LEV425 An interesting aggadah, a moral tale, appears in tractate Bava Kamma [50b; a longer version appears in the Tosefta, Bava Kamma 2:10], of the Babylonian Talmud. It reads: The Rabbis taught: A person should not clear stones from his property to public property. It happened that a person was clearing stones from his property to public property. A pious person met him and said: “Fool! Why are you clearing stones from property that is not yours to property that is yours?” [The owner of the field] mocked him. Sometime later he needed to sell his field, and [after that] he was walking in the same public place and tripped on those same stones. He said: That pious person spoke well when he asked me, “Why are you clearing stones from a place that is not yours to a place that is? This tale raises a few interesting points. First, it might seem counterintuitive that a person's private property is “property that is not yours,” as described by the pious individual's chastising. This is one of the many ways in which the Jewish tradition reminds us that God is the true owner of the earth, and we are its inhabitants and stewards. The man clearing stones is being inconsiderate to his community by littering in the public area. The idea that he is part of that community is clearly shown when he trips over his mess. Thus, when we “clear stones” into the public domain, we are not only harming others, we are also harming ourselves. If we, as individuals, purchase products that are harmful to the environment or support companies that are unnecessarily destructive, we become party to environmental destruction. In this parable, the stones can be read as our abuse of the environment. The man clearing stones is each and every one of us, and is also most corporations. The pious individual represents our collective conscience, reminding us that thoughtless waste and environmental wantonness have been responsible for widespread devastation in our natural ecosystem, causing clear, irreparable effect. It is impossible to ignore the fact that our choices and actions now affect us in more and more noticeable ways--in other words, we have, in a sense, “cluttered” our public domain by actively and passively participating in harming our environment. Placing a Stumbling Block. This story implicitly alludes to the important commandment from the Torah: lifnei iver lo titein mikhshol, “You shall not... place a stumbling block before the blind” (Leviticus 19:14). The rabbinic tradition has understood this prohibition to refer to a ban on assisting Jews in transgressing mitzvot (“commandments”). For example, a Jewish business owner is prohibited from selling products forbidden to other Jews, such as idols or non-kosher foods. The buyer, who does not know whether or not an item is forbidden (and is thus “blind”), might mistakenly think that, since it is sold by a Jew, it is kosher. Thus, its presence in the store serves as a “stumbling block.” In regard to the environment, and consumer responsibility, I like to employ the principle of lifnei iver in an unconventional sense. We live in a market-driven economy. In very simple terms, what we buy determines what is sold. Many companies produce goods people want that have a negative environmental impact, which may include obvious things, such as air pollution or increased carbon output. However, there are other unseen impacts of consumer decisions. Despite these negative environmental consequences, companies in our society tend to choose making a profit over sustaining the environment. As consumers in a market-driven economy, we have power within that structure and therefore, we have responsibility. If a Jewish store owner provides items forbidden to Jewish individuals, and a Jewish customer unknowingly purchases one of those products, that store owner may be guilty of livnei iver error. When we buy products or support companies that unnecessarily harm the environment, are we not giving these companies an incentive to continue with “business as usual”? Although this is not the traditional application of lifnei iver, by providing profit for a company despite their engagement in irreparable, unnecessary environmental destruction, we become party to a greed-driven system and thus perhaps guilty of placing stumbling blocks in front of others. (By Justin Goldstein)
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