We all know that R. Zalman z”l based his renewal of Judaism on the assertion that we are living in the midst of a paradigm shift of fundamental proportions. As he said for many years, the photo of the earth taken from space made it possible for human beings to see themselves as inhabitants of a planet rather than a country or city or ethnic group. In addition, and especially in his later years, he spoke of the Earth, Gaia, as a living and conscious being, the Shechinah herself, the partzuf/face of the Divine to which he could relate.
Embedded in this understanding is something much deeper than a change in perspective. It implies a radical shift in the understanding of the relationship of humanity to the planet. All the other changes which we like to call paradigm shifts are subsets of this one, overarching umbrella. And, while I have made this point many times in my teaching in the AOP and in many other places, it is only in the past weeks that what is implied in R. Zalman’s paradigm shift has become clearer.
First, the current pandemic is [no longer even] the latest in a series of messages sent by the planet to us. It’s reminded me of the story of the person who lived on the riverbank and was awakened one morning by a radio message that the river was rising and people should move to higher ground. The person, trusting in God, doesn’t respond to this message nor to the several attempts at rescue which come along. In the end, the person drowns and complains to God about not having been saved, to which God replies that I sent you several messages and you ignored them! Fires followed by flood in Australia, locusts in Africa, fires from California to British Columbia, droughts and flooding in the US south and midwest, and the destruction of habitats confining animals to smaller areas where viruses can more easily propagate and jump from species to species, are the reactions of our Mother to a wasteful, self-centred way of life in a world with too many people, an unwillingness to support one another, an addiction to growth, and self-indulgent travel.
Because my work load has slowly decreased over the past month, I’ve had a chance to look at my wish list of books and discovered one called Defiant Earth which had been on my list for at least a year.* In it, the author asserts that the transition into a new epoch in the history of the planet, the Anthropocene, constitutes no less than a rupture, a radical break with the Earth’s evolution, a paradigm shift in which humanity has now become so powerful that we are changing the fundamentals of the balance which nurtured us in the previous epoch, the Holocene. “The new epoch reflects both a multiplication of human power and an activation of dormant forces in the Earth System. Power on Earth is not a zero-sum phenomenon; the power of both humans and nature has gained strength.” (ch. 3)
Even when I still thought of paradigm shift in human terms, when the shift was primarily in our understanding of our relationship to the planet, I realized that this paradigm shifting was not all sweetness and light. There are many forces, mostly human, who have much to lose if, as Clive Hamilton wrote, the beginning of the Anthropocene epoch requires a rethinking of all our beliefs. And so, we humans are divided into at least two primary camps. One argues that the current situation is an incremental one and that its difficulties can be resolved within inherited paradigms. The other acknowledges the incredible power we have amassed, enough to change the chemical balances of the oceans, melt icecaps, extinguish species, and unleash forces beyond our control.
Like the Ishbitzer, Hamilton argues that we can challenge the planet and attempt to control it, but that is a challenge we cannot win. So stated also R. Mordechai Yosef: evil can only delay God’s plan, but cannot alter it. So the question is what kind of human being will manage this power. Will it be one who believes that we can control the planet itself and thus continue to use humanity’s power with arrogance, likely leading to the destruction or at least the radical curtailment of our species? Or will it be one who is humbled by the awesome power both of humanity and of the planet, seeking a true partnership with Gaia in moving into the future (yir’ah ila’ah to the Alter Rebbe, the Precautionary Principle in current nomenclature)?
This is the week when we experience again the miraculous passage through the sea. In this early moment in our history, when the power balance of today could only be dimly seen, we remember that the sea split not so much because of Moshe and his staff but because Nachshon walked in up to his nose. It was only then, when the human and the divine wills met, that the sea opened and we began the next stage in our own history, that of becoming God’s partners in the fulfilment of the possibilities inherent in this creation.
This year, the passage through the opened sea is not only about us. It is about all of humanity of which we are a small part. It is about whether we will take the insights embedded in our tradition of the true nature of this creation and share them, along with others who have similar insights. Will we choose again, as human beings, to stand at Sinai and enter into a new and uncharted relationship with the Cosmic Mind or will we, as midrash relates, be among those too addicted to our habits that we refuse the opportunity and so disappear from Earth’s stage?
May we listen to the messages which our Mother, Shechinah, Gaia is sending us and may we rise to the occasion and share in the creation of a new and redeemed reality in the time ahead.
Chag Same’ach, Mo’adim l’simchah, and may our redemption come soon.
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*Defiant Earth: The Fate of Humans in the Anthropocene, Clive Hamilton (2017; Polity). I’m reading the ebook, so citing page numbers isn’t useful.