Scripture & Creation
Deuteronomy 22:6-7
Preserving the Fruitfulness of Creation
The Book of Deuteronomy encapsulates the many laws which the Lord gave to Moses. These laws were delivered in inspired speeches which Moses made before the Israelites who were camped on the plains of Moab.
Throughout this book, God gives the Israelites commands to observe in the conduct of their daily affairs. These include both promises of blessing and warnings against apostasy. Obedience brings blessings (Deut. 7:13); these blessings translate into prosperity (2:7), a productive land (6:11), plus long and fruitful lives for the people (4:26). In contrast, disobedience to these same commands brings “curses” upon the people and all of their otherwise fine aspirations will be confounded (28:29).
Because of these many commands, Jewish tradition taught that Moses delivered more than Ten Commandments to the people from God. Throughout the five Books of the Torah, rabbinical scholarship identified and numbered 613 distinct commands. Of these 613 commands, 413 commands address relations to God and other people; exactly 200 deal with the requirements for caring for God’s creation. These 200 commands further divide into 89 mandates and 111 prohibitions. They require a recognition of the sacredness in creation and mandate an integrated relationship between God, nature and all the details of human affairs. Throughout they prohibit any degradation, desecration or misuse of creation through very specific requirements upon behavior.
The two hundred laws dealing with the land are concerned with a range of biological topics, encompassing purity of substances, agriculture, animal husbandry, health and hygiene, the use of crops, fruit trees, water, wilderness and its inhabitants, waste, and cultivation, among many other topics. Some extend their ordering of Hebrew life into economic and social affairs. These commands, elaborated upon in the Midrashic and Kabbalistic literature, might be considered as early “environmental” laws. They certainly give emphasis to the sanctity of all life in what is often described as “the house of the Lord.” These 200 laws institutionalize a loving kindness in the relationship between God, people and the land, and the Jews sometimes portrayed this relationship as a matrimonial paradigm.
Within this context, the command to spare the hen while taking the eggs (or chicks) means that a respect for the fruitfulness of creation is fundamental. One may use creation, but a responsibility always exists to care for its future productivity. The 111 prohibitions act as a code of restraint to contain human appetites and to preserve respect for the biological processes which keep creation and human society vigorous and robust.
From this commandment to spare the hen, a principle emerges that extends care for creation to all living things. As we spare the mother on the nest to preserve future fruitfulness, we learn to preserve all other aspects of creation's fruitfulness into the future. This at first appears rather simple, but it holds a powerful key to determining whether or not an action is right. This principle of “fruitfulness” becomes a key to a religious ethic of preservation and protection. It also becomes the biblical basis for seeing an Orthodox Christian responsibility for the protection of endangered species as they are creations of God endangered by the advance of human society.
When this principle of preserving the fruitfulness of creation is relentlessly applied, it offers insightful direction for the care and protection of habitat. It assesses the effect of dams on streams and rivers and the fisheries which they may contain. It encourages restraint in the taking of animals or the extraction of natural resources. Generally it provides a broad gauge through which to cultivate care and respect for all creation throughout the whole of society. When creation flourishes, then so does human society.
