It’s the time of year for flags. In early May, around Yom HaAtzmaut, there were Israeli flags, beautiful blue and white rectangles raised in pride, defiance, connectedness.
And Memorial Day and Independence Day bring ubiquitous red, white and blue American flags — poking out of flowerpots, swinging regally from tall poles, on shirts, in virtually every storefront.
But this season brings also a different kind of flag, one that gets me crossing streets and holding my breath to avoid it. These flags also cause me to shake my head in dismay and wonder.
This little white flag, one mandated by law, states that pesticides have been applied to the lawn from which they poke. For me they are not little and white but big and red. And though they don’t signal anything particularly Jewish, they do wave in a host of Jewish ethical issues.
We all should know the well-documented dangers of pesticides by now. A basic Internet search or a visit to the library provides months, if not years, of reading material. The Environmental Protection Agency, clearly not a radical tree-hugging organization, notes the danger of such chemicals, for example, in its “Healthy Lawn, Healthy Environment” brochure.
“All pesticides are toxic to some degree. That means they can pose some risk to you, to your children and pets and to any wildlife that venture onto your lawn…. Pesticides can also kill earthworms and other beneficial organisms, disrupting the ecological balance of your lawn.”
But risks run much higher. Though the little white flags remind us to stay off the grass for 24 hours, pesticides stay on the grass and in the air for much longer. The chemicals are also tracked into our homes and sink into groundwater wells.
Their danger to people is a question not of if but of how much. They are associated with lowered fertility, birth defects, miscarriages, blindness, liver and kidney dysfunction, neurological damage, heart trouble, stroke, immune system disorders, menstrual problems, memory loss, suicidal depression, cancer and death. Scary stuff.
Torah and nature
Beyond health concerns, pesticide use is also an ethical issue. As civilized people, we are taught to care for our neighbor and for future generations. That responsibility extends to animals and the earth.
I am no Torah scholar, but I know that the Torah reveres nature. For example, the laws of shmitta, the sabbatical year for the earth, command a year of rest for the fields between agricultural cycles.
Much has been written about ba’al tashchit (Deuteronomy 20:19-20), the biblical passage that is the basis for the modern environmental movement. It commands us to not cut down trees in a time of war. “Are trees of the field human to withdraw before you into the besieged city?” The commonly accepted interpretation of those passages is that we must care for the earth.
Judaism, like so many other faiths, teaches reverence — for God, for nature, for other human beings, for the godliness within us. Further, our ethical tradition emphasizes hesed, acts of loving kindness, and tikkun olam, healing the world. In that context, spraying toxic chemicals on our lawns with the admitted goal of a pretty lawn seems reckless, vain and small-minded.
There are those who need great legal arguments but I’m a simple thinker; I run on intuition and lead with my gut. And I see the equation as a simple one: If God created a life that includes people, animals and the earth, is not the greatest righteousness one that includes reverence for the natural world?
So, I keep my hand off the trigger of the chemical spraying machine and fight agricultural pesticide use by buying organic produce when I can.
And each spring, when I’m shocked and appalled anew by the quantity of little white flags I see, I take control and stick with my family’s rule of thumb when walking on grass: look for the dandelions and sit among them.
