Collaborative consumption is a growing movement of people, projects and platforms designed to shift our consumption habits, extend the lifecyle of products, encorugae less use of natural reosurces and build online and offline communities that break down the producer - consumer binary.
This emerging market is captured in Rachel Botsman's book 'What's Mine is Yours' and you can see Rachel making the case for Collaborative Consumption on TED. Here in the UK the People Who Share are trying to support those building the #SharingEconomy.
I recently gave a Pecha Kucha style presentation on this idea and some of the Jewish values that connect to it.
This source sheet explores some of those values and the texts that articulate them. Thanks must go to Jeremy Benstein from the Heschel Center for Environmental Leadership who created a text sheet on consumerism for a workshop during the first Siach conference that we co-facilitated.
| Translation | Original |
|---|---|
| Let a person not say: envy, lust, honour and similar things are evil ways and remove a person from the world (note-quote from Ethics of the Fathers), and that one should separate oneself from them and go to the opposite extreme, not to eat meat, drink wine, marry, live in a nice house or dress in fine clothes, but dress only in sackcloth and hard wool, etc., like the idolatrous priests do. This too is an evil way and one who follows it is a sinner, as it is written regarding a nazirite, "...and atone for him for that which he sinned by the dead, etc"; the Sages said that if a nazirite, who only abstained from wine requires atonement, then how much more so anyone who abstains from all things requires atonement. Therefore, the Sages commanded that one should not abstain from anything, except from things which the Torah has forbidden, and one should not vow to refrain from using permitted things. The Sages said, `Is it not what the Torah has forbidden enough that you have to forbid for yourself other things?!'. According to this, those who always restrict themselves are not on the path of good. About these and similar things Solomon said, "Don't be excessively righteous, nor make yourself overwise; lest you destroy yourself?". | שמא יאמר אדם: "הואיל והקנאה והתאוה והכבוד וכיוצא בהם דרך רעה הן ומוציאין את האדם מן העולם, אפרוש מהן ביותר ואתרחק לצד האחרון" [הקצה השני], עד שלא יאכל בשר ולא ישתה יין ולא ישא אשה ולא ישב בדירה נאה ולא ילבש מלבוש נאה אלא השק והצמר הקשה וכיוצא בהן כגון כהני העובדי כוכבים. גם זה דרך רעה היא ואסור לילך בה, המהלך בדרך זו נקרא חוטא, שהרי הוא [הכתוב] אומר בנזיר [במקרה של הנזיר שהתנזר מיין] "וכפר עליו מאשר חטא על הנפש." אמרו חכמים: ומה אם נזיר, שלא פירש אלא מן היין צריך כפרה, המונע עצמו מכל דבר ודבר על אחת כמה וכמה, לפיכך ציוו חכמים שלא ימנע אדם עצמו אלא מדברים שמנעתו התורה בלבד, ולא יהא אוסר עצמו בנדרים ובשבועות על דברים המותרים. כך אמרו חכמים: "לא דייך מה שאסרה תורה, אלא שאתה אוסר עליך דברים אחרים!? ובכלל הזה אלו שמתענין תמיד אינן בדרך טובה, ואסרו חכמים שיהא אדם מסגף עצמו בתענית, ועל כל הדברים האלו וכיוצא בהן צוה שלמה ואמר: "אל תהי צדיק הרבה ואל תתחכם יותר, למה תשומם." |
1. What do you understand Rambam to be advocating?
2. Is summarizing this as "everything in moderation" too simple?
3. In what ways do you agree and disagree with Rambam?
Why might these three things enrich someone's spirit?
If you had to pick your top three things for an enriched life, would what they be?
1. Why did Moses instruct the Israelites not to keep the food overnight? Why did some disobey him? Were their concerns legitimate?
2. Are the same legitimate concerns at play with wasteful approaches to food storage today? Are there other less legitimate forces at play?
3. With 'food mountains' (http://ow.ly/5EtqK) in the West, how can we apply the message in this text to our current consumption of food?
בְקֻצְרְכֶם אֶת קְצִיר אַרְצְכֶם לֹא תְכַלֶּה פְּאַת שָׂדְךָ לִקְצֹר וְלֶקֶט קְצִירְךָ לֹא תְלַקֵּט: וְכַרְמְךָ לֹא תְעוֹלֵל וּפֶרֶט כַּרְמְךָ לֹא תְלַקֵּט לֶעָנִי וְלַגֵּר תַּעֲזֹב אֹתָם אֲנִי ה' אֱלֹהֵיכֶם:
When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap all the way to the corners of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest. You shall not pick your vineyard bare, or gather the fallen fruit of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the stranger: I am Adonai your God. [JPS translation]
1. How is the system of leaving the corners and the gleanings and the fallen food for the poor different than donating food?
2. How does this text suggest we understand private property and ownership?
3. What practices or values from these laws could we integrate into our modern lives and societies?
| Translation | Original |
|---|---|
| When God created the first human beings, God led them around all the trees of the Garden of Eden and said: “Look at My works! See how beautiful they are—how excellent! For your sake I created them all. See to it that you do not spoil and destroy My world; for if you do, there will be no one else to repair it.” [Translation by AJWS] |
בשעה שברא הקב"ה את אדם הראשון נטלו והחזירו על כל אילני גן עדן ואמר לו ראה מעשי כמה נאים ומשובחין הן וכל מה שבראתי בשבילך בראתי, תן דעתך שלא תקלקל ותחריב את עולמי, שאם קלקלת אין מי שיתקן אחריך
|
1. What does this text teach us about the earth?
2. What is our responsibility to the environment? What is God's responsibility to the environment?
3. Have humans heeded God’s warning? Who will repair our mistakes?
4. How does our consumerist society help and hinder how we take care of creation and the earth's resources?
| Translation | Original |
|---|---|
| Not only one who cuts down a fruit tree, but anyone who destroys household goods, tears clothing, demolishes a building stops up a spring, or ruins food deliberately, violates the prohibition of Bal Tashchit,‘do not destroy.' [Translation by Big Green Jewish] |
ולא האילנות בלבד, אלא כל המשבר כלים, וקורע בגדים, והורס בניין, וסותם מעיין, ומאבד מאכלות דרך השחתה-- עובר ב”לא תשחית”
|
1. In what ways is each of these actions destructive? How are they different?
2. Why is there a prohibition to destroy? What types of behaviors can we learn from these prohibitions?
3. Here the focus is active and deliberate destruction, what might be some less active wasy our shopping habits may be destructive?
| Original |
|---|
|
To set apart one day a week for freedom, a day on which we would not use the instruments which have been so easily turned into weapons of destruction, a day for being with ourselves, a day of detachment from the vulgar, of independence of external obligations, a day on which we stop worshipping the idols of technical civilization, a day on which we use no money…is there any institution that holds out a greater hope for man’s progress than the Sabbath ?
|
1. How do we set one day apart for freedom?
2. In what ways do we worship the idols of technical civilization?
3. What is the hope Heschel is articulating?
4. In what ways does the concept of Shabbat encoruage us to think about and limit our consumption?
1. Why are we commanded to rest from work on the 7th day? Why is this important?
2. To whom does this command apply? What does this imply about the nature of our responsibility towards our employees and property?
3. Do we allow others to rest today? How are we in violation of this commandment? How can we improve?