GIVE THE GAIA A BREAK

The other day, realizing that I had been in my study for way too many hours, I ventured into the back yard for a few breaths of fresh air.  It was a gorgeous day. The temperature was in the mid-sixties, a few wisps of cloud drifted in the sky, and a light breeze filtered through the air. It was hard to believe that with so beautiful a day as it was, there were many people succumbing to the Corona virus throughout our nation.

But what has been a tragedy for human life on earth, has turned out to be quite a blessing for the earth itself. Satellite photography has ascertained a dramatic drop in air pollution since populations around the world have been subject to lockdown. The smog has dissipated, smoke-spewing factories have gone dark, and auto exhaust has decreased to a bare minimum. Air quality in areas as diverse as Milan, New Delhi, Jakarta, the Himalayas and elsewhere have dramatically improved. I guess this is what one refers to as the silver lining in an otherwise period of darkness.

This Shabbat, we bring the third book of the Torah, Vayikra or Leviticus, to a close. We do so by studying a double portion: B’har-B’hukotai. The portion begins with a record of God speaking to Moshe at Mount Sinai. God instructs Moshe to speak to the Children of Israel as follows:

Ki tavo’u el ha’aretz

When you finally enter the land

Asher ani notein lakhem

The land which I am giving to you

V’shavta ha’aretz shabbat lAdonai

Make sure you grant the land rest, a real Shabbat for the Lord (Leviticus 25:2).

It really is an extraordinary use of the term Shabbat, which would typically apply to human beings. Humans work six days a week and then rest on the seventh, but now, the Torah goes on to explain, the Israelites are to work the land for six years and leave it fallow in the seventh. This mitzvah is known as Shemitah, which means “release.” It releases the earth from is unending cycle of production.

To give the land a Shabbat is almost to treat it as a fellow human being. It’s a dynamic that underscores the intimacy with and respect that the Israelites were to have for their new land.  They treat it like a virtual human being that requires rest in order to be productive. And we find this intimacy between humans and non-human subjects among all those who take their profession seriously. It’s like BB King and Lucille, which is the name he gave all his guitars. It’s like the gardeners who speak lovingly to their flowers, so that they grow to their fullness. It’s like the sailor who sails a ship that is not an it, but a she. So, too, our ancestors worked an earth that they knew from the start was a living thing, and this before science told us just how alive the earth was, brimming with nutrients, microorganisms and species beyond number.

When we speak of earth as having a Shabbat, we speak in a very spiritual vein. It almost borders on an idolatry in which nature is elevated to a stature it does not deserve.  Then again, if we think not of earth as the holy dirt of Israel, but rather as the distinct planet of a solar system, knowing just how rare this planet of ours is in the whole scheme of the universe (there seems to be nothing quite like it), would that not be proof positive to treat it with a deference, if not reverence, due something as rare and precious as this little blue planet?

If there was any doubt about the pressures we place on the planet where we live, working it as we do day-and-night, it should now be very clear seeing how its atmosphere and air quality improved once we ceased our own labors. Sadly, all this became transparent by virtue of a terrible pandemic that forced us all inside. God never intended the Earth to rest like this. But maybe God is sending us a message of sorts.

Once we have emerged from this pandemic and return to a life that we are more familiar with, perhaps this experience will have taught us something about how better to interface with our home planet. The Greeks called her Gaia. It’s a word that we would borrow for words like geography. And like our Torah of old instructed us, every now and then, you gotta give a Gaia a break.

Shabbat Shalom Everybody. Have a peaceful and healthy Shabbat. And let’s remember to treat the earth as lovingly as we would our home, because after all, it is our home.