The Israeli government just announced that it is considering withdrawing from the Paris Agreement on climate change and other international environmental bodies — and this a mere week after its Environmental Ministry warned of rising sea levels causing salty water to infiltrate the country’s freshwater aquifers, making them undrinkable and unusable for agriculture! If the present government claims to have religious support, let’s see how the Torah relates to such environmental issues.

Perhaps not so surprisingly, the Bible provides ample evidence as to how humanity suffers from climate change – not only physically but socially and politically as well. I’ll focus on two quite familiar biblical stories with a hero at its center, each dealing with the social and political upheaval following each environmental catastrophe. First, Joseph as a dream interpreter; then Moses as a climate change predictor – the main topic in last week’s Torah reading and this week’s too.

Joseph started out with dreams about his future in which he predicted he’ll be lording over his brothers and parents. Perhaps with such experience as a dreamer, he was able later to correctly interpret Pharaoh’s dream about seven fat cows consuming seven lean cows, and then seven full-bodied sheaves eating seven lean ones (Genesis 41: 1-8). In short, they foretold of seven great harvest years to be followed by seven years of severe........

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