In the opening chapters of Genesis, God places humanity in the garden “to till and tend it.” The rabbis later drew the principle of bal tashchit (“do not destroy”) from a verse forbidding armies to cut down fruit trees. Long before environmentalism became a movement, Jewish texts were debating stewardship, pollution, the treatment of animals, public responsibility, and what we owe to future generations.

Over three sessions we’ll read passages from the Bible, the Talmud, and later sources and ask how they bear on the ecological crises of our own time. We’ll look at how the Talmud balances private property with the public good, what the shmittah (sabbatical) year says about economic sustainability, and whether a hundred-year-old man planting a fig tree might be one of Judaism’s wisest environmental philosophers. Sessions combine close reading with open discussion.

Who this is for:

• Anyone curious what Jewish texts say about our responsibility to the natural world
• Environmentalists and activists who want to know the sources behind these ideas
• Learners of any background who enjoy reading primary texts and arguing about them

What you'll leave with:

• Familiarity with bal tashchit, tza’ar ba’alei hayyim (concern for animals), shmittah, and the idea of stewardship, along with the texts behind each
• Ways to bring these texts into current debates about climate, pollution, species loss, and our obligations to future generations

Three Tuesdays: October 13, 20 & 27, 7–8:30pm Pacific Time

Questions? Our FAQ covers registration, recordings of missed sessions, refunds, and financial assistance.

J. Robert Oppenheimer led the scientific work at Los Alamos, helped bring about the atomic age, and later became one of the best-known victims of the Red Scare. In Robert Oppenheimer: The Sphinx Without a Secret, his new biography in Yale University Press’s Jewish Lives series, David Rieff looks past the public story to Oppenheimer’s inner life: his childhood, his personal relationships, and his deeply ambivalent relation to being Jewish.

Rieff joins Steve Wasserman, publisher of Heyday Books and former editor-at-large for Yale University Press, to talk about the man behind the legend and why Oppenheimer still fascinates more than eighty years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Image: Ben Shahn, Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, 1954. © 2026 Estate of Ben Shahn / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Who this is for

• Anyone who wants more of Oppenheimer’s story than the recent film told
• Readers curious how his Jewish background shaped him

What you'll leave with

• A fuller picture of Oppenheimer’s inner life, from childhood on
• The chance to put your own questions to the author

Sunday, October 25, 1:30–3pm Pacific Time

Questions? Our FAQ covers registration, recordings of missed sessions, refunds, and financial assistance.