Toward a Holy Ecology

Reading the Song of Songs in the Age of Climate Crisis

Rabbi Ellen Bernstein

Foreword by Bill McKibben

Paperback
9781958972199
US $17.95 Indiepubs Bookshop Amazon
eBook available
February 2024

The Song of Songs is among the most accessible of all biblical books. It is also the most deeply ecological text of the canon, yet few people are aware of the Song’s ecological message. The intention of Toward a Holy Ecology: Reading the Song of Songs in the Age of Climate Crisis is to illuminate that message.

Today there is such urgency around our many earth crises—so much brokenness—that we need a vision of wholeness and an ecological language that can help inspire, soothe and reinvigorate us, and bring us together regardless of our various affiliations and ideologies. The Song offers both ecological language and a vision. It sets the natural world before us with intensity and beauty, bidding us to savor it with all of our senses so that we may return to the world with the renewed clarity, love and energy necessary to work toward a healthy future for the earth and all her inhabitants.

The Song is a particularly powerful book since it never utters the name of the divine, yet is a deeply spiritual work that may reach people who are interested in matters of the sacred, but prefer to steer clear of God language and conventional religious ideas. In both the Jewish and Christian worlds, where many people are disengaging from religion altogether, the Song—with its universal themes of love, justice and the integrity of nature—may help open the door to the possibilities which religion has to offer.

Toward a Holy Ecology: Reading the Song of Songs in an Age of Climate Crisis seeks to engage a wide readership including all people who love the earth and its inhabitants, outdoor enthusiasts, spiritual seekers, poets, feminists, and students of the humanities, religion and ecology.

Rabbi Ellen Bernstein began pursuing studies in both environment and religion in high school and graduated from one of the first programs in environmental studies in the US at U.C. Berkeley in 1975. A pioneer in the field of religion and ecology, she founded the first national Jewish environmental organization, Shomrei Adamah, Keepers of the Earth, in 1988. She has written numerous books and articles on Judaism, Bible and ecology including most recently, The Promise of the Land: A Passover Haggadah (Behrman House, 2020). Ellen’s work on the Bible and ecology has appeared in The Green Bible (Harper One, 2008) and is featured in The Oxford University Press Handbook on the Bible and Ecology (2022). She continues to teach widely on Bible and ecology, and is an advisor to the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology, a steering committee member for the Third Act/faith, and an advisor to the Green Sabbath project.

“What happens when a rabbi with an expertise in biology reads the holiest and most sensuous book of the Bible?  A fresh and arousing reading springs forth!  Ellen Bernstein, founder of the first national Jewish environmental organization, offers an inspired ecological reading of the Song of Songs that will (re)kindle the reader’s love affair with the earth. Her writing is as rich as the Song is evocative. Her interpretive insights reflect a deep engagement with the Song’s poetic nuances. Cultivating an eros for creation, Rabbi Bernstein’s interpretation is exactly what today’s ‘earth keepers’ need for continuing the hard work of shalom-justice for the world. Call it ‘Fifty Shades of Green.’” —William P. Brown, The Seven Pillars of Creation: The Bible, Science and the Ecology of Wonder

“The lushness of Ellen Bernstein’s eco-sensitive commentary on the Song of Songs is worthy of the original, which says a great deal about the ingenuity and power of her work. Bernstein reads the Song of Songs as a love song to and from the earth, and in so doing, uncovers truths in this long-beloved text that are essential, moving, and needed. She describes the ‘archetypal intimacy between humans and nature’ that evolves throughout the Song, as lovers co-mingle with the land and love itself burgeons as spring arrives. Bernstein’s essential message, which she brilliantly derives from the text, is that ‘beauty calls us to love the world.’ This uplifting and enlivening book is an important and timely work—a wondrous gift to all who passionately love the earth, inviting us to find solace in the Bible’s most erotic and egalitarian text.” —Rabbi Jill Hammer, PhD, The Jewish Book of Days: A Companion for All Seasons

“Toward a Holy Ecology is a rich and illuminating commentary on the The Song of Songs. Ellen Bernstein brings a unique voice that skillfully weaves scholarly and poetic insight. Her book is accessible for everyone interested in how this iconic text carries a deep ecological wisdom.” —Mary Evelyn Tucker, Co-director, Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology

“Rabbi Ellen Bernstein’s masterful commentary reveals the Song’s profound vision of ecological wholeness and revives an embodied and earth-honoring tradition that is vitally needed today. This is an important, timely and beautiful book that deserves your attention.” —Rabbi Rami Shapiro, Judaism without Tribalism

“Reading Ellen Bernstein's Toward a Holy Ecology is to partake in a garden of delights. She refreshes our reading of the Song by enlivening all of our senses. Her penetrating and compelling thought is expressed with eminently accessible and beautiful prose.  Just as she highlights the importance of time and timing in the text itself, her commentary appears at just the right time to nurture a deepened ecological and embodied spirituality of which the world stands in urgent need.” —Rabbi Nancy Flam, Co-founder National Center for Jewish Healing, and The Institute for Jewish Spirituality

“[O]ffering keen insight into both Jewish tradition and contemporary issues of environmental justice...the book will be accessible to lay readers and will challenge Jewish scholars with a well-grounded alternative view.” —Kirkus Reviews