Rabbi Sacks’ Ethics for Ecological and Cultural Climate Change

Abstract

This paper argues that Sacks’ approach to the environmental crisis is deeply interwoven with his critique of the individualistic society that erodes a shared sense of morality. Against this cultural climate change, the shift from “we” to “I,” he mobilises the collective powers of covenant, hope, and responsibility. By building strong communal bonds of mutual support, he insists that society can move to a covenantal society that takes responsibility for mending the world. His emphasis on a necessary yet achievable transformation lies at the heart of his environmental ethics. It is not merely our abstract task to preserve biodiversity and planetary resources for future generations. Environmental ethics also call for changing our characters and habits. In the Halakhah, he finds a religious personality matrix that calls for personal change and development, as well as a balancing approach between two extreme ideas concerning the environmental issue, an ultra-conservationist and an ultra-exploitative approach towards nature, as formulated in the Hebrew Bible and discussed in rabbinic thought.