Question

About two weeks ago I watched a report about the greenhouse effect. It stirred me once again to wonder: how is it that rabbis and Christian priests are not speaking to the hearts of their flocks and urging them to change their patterns of consumption?!
This question gave rise to many others, and they led to the following thoughts:
I wonder—and at the same time I understand that I should not expect too much from these religious leaders—because although they understand that current consumption patterns are destructive for the future of their descendants, they still cannot preach reducing consumption, since the modern economy is built on growth in consumption, and the opposite means an economic downturn that nobody wants. Therefore, it seems that the way to bring about change is education toward changing consumption patterns—a process that is beginning to happen, though at a much slower pace than is needed.

Nearly 30 years ago I developed the following idea regarding reward in this world: every person in a society [nation] is like a cell in a living tissue. The strength and resilience of the tissue depend on the well-being of the individual cells, and yet sometimes the tissue must sacrifice some of its cells in order to preserve the rest of the tissue’s cells!…
As for reward in the world to come: the well-being of our descendants—that is our reward in the world to come.
If we succeed in marketing this idea to the broader public—Jews and non-Jews alike—it will be easier for us to cope with global warming and the other evils that stem from wasteful consumerism.
Our need to secure the future of our descendants should not keep us from trying to deal with the problems of the present.
But since my aim is to integrate my need to define Judaism as a faith whose essence is safeguarding creation, then we must also try to find an answer to the present distress of human groups everywhere on earth.
Our duty not to stand idly by in the face of the suffering of other peoples stems not only from our own blood-soaked history, but from our belief that this is the proper way to serve God.
True, in most cases we will be powerless to save, but it is our duty to stand watch and sound the alarm in every possible international forum, and to seek ways to shake the hearts of the nations of the world and their leaders, that they must not sit with folded arms in the face of massacres between peoples—however distant and remote they may be!
Before anything else, we must acknowledge that in the end the world today is safer than it was in the past—even though in absolute numbers it may not look that way—but that is for two reasons: first, the population of the globe has grown from 1.5 billion at the start of the 20th century to 7 billion today, so wherever there are wars the numbers also grow; and besides that, the media gives us an up-to-date picture of the situation, something that did not exist before.

Today, aside from clicking our tongues at the sight of the victims of massacres around the world, we are not prepared to act. But slowly, slowly, the recognition is penetrating that violence in distant countries causes their citizens to flee, and as a result destabilizes the demographic order in the safe countries to which they escape. This situation, in addition to the anguish we feel in the face of the horrors displayed to us on screens, is sufficient reason to try to understand the causes of this violence.
Since today radical Islam is the hottest topic, many Middle East scholars are trying to understand its manifestations of violence.
But we must not forget that Islamic terror was preceded by Marxist terror organizations in Europe and Japan, and alongside them nationalist terror organizations developed—in Northern Ireland and in the Basque region. The founders of the terror organizations were young people who tried to influence policy by political means, and because the establishment thwarted them, their struggle escalated into terrorism.
Although I do not have relevant intelligence sources, I assume there are several reasons that motivate people to volunteer for the ranks of the Islamic State. I am not referring at the moment to Muslims living in countries controlled by ISIS people, but to Muslims living in the West. It is known that many Muslims living in the West have not integrated into the dominant society, and therefore they feel alienated, with all the negative implications that entails. In order to find social and emotional support, they begin visiting the mosque regularly.
If the imam in that mosque is a fanatic Muslim, he will brainwash the young Muslims through his sermons and convince them that joining the ranks of ISIS will straighten their backs, and they will become the foundation of the Islamic State and no longer remain on the margins of the Christian state.

I assume that many young people, including some who were not Muslim, joined the ranks of ISIS mainly because they were restless young people looking for “action.” This need was certainly identified by the preachers of radical Islam, and in that way they exploited these young people’s desires to realize the vision of the caliphate.
And yet I am convinced that there could be more humane alternatives that might inspire these young people as well, even with ideas opposed to radical Islam. Those same young people would feel a great deal of satisfaction if they were given a real, positive way to influence what is happening in the world.
I believe that if Muslim young people around the world were given positive, challenging missions in which they could realize their sense of responsibility, leadership skills, intelligence, and resourcefulness, they would respond to them with enthusiasm no less than they respond to fighting in the ranks of ISIS.

Even so, I am aware that we will never be able to completely prevent acts of lone-wolf terror, and there will always be small terror organizations. But I think it is possible to prevent the mass volunteering that characterized ISIS in its early days.
But here is the place to raise a completely different matter—there is an urgent need to establish a new principle:
Whoever believes in the one God must not inflict irreversible harm on anything God created.
Irreversible harm is permitted only for the sake of basic existence, in a proportional and non-wasteful manner.
And another proposal that could in principle be acceptable to Jews, Muslims, and Christians of all streams except Catholics:
Human beings—simply by being born of woman—are liable to err, and therefore even the learned and the experts in their religion may fail to properly understand the word of God as it was transmitted to the founder of their religion.
Therefore, when religious leaders preach violence, one must remind them that they are only flesh and blood, and they may err in understanding the word of God! As a result, the halakhic rulings that those religious leaders issue may—even without intending it—ignite a fire with many victims, and one that will be very difficult to extinguish.
Here I allow myself to suggest another principle:
We must not ask God for anything for ourselves.
Our role on earth is to do everything in our power to preserve creation.
Hope is indeed essential for our survival, but we should lower our personal expectations.
We must not think that we are more deserving than the victims of the Holocaust that God should answer our requests!
Reform Judaism has inscribed on its banner the idea of repairing the world, and sees this idea as one of its central principles. I allow myself to propose a slightly different version of this idea.
Repairing the world ought to be a central value in the consciousness of the whole human race. The role of the Jewish people is to be the “pioneer” in this matter, constantly encouraging members of other religions and nations to adopt this idea.
It seems to me that this idea—our commitment to lead all humanity to adopt repairing the world—could be the anchor for preserving the identity of Reform Jews as a legitimate stream within Judaism.
Of course, this is not the place to go into the delicate and complex issue of intermarriage.
Now I leave it to your fertile imagination, Michi, to imagine what will happen if these ideas of Reform Judaism find favor and are adopted by a large percentage of the Jews of the State of Israel.
So all the best to you, and see you sometime [as long as we stay healthy!]