Religion and the Anthropocene

  The Jewish faith places an immense importance on the connection between humans and the earth. This is obvious in the Hebrew word for land, adamah , very closely connected to the name of the first man, Adam in the Book of Genesis. Adam was literally made from “the dust of the ground,” according to Genesis 2:7. Through my study of the Anthropocene it seems to me that this understanding of people as an integral part of the land should allow Judaism to embrace the idea of this new epoch, and recognize that people present a significant geological force, especially in recent times. In October 2015 A group of 425 American rabbis from a “broad spectrum of American Jewish life,” Reformed and Orthodox rabbis alike, got together, shortly after the Pope’s affirmation of the climate crisis in Laudato Si´ , to present how Judaism’s view of human relationships with the Earth and to each other can present a framework for a religious solution to the climate crisis. “ To the Jewish People, to al