In this second session of Beth Lida's new series on Judaism & the environment, we look to Halachah. After recognizing the theological significance of our being creatures in a created world, we ask what responsibilities such a realization entails?

The class focuses on the mitzvah of Bal Tashchit (do not destroy), and we trace its development from being a regulation forbidding a kind of total war into being the regulation of our use of natural resources. Finally, we attempt a kind of rehabilitation to develop a more robust account of Bal Tashchit, one that serves the very precarious moment in which we live.