All who wound God's works, wound God's image. ‑Zohar

In the time that the Holy One created the first human,
he took him to all the trees of Gan Eden and said to him,
"See my works, how lovely and praiseworthy they are,
and all that I created, for your sake I created it.
Put your mind [to this], so you won’t ruin or destroy my world, for if you do ruin,
there are none who will repair after you.”  — Kohelet Rabbah on Eccl. 7:13


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Liberation and the Land

This workshop about liberation, redemption and ecology was taught at the Rabbis for Human Rights Conference in Dec 2006. Please note that I had a very sore throat and that my voice does not sound like this normally! The first two thirds of the workshop can be downloaded below. Please note that I had a very sore throat that day (– you can hear my normal voice in many of the music tracks here).

The second third of a workshop on "An Earth Covenant Perspective on Human Rights" has just been put up for the first time on Oct 29, 2008. It's been pretty carefully edited to about two-thirds of the way through, but I decided not to wait another four months after having this in the wings for so long. That means you'll here pauses, squeaks and 'um's towards the end, but the content is the same. I'll link to a fully edited version when it's done.

The basic question: are human rights founded on human uniqueness and superiority compatible with ecology, which assumes equality between species? What Jewish sources can help us navigate between these two paradigms? You can also read the article in Tikkun which deals with many of the same themes as the workshop here.

"An Earth Covenant Perspective on Human Rights"

Download/Listen to Part 1

Download/Listen to Part 2


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Design in progress © Rabbi David Mevorach Seidenberg 2006