MODERN ENVIRONMENTAL PLAGUES

 Rabbi Shneur Zalman in the eighteen century wrote, “This biblical commandment prohibits the spoiling of any object from which humankind may benefit,” and Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch in the nineteenth century wrote,? Under the concept of  ba’al tashhit  the purposeless destruction of anything at all is taken to be forbidden, so that our text becomes the most comprehensive warning to human beings not to misuse the position that God has given them.”  We now turn to brief explanations of ten specific ecological problems – our modern plagues. The first four plagues describe the destruction of various parts of our earth because of human waste products, poisons, and contaminants. “I shall strike the water in the Nile with the rod that is in my hand and it will be turned into blood; and the fish in the Nile will die. The Nile will stink so that the Egyptians will find it impossible to drink the water of the Nile” (Exodus 7:17-18).

1. Water Pollution

2. Air Pollution

3. Pesticides and Other Agricultural Chemicals

4. Toxic Chemicals

5. Acid Rain

6. Global Warming or the Greenhouse Effect

7. Ozone Destruction

8. Soil Erosion

9. Deforestation

10. Loss of Biological Diversity and the Destruction of Habitat

Let's see if we can name 10 things that plague our lives, currently....

1. no phone/electronics

2. homework

3. mistakenly erased minecraft world

4., 5., 6., ......

Now, don't these all seem smaller in comparison to 10 plagues sent by G-d?


haggadah Section: -- Ten Plagues