Our generation has been privileged to witness not only the miracle of the blooming of Israel’s deserts, but the emergence of the Jewish State as a global leader in environmental innovation,  making the Bible come to life and, to paraphrase Isaiah, causing the Jewish people to become a “renewable” light unto the nations.

While much of North America recovers from a polar vortex that caused record breaking cold weather, Israel is getting ready for spring with next week’s holiday of Tu B’Shvat. According to Jewish tradition, the 15th day of the month of Shvat is the birthday of the trees and an appropriate time to reflect upon our relationship with the natural world.

Genesis begins by seeming to grant man complete reign over nature in God’s initial charge to Adam to “fill the earth and conquer it (1:28).”  This permission is quickly limited just a few verses later, when it says, “God placed man in the Garden of Eden to work it and to guard it (2:15).” In Hebrew, “to work” (“l’avda”) conotes our positive responsibilities while “to guard” (“lishamra”) implies negative responsibilities.  Think about the police force’s motto to “serve and protect.”  Working the land means that we have to plant, till and take steps to care for the world, while guarding the land means we must not engage in destructive actions like pollution and waste.  Because God created the natural world and everything in it, each blade of grass is infused with a certain degree of significance. In today’s age of numerous environmental concerns, we have the unique ability, and urgent responsibility, to take the natural resources that God created and improve upon them for the benefit of all of humanity.

Nowhere are environmental issues more urgent than in the Land of Israel.  In His infinite wisdom, when God doled out natural resources, the Holy Land must have been in the back of the line.  No oil, precious little water, barely any timber, it’s hardly any wonder that Theodor Herzl considered setting aside Palestine for resource-rich Uganda in the late 1800’s.  It is therefore nothing short of a miracle of Biblical proportions, that today, some of the most exciting breakthroughs in clean technology are currently being developed by Jews in Israel.

• The State of Israel is one of only two countries in the world that ended the 20th century with more trees than it started with, thanks to the efforts of the Jewish National Fund in planting more than 240 million trees.

• Nearly one billion people throughout the world – about one in eight – lack access to clean water.  More people die each year from waterborne diseases than through armed conflict, so finding a solution to this global threat is among the most pressing issues facing the world today.  The Jewish State currently leads the international community in water conservation and desalination, purifying and reusing 75% of its waste water each year for agricultural use.  The second most efficient nation, Spain, recycles only 12% of its water, and the US, only 1%.  A turning point in Israeli water conservation occurred in the 1930’s when a Polish immigrant noticed a tree growing in the Negev desert, “without water.”  Simcha Blass dug around the tree and uncovered a leaky pipe dripping tiny droplets of water onto its roots.  Blass went on to develop drip irrigation, now a multimillion dollar Israeli export responsible for saving thousands of lives in Third World countries.

• In addition to its chronic water shortage, the State of Israel has also faced a perpetual energy crisis.  Unable to rely on its oil-rich neighbors for energy, Israel has looked to the heavens to provide an alternative solution.  Abundant Israeli sunshine led to the early adoption of solar water heaters, but cutting edge research and development has now advanced Israel well beyond the water heaters which sit atop 90% of Israeli homes. A Jerusalem based solar company, BrightSource Energy, recently began to build the world’s largest solar energy project in Southern California, which will produce enough energy for 140,000 homes, doubling the amount of solar electricity currently produced in the United States.

• Another Israeli startup has developed a material that attracts and retains dew.  Shaped into trays and placed around crops, this material will take the dew that forms overnight and funnel it directly onto the plant and its roots.  Field tests promise enormous water savings, reducing the irrigation water needed for crops by 50 percent.  Based in the village of Gan Yoshiya, the company is named Tal-Ya, “G-d’s dew.”

Many of the serious environmental concerns that now face the global community — scarcity of water resources and degradation of arable land — have confronted the State of Israel since its inception.  Applying Jewish ingenuity to our biblical mandate to “work” and “guard” is now providing the answers to some of the worlds most pressing problems.

Isaiah wrote long ago that one day, “The desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom (35:1).” Our generation has been privileged to witness not only the miracle of the blooming of Israel’s deserts, but the emergence of the Jewish State as a global leader in environmental innovation,  making the Bible come to life and, to paraphrase Isaiah, causing the Jewish people to become a “renewable” light unto the nations.