Jewish ethical teachings on environmental ethics: HSC Studies of Religion

What this dot point is asking

The ethics component of the Judaism depth study asks you to describe and explain Jewish ethical teachings in ONE area. This page covers environmental ethics: the teachings that shape how Jews relate to the land, trees, animals, natural resources and future generations.

Judaism has an unusually rich set of specific laws about the environment, which makes this a strong area for short answers: you can name a teaching, quote its source in the Torah, show how the rabbis developed it, and apply it today. In an extended response, show how those laws express the deeper beliefs of Judaism (God as Creator and owner of the earth, covenant, holiness) and how Jews of different movements apply them.

Remember NESA's framing of Jewish ethics in 2025: they are based on "the holiness of God", apply to "the whole community not just the individual", and "direct the practical activities of daily life".

The answer

The foundation: God as Creator and owner

• Creation. God created the world and declared it "very good" (Genesis 1:31).
• Ownership. "The earth is GOD's and all that it holds, the world and its inhabitants" (Psalm 24:1). In the laws of the sabbatical and jubilee years God says: "the land is Mine; you are but strangers resident with Me" (Leviticus 25:23). Humans are tenants, not owners.
• Dominion and stewardship. Genesis 1:28 tells humanity to "fill the earth and master it". Genesis 2:15 balances this: God "settled the Human in the garden of Eden, to till it and tend it". Jewish ethics reads mastery through tending: humans may use the earth but must preserve it.
• A warning. The Midrash imagines God showing Adam the trees of Eden and saying: "See My creations, how beautiful and exemplary they are ... Make certain that you do not ruin and destroy My world, as if you destroy it, there will be no one to mend it after you" (Kohelet Rabbah 7:13).

Teaching 1: bal tashchit (do not destroy)

• The Torah source. "When in your war against a city you have to besiege it a long time in order to capture it, you must not destroy its trees, wielding the ax against them. You may eat of them, but you must not cut them down. Are trees of the field human to withdraw before you into the besieged city?" (Deuteronomy 20:19). Only trees "that you know do not yield food may be destroyed", and only for a necessary purpose (20:20).
• Rabbinic extension. If even war does not justify destroying fruit trees, needless destruction in peace is certainly forbidden. Maimonides rules: "This prohibition does not apply to trees alone. Rather, anyone who breaks utensils, tears garments, destroys buildings, stops up a spring, or ruins food with a destructive intent transgresses the command 'Do not destroy'" (Kings and Wars 6:10).

Application today. Bal tashchit is the main Jewish basis for opposing waste, overconsumption, pollution of water sources ("stops up a spring"), and throwing away usable food and goods. Jewish communities apply it to energy use, recycling and single-use products.

Teaching 2: tza'ar ba'alei chayim (the suffering of living creatures)

• Torah laws. Animals share Shabbat rest, "in order that your ox and your donkey may rest" (Exodus 23:12). "You shall not muzzle an ox while it is threshing" (Deuteronomy 25:4), so a working animal may eat. When taking eggs or chicks from a nest, "Let the mother go, and take only the young" (Deuteronomy 22:6-7), which also protects the breeding population.
• Talmud. The Talmud treats the prevention of animal suffering as a Torah requirement (Bava Metzia 32b).
• Halakhah. The laws of kosher slaughter (shechitah) are designed to minimise pain, and hunting for sport has long been discouraged in Jewish tradition.

Application today. Concern about factory farming, the treatment of animals in food production, habitat destruction and species loss; some Jews choose vegetarianism as an expression of the principle.

Teaching 3: Shabbat and shmita (rest and limits)

• Shabbat. On the seventh day Jews refrain from melakhah (creative work that transforms the world). Once a week, human mastery over nature is suspended, and the world is received as a gift rather than a resource.
• Shmita. "In the seventh year the land shall have a sabbath of complete rest, a sabbath of GOD: you shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard" (Leviticus 25:4). What grows is shared, including with the poor and animals, and debts are released.

Application today. The shmita year is still observed in the land of Israel through halakhic arrangements (most recently in 2021 to 2022). Jewish environmental educators present Shabbat and shmita as models of sustainability: regular rest for land, animals and people, and limits on consumption.

Teaching 4: responsibility to future generations

• Honi and the carob tree. Honi saw a man planting a carob tree that would not bear fruit for seventy years. The man said: "That man himself found a world full of carob trees. Just as my ancestors planted for me, I too am planting for my descendants" (Taanit 23a).
• The Midrash. "There will be no one to mend it after you" (Kohelet Rabbah 7:13).

Application today. Long-term thinking about climate change, soil, water and forests: Jews are guided to consider the world their descendants will inherit.

Teaching 5: protecting the community from pollution

The Mishnah requires that "animal carcasses, and graves, and a tannery" be kept "fifty cubits from the city", and that a tannery be placed downwind, "because winds usually blow from the west and the foul smells would therefore be blown away from the residential area" (Bava Batra 2:9). Jewish civil law thus recognised the right of a community to be free from harmful pollution, a principle applied today to air and water quality.

Teaching 6: tikkun olam and the festivals

• Tikkun olam ("repairing the world") is the widely used Jewish ideal of acting to improve society and creation. NESA's 2025 guidelines cite it as a teaching that "encourages social action to improve society".
• Tu BiShvat, the New Year for trees ("the fifteenth of Shevat", Mishnah Rosh Hashanah 1:1), began as a date for calculating tithes on fruit. Today it is celebrated with tree planting, environmental education and, following a custom that began among kabbalists, a seder of fruits.
• Sukkot and the agricultural festivals connect Jewish worship to the cycle of the land.

How the movements apply the teachings

Evaluating Jewish environmental ethics

• Strengths. Specific, enforceable laws (bal tashchit, animal welfare, pollution) rather than only general ideals; a clear theology of divine ownership; an unusually strong concern for future generations; practices (Shabbat, shmita) that make restraint part of daily and yearly life.
• Limits. The laws were framed for an ancient agricultural society, and applying them to global problems such as climate change requires interpretation; observance varies widely between movements; "master it" (Genesis 1:28) has sometimes been read as licence for exploitation.
• Judgement. Jewish teachings give strong guidance for individual and communal behaviour and have been adapted creatively to modern environmental concerns.

In one sentence

Jewish environmental ethics teaches that the earth is God's and humans are tenants placed there "to till it and tend it", and it turns this into specific duties (bal tashchit against destruction and waste, tza'ar ba'alei chayim for animals, rest for land and creatures through Shabbat and shmita, care for future generations, and protection from pollution) that Jews today apply through Tu BiShvat, tikkun olam and environmental action.

Try this

Q1. Outline the teaching of tza'ar ba'alei chayim. (2 marks)

• What the marker wants. The prohibition on causing unnecessary suffering to animals, with a Torah example (Exodus 23:12; Deuteronomy 22:6-7 or 25:4) or Bava Metzia 32b.

Q2. Explain how the teaching that "the land is Mine" (Leviticus 25:23) shapes Jewish environmental ethics. (4 marks)

• What the marker wants. Divine ownership, humans as tenants, shmita, limits on exploitation, a contemporary application.

Q3. Explain TWO Jewish ethical teachings relevant to environmental ethics. (5 marks)

• What the marker wants. Two distinct teachings, each with a Torah source, rabbinic development and a contemporary application.