Rabbi Tied Ecology to Hebrew Title

A river guide turned rabbi, she blazed a spiritual trail in the environmental movement by undergirding it with the Hebrew Bible’s veneration of nature.

FAMILY BACKGROUND

Ellen Bernstein (EB) was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts, about 45 miles north of Boston. One of three children, she was the granddaughter of shoe manufacturers who had built a factory there. She was raised about 15 miles to the west, on the New Hampshire border. 

Her mother managed the household. Her father was a leather salesman. 

CHILDHOOD

“During the summers,” wrote Rabbi Bernstein later on her website, “I despaired that the adult world was flattening landscapes for housing developments, polluting the atmosphere in an effort to develop more and more commodities for our consumption, and ruining our waterways.”

EDUCATION

Following high school graduation, inspired there by an ‘earth science’ course, EB enrolled in a pioneering environmental science program at the University of California, Berkely. Eventually, she earned a teaching credential in life sciences, a Master’s in Biology from Southern Oregon State University and a Master’s in Jewish education from Hebrew College in Newton, Mass.

During her summer vacations from graduate schools on the west coast, EB led wilderness trips as a river guide in Northern California. 

FIRST JOB NEVER A BINDING CAREER COMMITMENT

EB’s first adult job after college graduation was teaching high school biology. But by her mid-20s, she had begun seeking a career path that could blend her spiritual passion, motivated at a Jewish Renewal congregation in Berkely, with her passion to protect and preserve the natural environment. 

ORDAINED AS A RABBI

(Editor’s note – It is not stated within EB’s obituary or online research whether EB ever served as a rabbi / leader of a specific Jewish congregation while at the same time, advocating through writing and speaking about the importance of protecting and preserving the natural environment. EB became best known for her ecology advocacy.)

About 20 years before leaving her teaching career to be ordained as a rabbi, EB founded ‘Shomrei Adamah” (the name is Hebrew for Keepers of the Earth) which she described as the first national Jewish environmental organization.

EB disliked terms like “Jewish environmentalism” because she felt it implied that Judaism was not inherently ecologically based. She also worked across religious denominations, writing that “religious and spiritual communities can be vitally important in organizing, inspiring and sustaining individuals in the repair of the world.”

She emphasized that science alone would not inspire people to care for the world but believed that people would save what they love. 

EB developed combination religious and environmental ‘curriculums’ for students and teachers. (The word ‘curriculum’ was used by the author of the obituary upon which this story was based; however, the editor of this Career Stories Library had a high school Latin teacher who must be looking up from hell to request an edit: use ‘curricula’ as the Latin plural of ‘curriculum’). 

EB also organized conferences and wrote scholarly articles and books to spread a gospel that resonated in progressive congregations and on college campuses. Her work gave a new dimension to the words “holy land” and to the synergy between heaven and earth.

“The Creation story, Jewish law, the cycle of holidays, prayers, mitzvot (good deeds) and neighborly relations all reflect a reverence for land and a viable practice of stewardship,” wrote Rabbi EB in “Ecology & The Jewish Spirit: Where Nature & the Sacred Meet.” (2000). 

In her writing, including another book, “The Splendor of Creation: A Biblical Ecology” (2005), EB invoked God’s creation of the Garden of Eden and his vision of the promised land as evidence of biblical environmentalism.

With help from a friend, EB wrote “The Promise of the Land” (2020), an ecological version of the Haggadah, the text recited on Passover, to remind Seder participants that Passover – like the other harvest celebrations Shavuot and Sukkot – had links to nature.

“The first step toward ecological repair,” Rabbi EB wrote in “Toward a Holy Ecology: Reading the Song of Songs in the Age of Climate Crisis” (2024), “is to love and identify with the natural world.”

CAREER SATISFACTION

A long-time politician, now global ambassador the American Jewish World Service, said that Rabbi EB had used her writings “to push the Jewish community to think about our obligation to protect the planet and invest for future generations.”

A respected theology teacher and leader of the progressive Jewish Renewal movement said “It is clear if you read the Hebrew Bible that whoever lives on the land is responsible for taking care of it. What Rabbi EB accomplished was making clear to people what their own love of Earth was, and how to express it.”

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This career story was based on an obituary written by Sam Roberts, published by The New York Times on March 5, 2024, plus internet research.