Judaism and Climate Change: "The Earth is the Lord's," & "Everything is Given into your hand." Compiled by Student Rabbi David Eber; Reconstructionist Rabbinical College

(15) The LORD God took the man and placed him in the garden of Eden, to till it and tend it.

(1) How does one recite blessings for fruits? On fruits growing on a tree, one says, "...Who created the fruit of the tree," except for wine; on wine, one says, "...Who created the fruit of the vine." On fruits growing from the earth, one says, "...Who created the fruit of the ground," except for bread; on bread, one says, "...Who brings forth bread from the earth." On vegetables, one says, "...Who created the fruit of the ground." Rabbi Yehudah says: [One should say instead,] "...Who created various types of herbs."

The rabbis taught: A person may not take stones from his domain into the public domain. A story is told of a person who was clearing stones from his domain into the public domain, and a certain pious person found him. He said to him, "Fool! Why are you clearing out a domain that does not belong to you into a domain that belongs to you?" He laughed at him. After a time that person had to sell his field, and he was walking in that public area, and he stumbled on one of the stones. He said, "That pious person spoke well when he said to me , why are you clearing stones from a domain that is not yours to a domain that is yours."

He who makes a threshing floor in the midst of his (domain). Or a privy. Or does work which raises dust and particles of earth and they go out from them and harms his neighbor. He must distance himself in order that he does not harm by dust, or by the smell of the privy, or the dust in order that he do no harm to his neighbor. Even if it is the wind that carries the particles of earth to his neighbor in the time that he is doing work, or causing the tow or the chaff to go out from these and harms his neighbor; he is obligated to distance in order not to touch and they cause him harm. And even by means of an ordinary wind, because all these instances are similar to doing damage with one's arrows...

When do we say that he does not have to keep a distance? When the damage comes about by itself after the person whose deeds caused the damage ceases his activity. When, however, the acts that this person performs in his own domain cause damage to his colleague's property at the time he is performing the action, he is considered to have damaged the property with his hands. To what can the matter be likened? To a person who is standing in his own property and shooting arrows into his neighbor's, and saying: "I am doing this in my own property." Such a person should be prevented from doing so.

They would distance from the city; carcasses, graves, tanneries, kilns, and beehives from the city 50 amot, and the wouldn't make tanneries other than in the east of the city in order that the angry east winds would lessen the damage of the smell from working the hides ...

All of the required separations mentioned in the previous chapters. If the person who was required to separate failed to do so, and the neighbor saw and yet remained silent, he is considered to have waived his right to protest, and he may not raise a protest later to require him to move.

....when does this apply? When he established his right to perform any damaging activity with the exception of the four mentioned in this chapter: smoke, the odor of the latrine, dust and the like, and the shaking of the ground. For with regard to these activities, one can never establish his right to perform them. Even if the person suffering from this damage remains silent for several years.

Ten special regulations were applied to Jerusalem:³ That a house sold there should not be liable to become irredeemable;⁴ that it should never bring a heifer whose neck is broken;⁵ that it could never be made a condemned city;⁶ that its houses would not become defiled through leprosy;⁷ that neither beams nor balconies should be allowed to project there; that no dunghills should be made there; that no kilns should be kept there; that neither gardens nor orchards should be cultivated there, with the exception, however, of the garden of roses⁸ which existed from the days of the former prophets;⁹ that no fowls should be reared there, and that no dead person should be kept there over night

"That no kilns shall be made there - on account of smoke"...

Rashi says it would blacken the walls of the town.