DEUT1013 R. Yochanan said: "For a man is a tree of the field" -- Now is a man a tree of the field! But [understand it thus:] it is written; "for from it shall you eat, but it shall you not cut down"; and (verse 20): "it shall you destroy and cut down." How is this to be resolved? [Midrashically,]: If he [i.e., one who would be your teacher] is a genuine Torah scholar, "from him shall you eat, and him shall you not cut down"; if not, "him shall you destroy and cut down" (Ta'anith 7a)

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DEUT1015 It is a negative commandment not to destroy any fruit–bearing tree in setting siege for Scripture says, When you besiege a city… you shall not destroy its trees [this verse]. This means not at a siege alone but rather wherever a person cuts down a fruit tree destructively, he should receive whiplashes. And if anyone breaks a useful object, tears a garment, demolishes a structure, or ruins food destructively -- he should be beaten with whiplashes of disobedience, by the law of the Sages. However, a non-fruit-bearing tree may be cut down even if there is no need for it; and so to a fruit tree that has aged and produces no fruit except for some small quantity, so that is not it is not worth troubling with it -- which would be less than a quarter of a kav of olives, or a kav of dates. So too, it is permissible to cut down a fruit tree if it has been harming other trees, or because it causes damage to other fields, or because its price [as wood] is high: for the Torah forbad it only as an act of destruction.

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DEUT1016 See [[DEUT989]] Deuteronomy 20:10 peace DORFF-RUTTENBERGWAR 102-3

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DEUT1019 What seems in the Torah a specialized and therefore rather minor edict about behavior toward the earth becomes a much broader one in rabbinic Judaism. The Torah says, [this and following verse]. The rabbis of the Talmud concluded that if we must not destroy enemy fruit trees even in wartime, then all the more must we take care not to waste them, or any life-forms, or even human-made objects, in time of peace: Bal tashkit! ("Do not destroy!") At the same time, having broadened the command so much, they also made clear that it was wasteful use, not all use, that they were prohibiting, that indeed God sees it as a sin not to take advantage of the joys God provided in the world God created. (B. Bava Kamma 91b. For the prohibition itself, see also B. Shabbat 67b, 129a, 140b; B. Kiddushin 32a; and B. Hullin 7b). (By Arthur Waskow, "Jewish Environmental Ethics: Intertwining Adam with Adamah")

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DEUT1017 See [[GEN275]] Genesis 2:15 tend SACTAB 190-2

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DEUT1018 See [[LEV354]] Leviticus 19:13 defraud SACTAB 71-2

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DEUT1020 Would you like assurance of the personal concern of Providence, that it will never consider you utterly worthless and insignificant? Become a holy part of a holy undertaking. Join your religious community. Become a vital part and partner of a project for the support and study of Torah. Make yourself an indispensable, irreplaceable "cog" in the system of the Almighty. In Scripture we read: "When you besiege a city a long time, in waging war against it to take it, you shall not destroy its trees… for you may eat of them; hence you shall not cut them down; for man is [as] the tree of the field" [this verse]. The prohibition applies only to fruit-bearing trees--"for you may eat of them"; they are not to be destroyed, says Scripture, even to help win a war--because they are like people. The metaphor bears us out, once we turn it around: Man is not to be destroyed, because he is a fruit-bearing tree. A human being is to be especially safeguarded from harm and destruction, Scripture indicates, when and if he "bears fruit" and contributes productively to a worthwhile community. The Torah signifies its protection for those who will nourish others, especially spiritually. Then see to it that the world of Torah and good deeds benefits from you.

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DEUT1014 Great stress is laid in Jewish economic behavior on countering “dog in the manger” attitudes [i.e., preventing others from benefiting from one’s things of which one has no need--AJL]. This idea is closely allied to the notion of bal taschit, according to which a man is not permitted to vandalize or destroy even his own property, let alone that of another, since other people might be able to benefit from it. Even though the owner has an explicit indefensible right in his property, the concept in Judaism of man being a mere guardian of his economic assets makes such destruction immoral. The sages saw such waste as an act of rebellion, a rejection of God’s role as the creator and hence, “He who tears his clothing, breaks his utensils, or scatters his money and anger should be in your eyes as if he had served idols.” Talmud Bavli, Shabbat 105b The biblical paradigm of bal taschit is to be found in the laws against destroying trees bearing edible fruit in time of war (Deuteronomy 20:19). It is interesting to note that the discussion centers around trees that are owned by the enemy; all the dictates of war would seem to overrule such moral considerations. Nevertheless, we are logically required to refrain from needlessly destroying fruit-bearing trees, since one is destroying the products and creation of the Lord, who is responsible for giving man his sustenance. The rabbis extended this injunction to include all useful items; In our day, the inefficient use of fuel would be considered a transgression of bal taschit. bal taschit, it should be noted, is also relevant in the case of ownerless property, as may be seen from the story of Hezkeyahu, who, in anticipation of the siege of Jerusalem, closed up the spring of the Gichon, much to the displeasure of the rabbis. Talmud Bavli, Pesachin 56a

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DEUT1021 Thousands of years ago, before ecology became a worldwide human concern, Judaism dealt at length and in a most sophisticated manner with these specific dilemmas and other questions involving the environment. The first indication of any attitude to these issues occurs in the first chapter of the Torah [Genesis 1:28] where God commands man to "fill the world and capture it." In his commentary on this verse, Nachmanides explains that the world is given to men for their needs "to do as they wish" and includes, as one of the examples, man digging up the ground to mine copper. Since strip-mining of copper is a prime illustration of the destruction of the environment, it seems that the Torah permits man to use the world as he sees fit, with no ecological concerns or sensitivity. However, a few verses later [Genesis 2:15] the Torah tempers this by telling us that God put man in the Garden (symbolic of the entire world) “to work it and to guard it.”  Since guarding something means preserving it, God essentially wants man to both use the world of his needs, but, at the same time, to preserve the world and not destroy it. How can man do both? How can he use the world for his needs, but at the same time take care to save it? The answer comes from [this verse] in Deuteronomy. When an army at war surrounds a city in siege and it prepares to use a tree is a battering ram, a fruit-bearing tree may not be used for this purpose, only a tree that does not bear fruit. What is the difference? If one uses the food-bearing tree, then the fruit will be needlessly destroyed, since the same objective could be accomplished just as well with the tree that does not bear fruit. However, a person may cut down a fruit tree when it causes damage to other trees (Maimonides, Hilchot Melachim 6:8). This, then, highlights the Torah perspective on the environment. While man may use the world for his needs, he may never use any resource needlessly. Destroying anything in the world needlessly is called Bal Tashchit.

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DEUT1022 (Continued from [[DEUT1005]] Deuteronomy 20:19 destroy SACTAB 163-5). Biblical Origins of Bal Tashchit. [Deuteronomy 20:19-20]. Chapter 20 of the Book of Deuteronomy contains the biblical origins for the Rabbinic category of bal tashchit. It should be noted that Deuteronomy uses the term lo tashchit (do not destroy), while the Rabbinic texts use the synonymous term bal tashchit. Verses 19-20 prohibit cutting down the fruit trees that surround a besieged city during a time of war, while allowing non-fruit-bearing trees to be cut down and made into instruments of war. The Israelites were allowed to eat the fruit, but they were not permitted to cut them down in order to gain an advantage during combat. Deuteronomy 20 creates a distinction between trees that produce true and trees that do not. According to the medieval biblical commentator Abraham Ibn Ezra from eleventh century Spain, the former is a source of life and the latter is not. For him, there is an implicit relationship between fruit trees and human beings, the fate of one being bound to the fate of the other. Stressing the sacred relationship between fruit trees and human beings, Ibn Ezra writes that the trees of the field are not to be cut down because “the life of man depends on the trees of the field.” Ibn Ezra’s comment implies that the fate of human beings is intimately linked to that of the trees of the field. If humans cut down the fruit trees while besieging a city, then they would essentially be abusing themselves as the beneficiary of the fruit from those trees. Fruit trees are vital to human beings’ existence in times of peace and, all the more so, in times of war. Inherent in Deuteronomy 20:19-20 is the notion that human beings must treat the environment with special care all the time. The implication is that the destruction of trees leads to the loss of food sources and, therefore, the loss of human life that is dependent on this sustenance.

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