 had a high school teacher. He taught social studies. I had him I think in my eleventh grade year and there's something he said that I never forgot. He would always say to us that in matters of politics and religion people speak with a degree of certainty inversely proportional to how much they know. And I think maybe one of the reasons that this stuck with me and I really don't remember anything else I learned in his class. I mean I probably it's in my memory drive hard drive back there somewhere but this is the only thing I can quote verbatim and I think maybe the reason is that over the years I've seen how accurate this observation is. It's quite stunning actually. In the mid-1990s here in Toronto I was coordinating Jewish educational programming on the university campuses here in Toronto. And one day in the beginning of the fall semester a student came to meet with me that was extremely distraught. Very upset. The student was majoring in environmental studies at York University and told me that the professor in the class remarked that the Hebrew Bible was responsible for the degradation of the Earth's environment. Now this student had virtually no Jewish educational background grew up with virtually no Jewish background but this is a student that identified as being a Jew and felt that the professor was maligning her faith her religion and she felt attacked personally as a Jew. So I asked what was it that the professor said? What exactly did the professor say? Even though I already knew I was pretty sure I knew what the answer was going to be. And the culprit was a verse in the beginning of Genesis in the beginning of the very first book of the Bible in the first chapter verse 28 and God blessed them that's Adam and Eve and God said to them be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and conquer it or subdue it. The Hebrew Vechiv Shuhah can be rendered in a number of different ways sometimes conquer it sometimes do it and have dominion over the fish of the seas and the birds of the heavens and over all the animals that roam the earth. And on the basis of this verse in Genesis the professor accused the Hebrew Bible Jewish scriptures of being responsible for the devastation of our planet. Now the truth is that this is not something that began in the 1990s. Lynn White who was an American professor of history writing in the 1960s specifically implicated this verse in Genesis as responsible for the environmental crisis and if we think that they had an environmental crisis in the 60s look at what's happened since then. So already back in the 60s people were concerned and Professor White blamed the crisis on the Hebrew scripture specifically this verse in the beginning of Genesis. The British historian Arnold Toynbee said pretty much the same writing in the 1960s he maintained that it was this passage in Genesis that permitted and directed mankind to exploit the earth's natural resources. The modern ecological movement emerged in those heady days of the 1960s and one of the most important works back then was Rachel Carson's The Silent Spring where she decried the harmful effects of pesticide use on the environment. So I asked this student that came to me that was so upset if it made any sense to make an assessment of the entire Jewish Bible and really an accusation against the entire Jewish Bible based upon citing a solitary verse one single verse without taking into consideration all of the other relevant material that appears in the Bible. That's a really a rhetorical question sort of a no-brainer and so I suggested that we study we do a project where we study together all the relevant material in the Hebrew scriptures and in the rabbinic writings that appear on this topic and the student was very enthusiastic. We began our study again at the beginning of the school year and after a number of months we were about to conclude our studies. We had met each week many weeks and as we were nearing the end of our studies I invited this student to a to be Schwat Seder. Now to be Schwat is the 15th day in the Hebrew month of Schwat and it is known as the New Year for Trees the Rosh Hashanah L'Ilanot. This holiday usually falls out around February and it's when the earliest blooming trees in Israel emerge from the cold winter and begin their growth and this day is considered the New Year for Trees for the purpose of calculating the various tithes which were basically biblical taxes that were taken to support the Levites the priests and the poor. There is an ancient practice going back hundreds of years to have a special meal on to be Schwat that is called a Seder just like we have a Seder on Passover the word Seder means order there's a particular order for the things we do during the evening so there's an ancient practice to have a to be Schwat Seder to have a special meal and during this evening the custom is to have various fruits that are featured that are grown in the land of Israel fruits and nuts and different colored wines white wine red wine mixing the wines or grape juice now this originally began as a cabalistic practice it's a deeply mystical program and today many people focus the discussion not so much on the cabalistic mystical significance of to be Schwat but they focus the discussion of the Seder on the themes of our relationship to nature our relationship to trees and lessons that we can derive from the different produce of the earth and the beauty of the world it basically in modern times has become more or less an ecological feast for many students experiencing to be Schwat for the first time it's a tremendous eye opener tremendous eye opener virtually none of the students that I met on campus when I was the rabbi here in Toronto for about five years on campus almost no one ever heard of such a thing as a to be Schwat Seder and the students that came to these saders learned that thousands of years think about this thousands of years before ecology became a popular cause Judaism had broad concerns and sensitive teachings about how we're to interact with the world around us imagine discovering like the student who came to me that your tradition your people had incredibly advanced teachings going back not hundreds of years thousands of years about concerns that the world only latched on to maybe in the 1960s the students that came to these to be Schwat Seder's learn about the numerous Jewish environmental groups today that are actively seeking to educate about these teachings advocate for these teachings and implement these ancient teachings the student who came to see me developed an incredibly intense pride in belonging to a people bearing these teachings and the student went on to become a committed Jew and a devoted Jewish environmental activist now what I'd like to do is return to that controversial passage in the beginning of Brachy Genesis chapter 1 verse 28 so God tells Adam and Eve in this passage that to fill the earth and conquer it develop it work with it that to harness the natural resources of the planet that's basically what they're told they're told they have a right to harness to work with develop the natural resources of the planet now is this a license to exploit and plunder which is basically the accusation of the environmental activists that I quoted earlier tonight is the Bible's mandate for us to develop and work with to harness the earth's resources is it license to exploit and plunder that's the question we want to ask in the very next verse you don't need to go too far in Genesis chapter 1 verse 29 the very next verse Adam and Eve are told that they do not have carte blanche to consume whatever food they desire they can't just eat or take whatever they want in the Garden of Eden their diets would be restricted to fruits and vegetables and grains the diet originally intended for human beings was a vegan diet this only changed about 10 generations later when Noah and his family emerged from the Ark after the flood and they were now for the first time since the creation of the world given permission to consume meat but there was still restrictions placed upon their consumption and hundreds of years later the dietary laws that were given to the Jewish people to Israel severely restricted the species that we could consume and preserve the seed of the original Edenic diet preserve the value the hope the promise that really our diet should be a vegan diet now it's impossible to understand I would put forward to you impossible to understand how the critics of our Bible could miss this critical passage found just one verse later after the passage that they seek to impune how serious are they about understanding what the Bible actually teaches the foundation of their polemic rests almost exclusively on that one verse in the first chapter of Genesis verse 28 and they miss the implications of the next verse verse 29 another important verse it's overlooked again just overlooked by those seeking to attack the Bible appears in the very next chapter of Genesis chapter 2 they don't have to become Bible scholars and master the whole Bible you find it pretty quickly if they just read on a page or so in chapter 2 of Genesis verse 15 we're told that God put Adam and Eve into the garden of Eden love the who was Shamra love the to work it who was Shamra and to guard it to watch over it to work it and to guard it so we're told that the world we live in needs to be cultivated and developed I would say that's the exact same thing that they were told in chapter 1 fill the world the chief shuha conquer it meaning master it master it develop it and that's what they're told in chapter 2 they're put in the garden of the to work the garden to develop it to cultivate it bread and medicines don't grow on trees we have to explore the world develop the world and extract from the world the necessities of life you know it's significant that the Torah as well the Torah that we have is not a finished product her that we have from God the Torah that sits in that arc behind me it's not a finished product God gave us a role to play in understanding the Torah in interpreting the Torah in exploring the Torah and in making rulings using the guidelines of the Torah God did not have to give us a role to play in the unfolding of the Torah God didn't have to do that everything could have been written in a massively huge book instead of having a book with you know you can held in one hand could have been a book that took up two or three libraries now have everything we would ever need to know God didn't do that not only could God have given us a huge book but any question that would arise could have been answered with further revelation God could have told us look if you get stuck you don't understand something just pray to me and I'll give you the answer I'll come down once again on the top of the mountain and I'll reveal what you should do I'll tell you what you should do but that's not the way the Torah is given to us God says to us you figure it out God says I've given you the raw ingredients I've given you the basic information you need in the Torah and work with it develop it study it learn it figure it out and that's the mandate that God gives us for his Torah for the spiritual revelation that he gave us because I'm not giving you a finished product I'm giving you the basics now work with it figure it out and the same thing happens with the physical world that God gives us it's not a finished product we don't walk up and find bread on trees medicine on trees we've got to work with the world that God gave us and develop the world and make advances and discover things and invent things that's why the Torah says we were put here love to work the world to develop it to cultivate it nature is breathtakingly beautiful but not only is nature beautiful so are the incredible discoveries and advances made by science and scientists over the years it is absolutely incredible when you think about what scientists have discovered and developed over the centuries separating of conjoint twins think about that with that been possible even 50 years ago and it's tremendous beauty to what scientists human beings have developed and discovered however there's supposed to be a balance there has to be a balance and we're told not only to work the earth and develop the earth and cultivate the world we're directed to guard it and protect it and the word used for guarding the world Lishamra is significant that word is significant because the Bible speaks about people that are shown rim they are people who are stewards over the property of others this is found in the 22nd chapter of Schmo the 22nd chapter of Exodus the laws of the trustees the watchers people that are watching that are responsible for the property of others and they are to return this property in a condition no worse than they receive the property when you are guarding and watching someone's property you're responsible for it and that's what God says to us we're in the Garden of Eden you're here to work the world but to guard it to protect it to watch over it we're responsible for it so Genesis chapter 2 verse 15 describes our relationship to the world as showm rim we are watchers we are stewards we are trustees and we're responsible to take care of that which was placed into our hands how can any reasonable person assert that the Bible gives us license to rape the environment how can any serious scholar say that the Bible gives us the license to destroy and ravage the environment there's a beautiful rabbinic teaching in the Midrash to Kohela's Ecclesiastes it says when God created Adam he led him around the Garden of Eden and said to Adam behold my works he said case you didn't notice Adam look at this world I put you in behold my works see how beautiful they are how excellent is all that I have created for your sake that I created God says see to it that you do not spoil or destroy my world for if you do there'll be no one to repair it after you again this is not some modern rabbinic sermon that was given 30 years ago this is a Midrashic teaching that goes back thousands of years this is a sensitivity of our sages that comes straight from the Bible now the preceding passages make it clear that mankind's place in the world is responsibility not license that is our place in the world we're given permission to develop but not to ruin to use but to preserve now from the assignment of our role and the fact that we were given the role as showman as trustees we can see that the conceptual reason the conceptual reason for the need to protect and preserve the world stems from the reality that it does not absolutely belong to us this is something that we have a very difficult time coming to grips with because we think that we're the boss we think that we're the owners and the truth is and this is the major message of the Bible you do not own the world you are stewards of the world you're given permission to use the world you do not absolutely own it one of the central institutions of the Bible that concretize this idea is the Sabbath the six work days were assigned to us to carry out our role to develop and creatively harness the world's resources that's what we're told six days you shall work but the seventh day is a sap so those six days were as a time specifically designated for us to carry out that assignment God put us here again love the to work the world to develop the world to harness the world's resources but the seventh day is one when we are commanded to cease our creative interference with the natural order that's what the Sabbath is the Sabbath is a day where we're told you are to stop your interference with the creative with your creative interference of the natural order and by this by this ceasing and stopping we express our recognition that what that the world is not ours but it belongs to its maker that's one of the major messages of the Sabbath to realize we're not the masters and the owners of the world the same concept by the way is expressed in the institution of the sabbatical year the shmita every seven years in the land of Israel the owners of the land are not to work it or harvest it but to let it lay fallow let the land rest it doesn't belong to them to keep on harvesting it and harvesting and harvesting it the person who feels they really own it would say why can't I take the fruit and the produce of the seventh year it's mine I'll do whatever I want know the Bible says it's not yours and you're commanded not to harvest not to work the land in the seventh year the same is true of the Yovill the Jubilee year every 50 years land that was sold people sometimes have to sell their land it reverts to the original owners during the 50th year it doesn't belong to you ultimately it's a God tells us that this in the Jubilee year the land returns to its original owners these institutions among others by the way the Sabbath every seven days a sabbatical year every seven years the Jubilee every 50 years teach us that we have no absolute ownership over the world it's interesting by the way that in biblical Hebrew there's not even a word for absolute ownership in biblical Hebrew all we have is a word that implies and denotes possession that we possess certain things we're holding on to certain things but there's no word in biblical Hebrew expressing the idea of absolute ownership the Talmud expresses this in many places just one example in tractate brachotes 35 B the Talmud has two verses from the book of Psalms that the Talmud says they contradict each other seemingly they contradict one verse in the book of psalms says God belongs the world and everything in it that's what the book of psalms says to God belongs everything in the world the world and everything in it belongs to God but the Talmud says but wait a second there's another verse in the book of psalms which says ha shamaim shamaim la donoi the heavens belong to God the hearts not only when they are dumb but the earth he gave to mankind so the Talmud says which is it one verse says that the earth belongs to God the other verse says the earth belongs to mankind it was given to us so the Talmud resolves this seeming contradiction by saying one verse is speaking before you say a blessing and the other verse is speaking about after you make a blessing meaning that when we want to eat food the purpose of saying a blessing is basically asking permission it's saying please we don't own the fruit we don't own it we have to ask permission so before we say a blessing to God belongs the earth and everything in it once we say a blessing we say please God then gives it to us here you welcome the institution of saying blessings for food is another teaching in Judaism that helps us understand that we don't own the world we need to ask permission and then be nice and say thank you now there's a there's a biblical Geneva convention for the environment the Bible has its Geneva convention for our relationship to the environment and it's found in the book of Dvarim in Deuteronomy chapter 20 verses 19 to 20 and in these two verses which describe a wartime situation describes what's going on during a war the Torah says that soldiers are prohibited from chopping down fruit trees to use the wood of those trees to lay siege to an enemy city you may want to use the woods for a battering ram maybe you want to build a catapult whatever you want to do you cannot chop down fruit trees while waging war against an enemy instead of needlessly destroying a tree that produces fruit you can use a tree that doesn't produce fruit or a fruit tree that's dead but if a tree is producing fruit and it has that value you cannot chop it down even in a war we're talking about a time of life and death we're talking about a time of great need this is not just vacation time this is a time normally where people are working at high gear and the Torah says even at that time when you're fighting for your life you cannot chop down a fruit tree now if this kind of restriction is placed upon soldiers during war which is clearly a situation of great need we can see how seriously the Torah takes ecological concerns the Talmud and rabbinic codes like Maimonides extend this prohibition beyond cutting down fruit trees during a time of war to the wanton destruction or wasting of anything of value at all and at any time so lest you think that the only thing prohibited is chopping down fruit trees the Talmud and our codes insist that we're prohibited that this prohibition called Baltaschit don't destroy is an absolute prohibition against wasting or destroying anything of value at any time and any place it's a very wide-ranging prohibition and I believe and others teach that this prohibition of Baltaschit has practical applications in Jewish law today to wasting things such as food fuel paper electricity water things that we often use very casually the Torah seems to say that's prohibited if you don't need to run the water in your house turn off the sink you don't need to keep the lights on maybe don't keep them on there are thousands of examples no one's going to be perfect but if we're sensitive to the mandate of the Torah Baltaschit don't waste doesn't take a rocket scientist to look around the world today and see how much is being wasted how much food is thrown out unnecessarily there have been a teaching in the Midrash to the book of Exodus that teaches that when God had the Israelites build a portable sanctuary the Mishkan in the desert after the Exodus from Egypt he specifically charged them to use acacia wood I'd say sheet him in the construction of the tabernacle and the Midrash explains why that would specifically so the Midrash says because the acacia tree does not produce fruit and so the Midrash says that if God did not allow us to use fruit bearing trees for the making of the tabernacle in the desert we should similarly be careful when building our homes that we live in and not to use fruit producing trees for the wood and to be careful about the environmental impact of what we do the Talmud lists by the way a number of people who will never see blessing from the activities their activities during their lifetimes and one of those people who will never see blessing from their activity during their lifetime are those who destroy good trees it's not something which is just whatever what's the big deal the Torah says it is a big deal now there's another way in which the Torah teaches us about the importance of maintaining the integrity of the natural order many commentaries to the Torah say that this concern for the integrity of the natural order is the motivation for biblical prohibitions against mixing different seeds in the field interbreeding different species or wearing garments of wool and linen the Torah says that you cannot wear a garment that has wool and linen mixed together so when you buy a suit for example my suit was inspected is a place here in Toronto that inspects your clothing and it looks where they normally would be let's say in the collar they would stuff the collar line the collar and it's often a mixture of wool and linen they make sure it doesn't have it in your clothing and the Bible prohibits that why why not mix wool and linen so some commentaries point out it's just teaching us this idea that we're not to alter the world and play God the Torah speaks about something called Sidrae Bureishi the order of creation and unless you have to don't mess around with the order of creation is a fascinating story in the Talmud tractate Shabbat 53 B they tell about a man who had a wife that died and left him with an infant child a nursing baby and he was too poor to afford to hire a wet nurse so the Talmud says that an incredible thing happened the man grew two breasts and he nursed his baby so one opinion in the Talmud says wow what a great person he must have been that this miracle happened for him but then the Talmud concludes by saying no he must have been a very low person that for his sake the order of creation was altered it didn't have to be altered if he was on a higher spiritual level he could have won the lottery he could have found some money and he would have realized this wasn't an accident it wasn't an accident I found the money it was provided by God so I can hire a nurse to the nurse my baby but this person was so spiritually dense that they would have said oh how lucky I am I found some money they would not have attributed this to God so a person that's as thick as this he would not understand that God was providing for him unless something incredibly odd took place and the Talmud says that is an indication of his thickness and his lowliness that God had to alter the natural order for him the Torah dates back 3,300 years think about this 3,300 years and it had what is probably the oldest legislation in the history of the world about city planning we have people today that that's what they major in a university majoring in in city planning probably back in 1940 they didn't even have such a major and 3,300 years ago the Torah had legislation about city planning the Torah required that the 48th Levitical cities there were special cities where the Levites lived and there were 48 such cities the Torah required that these cities had a green belt of 1000 cubits that surrounded them all around as a migrash as an open space as well as 2000 cubits beyond this open space for agricultural use Rashi explains that the purpose of this migrash the purpose of this open space was an amenity for the beautification of the city and the pleasure of the inhabitants you can't just have building and building and building and building and building to no end we see that here in Toronto anytime you find an inch of space a building goes up on it we're choking here the Torah says 3,300 years ago you can't do that you have to have a city that's planned with an open area a green belt around it and in that open area that migrash you can't have any building you can't have any agricultural use it's just there for beauty for recreation and for the pleasure of the inhabitants now my monody says that by extension and by analogy this teaching does not only apply to the 48 Levitical cities he teaches it applies to every city is supposed to build itself like that now most of what I've shared with you tonight seems like a no-brainer this is not seem to me terribly unusual don't waste don't pollute it's not rocket science the big question is what doctors refer to as compliance anyone as a doctor here knows that you can have great medicine for a patient if they don't take it as goonish health and as we say in dish it's not going to help and many people are either not motivated or not disciplined or whatever problem they have they don't take their meds so doctors are concerned with something called compliance how do you get people to do what they're supposed to do and that's the big question here with the Torah's teachings about Baltaschka not wasting not destroying not spoiling the world how do we get ourselves how do we get ourselves and the world to implement these reasonable teachings of the Torah you know the mistake of Greek philosophy in Greek philosophy they had what is referred to as the theory of knowledge Greek ethics was based upon the theory of knowledge the Greeks believe the early Greeks believed that the problem with ethics is that people don't know that which is right and they believe that all you need to do to produce ethical moral people that live properly is teach them that which is good if people know the good they'll do the good that was what the Greeks believed it's hard to believe that the Greeks who were so smart that they actually believed this they actually believed that people are like computers and you put input in output out and they're going to do exactly what they're programmed to do we know how false that is because we know that people are not just brains we're not computers we're not so logical where if we know that which is right we're automatically going to do it because the human being is not just a brain we have a will we have a heart we have desires and the big problem we face is that when there's a battle between our head and our heart we know who's going to win the Torah says that the heart is very very powerful in the book of Deuteronomy chapter 4 the Torah says that our task in life is to connect our head to a heart or actually to connect our heart to our head the Torah says you have to know you have to know but then you have to take knowledge in your head and bring it to your heart you have to begin to actually to feel those things that you know to feel those things you know every person on the planet believe me knows thou shalt not steal you're not going to find a person on planet earth who's going to say to you you're not supposed to seal I never knew that why don't you come up with that one every human being on the planet knows thou shalt not steal how many people on the planet steal it's incredible how much stealing goes on of course we rationalize it we come up with ways of justifying it it's only a little bit everyone does it they assume I'm going to take the towel from the hotel whatever I mean everyone has ways of rationalizing inappropriate behavior and so the Torah says it's not enough to know things you've got to feel it so the idea of taking something doesn't belong to you has to make you sick to your stomach and until you reach the level where you feel what you know what you know is useless the brain is such an impotent part of who we are and that's what the Greeks believe for some reason just teach people the right the good and they'll be good so the real problem today is not so much ignorance people know they shouldn't destroy the environment the real problem today is selfishness laziness greediness an individual walking down the street eating a candy bar doesn't feel like holding on to the wrapper until they get to a garbage pail for it right on the street I was once driving in New York never forget this and someone threw half a watermelon out of their car onto the West Side Highway but look at I mean Toronto used to be famous as a clean city I've been here 25 years I've seen changes it's not as clean as it used to be why what happened did little pieces of candy wrapper become so heavy people couldn't hold on to it so there's an ethic there is a sensitivity there's a moral sensitivity to wanting to have a clean city and to realizing it's simply wrong it's disgusting to throw your garbage on the floor that's the problem it's not ignorance it's laziness it's selfishness it's greed corporations that are more concerned with the bottom line and with paying off their investors rather than what's going to be in the environment in 25 or 50 years they're so incredibly short-sighted it's simply a matter of greed why spoil the profit margin by making our companies more ecologically responsible it's just not profitable so we have today a moral problem not an intellectual problem we have a spiritual problem not a lack of knowledge what the Torah is concerned with primarily is teaching us how to be responsible how to be sensitive human beings how to be people with the ability to exercise self-control how do you teach people to have self-control it's not so easy you know Dennis Prager once said that it's not a bad thing for a little kid to learn and they can't eat every candy in the store he used to say the first English words he learned how to read was pure vegetable shortening only right he grew up in a home where he was taught to keep kosher he wanted to have a candy bar he would look at the ingredients but you're teaching this to kids that are four five six seven eight years old it's becoming part of their guts it's because it's becoming part of who they are you can't sprinkle a little bit of knowledge on an adult after a lifetime of not having any exercise over themselves any working at self-control the Torah is to a great extent a handbook a guidebook to learn self-control self-discipline and to teach us values the values that we need to use those skills of self-control and self-discipline for the Torah spends a lot of time teaching us about how to get along with our friends and neighbors tremendous teachings in the Torah for example not speaking Lashon Hara not gossiping not speaking about other people this is rampant you want to do an amazing exercise monitor your conversations over the next week listen to what people talk about at work and listen to how many of our conversations are about other people about my neighbor about my spouse about my boss about my employee the Torah has a tremendous amount of teaching about how we're to get along with other people because unless we can get along with other people which is a daily activity almost every minute of the day we're not going to be the kind of people who can control ourselves when it comes to how we care for the environment if we can't take care of the bottom line when it comes to being responsible and disciplined and our interactions with other human beings it's going to be almost impossible for us to be the kind of high moral people that are going to be disciplined when it comes to taking care of the environment so the Torah's major concern is to teach people how to perfect their character traits and become more complete more whole people I want to conclude by sharing with you an amazing passage from the book of Yicheskel in the prophet Ezekiel in the 47th chapter the 47th chapter of Yicheskel the prophet was shown a vision of a polluted ocean a polluted ocean with fish and other marine life that are dying everything's dying and then we're told that a small trickle of water emerged from underneath the holy temple this is what he sees in his vision an entirely polluted ocean everything is dropping dead because it's such foul water the actual the word the word that's used in the prophet here is the word for polluted water the kind of pollution you see in an open sewer that's the word that the Torah uses in the vision that's what he's seeing that's how disgusting this water is and he sees a little trickle of water that's coming from underneath the threshold of the temple we know that water symbolizes Torah throughout our rabbinic writings water is symbolic of Torah and the temple the holy temple that is the sanctuary that's the place of the Torah and what happens in this vision this little trickle of waters little stream of water grows to become a great stream it increases in intensity and size and what happens is as it's growing the shoreline of this great emerging water you see or he sees in the vision all kinds of beautiful fruit trees growing previously there was a polluted ocean where everything was dying and as the water pours into this he sees in the vision beautiful fruit trees and the leaves do not wither and the fruits never stop growing and when these waters finally reach the ocean the polluted ocean waters the prophet is told are healed that's the word that's used the waters are healed they were diseased and now this water that trickles in and comes in heals the waters and all of the fish that were dying in the waters they return to health they restore to health what do we see here we see a vision that one day the paradise that we once had in the Garden of Eden which was an ecological paradise will be restored and how will that happen through the teachings of the Torah