During Rosh Hashanah, rabbi calls on Jews to commit to climate action

On Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, celebrants traditionally blow the shofar – a ram’s horn trumpet.

“Hearing the blast of the shofar calls us to awaken to the reality of the world that we are living in, the world that human beings have in many ways created the conditions of, and to really contemplate what we need to do differently,” says Sharon Brous, the senior rabbi of IKAR, a Jewish community in Los Angeles.

She says this call to build a better world requires Jews to act on climate.

“From the very beginning of the Torah, of the Hebrew Bible, we’re told that when God began to create the heaven and the Earth, God created human beings whose job was … to care for the Earth and to serve it and to protect it,” she says.

Brous says that humans are harming God’s creation by burning fossil fuels and polluting the environment.

But she says Rosh Hashanah provides an opportunity to commit to change:

“We say on that day, ‘Hayom harat olam. This day is the birthday of the world.’ … And we recognize the possibility of rebirth and renewal, not only for the Earth, but really for all of us as individuals and for us as a human community.”