Following Nature’s Lead

Our place in nature provides a central theme of philosophy and religion. All the major faiths address this fundamental relationship. According to Abraham J. Heschel, who was a professor of ethics and mysticism at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, “Biblical thinking has concentrated, in discussing Nature, primarily upon the sublimity of Nature. Perhaps no other literature in the world has paid so much attention to what is sublime about Nature.” Furthermore, the Bible provides guidance about how we should treat our environment. Heschel observed, “the idea of the Sabbath is the central idea in the Bible. . . . What is the idea of the Sabbath? First of all, to abstain from labor, to stop exploiting Nature. Six days a week we are given the right to labor, we have the privilege and duty to labor. Even to master the forces of Nature. On the seventh day that right has been suspended.” The Bible also includes provisions about the seventh year, the sabbatical, “in which it is forbidden to sow, to reap. This is the Sabbath of Nature, the Sabbath of the soil. It is the year in which man must abstain from exploiting nature.”