By Rabbi Fred Scherlinder Dobb

It’s a choice between life and death, says Deuteronomy 30:19 - we should choose life (uvacharta bachayim), so that we and our descendants may live. Intergenerational survival is on the line, today, with the ecological choices we each make. Protecting Creation with all the strength we can muster is a mitzvah¹, which reverberates l’dor vador, across the generations.

By a wide margin, the Obama-Biden ticket best chooses life, by better protecting our sacred, fragile home. With a destabilized global climate, “choosing life” goes way beyond issues of choice and rights - it means taking responsibility for preserving our environment rather than attempting singlemindedly to plunder it. John McCain once seemed to appreciate this responsibility more than many Republicans, but the policies he has espoused during his presidential campaign and his choice of running mate now put him at the back of the pack.

Barack Obama, on the other hand, feels this sense of responsibility in his kishkes; so does Joe Biden. That’s why we should choose them. Let these four specifics suffice:

1. Five million new green jobs, or “drill baby drill”?! That’s the starkest choice we face. A centerpiece of Barack Obama’s plan melds economic and environmental concerns, marshals the resources necessary to retool our entire approach to energy use, and makes curbing carbon a top national priority. Senator McCain on the other hand - who has some two dozen Big Oil lobbyists on his campaign staff, showing where his loyalties lie - was nominated at the convention whose most memorable chant focuses on extracting more fossil fuels and burning them. The Republican plan would entrench our oil addiction, despoil more coastlines, and intensify climate change (and wouldn’t even work, since it takes a decade to get usable oil out of the ground). Seventeen hundred years ago Rav Zutra² identified energy efficiency as a Jewish mandate, under the rubric of bal tashchit / thou shall not waste; today, Sen. Obama is the candidate espousing an energy plan that is consonant with Jewish values and tradition.
2. More on carbon and climate: both campaigns favor cap-and-trade carbon schemes, so either would improve on the inaction of the Bush years. But which plan represents greater change and greater protection? Sen. Obama would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050, as suggested by the IPCC’s³ two thousand scientists, and he has outlined the mechanisms and funding by which to accomplish this necessary goal. Sen. McCain calls for only a 60% reduction, with fuzzy details, and non-existent funding (while dealing further tax breaks to the oil companies). Deut. 22:8 outlines the “precautionary principle,” meaning ‘play it safe’ - Obama abides by it; McCain doesn’t. (And then there’s Gov. Palin, who doubts the science and obfuscates the issue.) Climate change threatens the poorest among us, while our tradition says “justice justice you shall pursue” (Deut. 16:20). Climate change pushes endangered species and whole ecosystems over the brink, though we are to guard or improve Creation (Gen. 2:15). And climate change threatens our own progeny, where we are told to “choose life, that we and our descendants may live” (Deut. 30:19). Our choice is clear: Obama.
3. The competing party statements make a telling case - the first two items on the Democratic Party’s 2008 environmental platform look forward with protection in mind, namely “Preventing and Responding to Future Catastrophies” and “Stewardship of Our Planet and Natural Resources.” In contrast, the Republican equivalent puts maintaining our profligacy first; its opening section is “Growing Our Energy Supply,” long before any focus on responsible use. Why don’t the ‘conservatives’ emphasize conserving?! “Stewardship,” the very word in the Democratic platform, is a deep Jewish value rooted in the “enlightened dominion” of our creation story - as Rashi⁴ commented 900 years ago on Genesis 1:26, “if humanity merits it, they will rule (yirdu)” over creation; “if not, they will fall (yeradu).” The Obama-Biden direction is one of ‘enlightened rule,’ avoiding the pitfalls of the McCain-Palin approach.
4. Regulation: Both Barack Obama and Joe Biden have long track records of favoring reasonable, effective regulation - be it on mortgage-backed securities, or greenhouse gas emissions. As the Vice Presidential debate made clear, John McCain is a knee-jerk deregulator who, even well into the current crisis on Wall Street, wanted to extend financial deregulation. (Recall that Sarah Palin, in her interview with Katie Couric, could not cite a single instance in which McCain supported additional regulation!) McCain earned the ire of the Jewish and environmental communities alike with his annual votes against tightening automotive fuel economy standards; those years of backsliding, of lost research and development and lost opportunity, are responsible for much our overreliance on oil (including Mideast oil) today. Jewish values, from the Torah and Mishnah⁵ on down, favor strong environmental regulation, and place the public good ahead of private gain⁶ - consonant with Sen. Obama’s plans and proclivities, yet diametrically opposed to those of Sen. McCain.

In sum: protecting the environment with all we’ve got is an extension of Jewish texts and values into the public sphere. It’s also an area of broad consensus within the ‘official’ Jewish community, as seen through the participation of all major movements and organizations in the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life and elsewhere. No non-profit Jewish group can or should endorse a particular candidate or political party; federal law, IRS codes, and the spiritual and coalitional nature of Jewish life all preclude doing so. But when one considers the weight of Jewish teaching on this subject, and the strong statements of our agencies and organizations on environmental issues, the choice is to my mind a clear one.

“Choose life, that you and your descendants may live.” This line resonates through the generations, plays a prominent role on Yom Kippur⁷, and stands out as a key Jewish value and way of seeing the world. Apropos of that passage in Deut. 30:19, this essay is not meant to cast Obama as the candidate of life and blessing, and McCain that of death and curse. We should strive in all our campaign-related discourse to maintain respect and civility, cultivate humility, and avoid hyberbole or oversimplification. Still, the difference between their plans (as well as their respective party platforms) will spell life-and-death differences for untold ecosystems, species, and even people.

For all these reasons, let us bless and celebrate and protect Creation - and restore America’s integrity at home and leadership in the world - by doing all that we can to elect Joe Biden as VP, and Barack Obama as the next President of this great land.

– Rabbi Fred Scherlinder Dobb is (for identification purposes only, with no institutional endorsements implied) Rabbi of Adat Shalom Reconstructionist Congregation in Bethesda MD; immediate past President of the Washington Board of Rabbis; and a long-time leader in Jewish and interfaith organizations including the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation and the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life.

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Sources and Notes¹“Mitzvah,” meaning ‘commandment’, commonly connotes ‘a good deed’; both meanings apply here²Babylonian Talmud, tractate Shabbat, 67b

³The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) includes the brightest climate minds from dozens of countries across the globe, and embodies the most robust scientific consensus available; these 2,000 or so scientists collectively shared last year’s Nobel Peace Prize

⁴Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Yitzhak), 1040-1105, from Troyes (France), foremost medieval Bible commentator

⁵see for instance Leviticus 25 on shmittah/sabbatical and yovel/jubilee, or Bava Kama Ch. 3 on the limits to siting environmentally hazardous businesses; more at www.coejl.org and elsewhere

⁶see for instance Bava Kama 50b on the preference for public land over private, and Vayikra Rabbah 4:6 for the obvious primacy of the collective good over an individual’s preference

⁷many synagogues’ Yom Kippur morning Torah reading; traditional liturgy and piyutim emphasize the ‘13 attributes’ (Exodus 34:6-7) whose message is similar regarding the One in whose Image we are created

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