility:
Nothing that isn't kosher—less resource wasting.
No work on the sabbath—no creation of waste.
Cover your head in the presence of your god—turn out the lights when you leave the room.
These are just guidelines, and a family raised to show their beliefs through their adherence to guidelines is primed and ready to do so for another equally valuable cause: their future and their world. In fact, it could easily be argued that a mild secular humanist like myself, with a Quaker education might even be at a disadvantage because I have been trained to look askance at rules and rigorous codes of conduct, and might therefore rebel against something like home garbage sorting simply because it looks like a 'rule.' So they were ahead of me on that front.
And the Ehrlich proved to be very good at adding our green beliefs to their religious beliefs: the whole family not only pulled together to make change in their home and their community, but they also went out of their way to make sure that their new-found green efforts blended perfectly with their time-tested Jewish system of worship and living. And in the end everyone was better for it.
Don't miss the Sabbath Green episode Holter writes about.
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