Chapter 6 | The Fourth Pillar – Restraint and Self-Control in a Bountiful Society

In the ecological context there is not only a balance between man and extrinsic nature, between the needs of the individual or the present, and between the needs of society and the future, but a psychological balance between the responsibilities placed on man towards his obligation in this world. Jewish Mussar stands strongly on the foundation of withholding, resisting and controlling one’s inclinations. There must be a limiting of our desires, a sensitivity towards others, at the foundation of each approach to the ecological issue. The solution to the issue of nature and society is dependent on our dealing with the issues of humanity as a whole (Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein) ¹.

 When we search for the primary source of the issue of ecological destruction, we discover that it is primarily hidden in the selfishness of man. Every person tries to expand their area of influence, and these spreading areas must necessarily create a deficit and clash with one another. As long as the issue of fundamentally oriented this way, there is no running from a final ecological holocaust. The only solution to the ecological problem is reconstructing the soul (Rabbi Prof. Yehuda Levi) ².

The flourishing of the breadth of different industries, despite the ecologic harm that it causes, goes hand in hand with the expansion in the degree of our consumption. Aside from the rise in the population itself and the technological advances that have been presented to humankind, the extent of food, clothing, and other products that the average person consumes in their lifetime have risen by a significant amount. This growth comes from the deepest psychological foundations of the human experience, and a deep rectification of the path of Torah must also touch upon these principles. ³.

Sefer Devarim, which was written the evening before the entrance into the Land of Israel, once again warns Bnei Yisrael about the dangers involved in a bountiful society: “lest you eat and become satisfied and build fine houses and dwell [in them], and your cattle and your sheep will multiply, and your silver and gold increase, and everything you own has prospered, beware [lest] your heart grow haughty and you forget your God Hashem” ⁴. “So Jeshurun grew fat and kicked— You grew fat and gross and coarse” ⁵.  Our material bounty, with emphasis the addiction to a culture of unlimited consumption, has many spiritual and psychological tolls. Man becomes accustomed to feeling fulfilled through objects that he purchases and consumes, and the longer he consumes, the greater the feeling of lacking and the risk of unrestrained squandering, addiction, and depression ⁶.

Torah and its sages worked tirelessly to reign in the human desire to accumulate assets for its own sake and warned that “one who loves money will not be satisfied by money” ⁷. The material bounty is not a positive entity when it collects and spoils, but when it is siphoned to positive goals, as Rabbi Shimshon Rafael Hirsch writes:

“there is no moral value to acquire, unless it is [for that which is] holy for the home or for society. Man has an obligation to acquire property to build a home and further society; do not build a home and support society – in order to increase assets and wealth” ⁸.

A harsher expression can be found in the Sefer Yesh Nochlin of Rabbi Avraham Horowitz (the father of the Shlah):

“Money is a deposit in our [hands], and we only have permission to use it when necessary. Anyone who spends more money than they need is akin to one who causes willful damage to a deposit” ⁹.

On this backdrop we can understand mitzvot such as Shemita and Yovel as well as the halachot of slaves, which limits the ability to hoard assets and even contradicts the very concept of man’s ownership over land or another person.

A central domain where the Torah endeavored to limit man’s wishes and desires is the domain of food. Parshat Bereishit describes the engagement with the prohibition to eat from the fruits of the Tree of Knowledge which was “a desire for the eyes”, and during the wandering in the desert one can see how Bnei Yisrael dealt with the desires described as negative in this domain, “The riffraff in their midst felt a gluttonous craving” ¹⁰.  The Torah describes how God delineated boundaries and restrictions, “Each household shall gather as much as it requires to eat—an omer to a person for as many of you as there are” ¹¹, and the Sages structured the education process that they underwent in the following manner: “initially Israel were similar to chickens that peck in the trash, until Moshe came and established a time for meals” ¹². An example of the severity that the Torah views addiction to unrestricted food and drink is the parsha of ben sorer u’moreh: “this child of ours… is wayward and rebellious” ¹³.

Throughout the generations the Sages enacted many guidelines calling for control and limiting of the domain of food: “this is the way of the Torah – bread [dipped] in salt you shall eat and [you shall] drink measured water” ¹⁴. “Man should always eat and drink less than what he has” ¹⁵, etc¹⁶. Even though they did not negate the delights of a material life in this world entirely, they ventured to create a person that is not addicted to positive sensations but uses them intellectually and sparingly guided towards the service of God ¹⁷. The Torah has a similar approach in the more complex topic of the approach to sexuality ¹⁸. Thus, one can say that the call to resist temptations and limit oneself characterizes the basic approach that the Torah demands from man when he comes to benefit from God’s world, and an approach such as this is a deep response to a significant portion of ecological challenges. The detailed and expounded expression of this demand, as a prohibition not to waste or destroy resources carelessly, is the prohibition of ‘bal tashchit’, which we will discuss in the next chapter.

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