A Good Jewish Treehugger

Back in October of last year, Treehugger.com published an article about Yeshivat Simchat Shlomo, because it's a place near Jerusalem where you can study Jewish texts about how to be a good Jewish treehugger. I learned about that same yeshiva about a month earlier because I had spoken with a good friend who studied there, and raved about it. I even considered going, for a while (maybe one day).

But the truth is that it got me thinking about Jews and the modern environmental movement, and how much of a chicken-egg situation this might be. In other words, has environmentalism always been a "Jewish" issue because of its basis in the Torah and other Jewish historical ideologies? Or is this simply a case of tree-hugging Jews jumping on the bandwagon, as with Marxism, or voting for FDR?

I know that I'm approaching Stereo Sinai as an environmentally-conscious musical group very much from the bandwagon angle. And I don't think that's a bad thing either, because as any true-blue environmentalist will tell you, the attention of the human race needs to be focused on the health of the planet now more than ever. It just might seem strange coming from an artist whose music is so entrenched in ancient Jewish texts, but who knows? Perhaps one day there will be an especially environmental verse in the Talmud that will call out to Stereo Sinai to be written into a pop anthem for the Jewish environmental movement. Hmm... I guess you should keep your ears open...