Bryan Swartzman:
Evolve is turning five. Happy birthday, [foreign language 00:00:05]. To celebrate our birthday, our anniversary, we've been publishing weekly essays related to the upcoming holiday of Purim and the theme of Uncovering the Light, which is spelled out in the [foreign language 00:00:17] Esther, the story of Purim. If you're familiar with Evolve and since you're listening to this podcast, I think you are, then that we have shed light on a host of difficult issues and challenges faced by the Jewish world today. You can read these exclusive Purim essays and there's some video teachings also, and stay up to date with everything Evolve is doing by signing up for our mailing list. Tap on the signup link in our show notes to subscribe. Okay, onto the show. For my Reconstructing Judaism office, welcome to Evolve: Groundbreaking Jewish Conversations.

Rabbi Jacob Staub:
You need to have two truths, one in each pocket. Progress is not inevitable in one pocket, and in the other pocket progress is possible.

Bryan Swartzman:
I'm your host, Brian Schwartzman, and by the way, just redecorated the office a bit for the first time since 2019. Put up some new photos of my kids and artwork. It really looked frozen in time with pictures from preschool in there. My kids are nine and 12, so it was a little eerie going in there, but now I feel it feels more up to date. Well, now that my whole life story today, I'll be speaking with Rabbi Daniel Schwartz and we'll be discussing his two Evolve essays, the first, Evolving Views On Evolution. And the second, Does Faith Have A Prayer Finding Hope As We Confront The Climate Crisis. But first, I am privileged today to be joined in this interview by my friend and executive producer, Rabbi Jacob Staub. Rabbi Jacob, great to have you in the virtual booth with me today.

Rabbi Jacob Staub:
Thank you, Bryan.

Bryan Swartzman:
Okay, so today we're going to be delving into a philosophical essay on the one hand and a so to speak, practical one on the other. Evolving Views On Evolution, which was apparently dreamed up by the Rabbi while rafting on the Colorado River. It's a meditation on how humans perceive reality, whether or not things are getting better and what we do and how we respond if they're not. And also asking, do people have agency in the really big stuff, climate change, biodiversity, human civilization, and how all that turns out? And is the concept of evolution as we know it helpful in thinking about these things. The second is about Rabbi Schwartz's participation in a 2021 gathering of religious leaders at the Vatican. It was held in advance of the UN Climate Summit in Glasgow. And in a sense these essays are mirror images of one another. And one is really about theology and philosophy and one is about activism and how you try to enact to save the planet and better the human species, and how you do that as a religious actor.
And by the way, as part of this work, Rabbi Schwartz met Pope Francis and we'll talk about the Pope, that might be a first on the show. And Pope Francis' impact on environmentalism and the image of faith leaders as social justice activist. Now, before we get to the interview, a reminder, all of the essays discussed on the show are available to read for free on the Evolve website, which is evolve.reconstructingjudaism.org. The essays are not required reading for this show, but we recommend checking them out before, after, preferably not during, but go ahead, it's free. Dive in, lots to read and digest.
Now it is time for our guest. Rabbi Daniel Schwartz is the executive director of the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life known as COEJL for Short. He has also held leadership positions with the Greater Washington Interfaith Power and Light, the National Religious Partnership for the Environment, the Children's Environmental Health Network, and the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism.
He's the author of To Till and to Tend: A Guide for Jewish Environmental Study and Action. And he's written a children's book called Bim and Bom: A Shabbat Tale. He serves as Rabbi of Temple Hesed in Scranton. And surely this is the most significant fact about him. He walked both of my nephews through their entire Benet mitzvah journeys. Rabbi Daniel Schwartz, welcome to the podcast. It's great to have you here.

Rabbi Jacob Staub:
Yes, welcome.

Rabbi Daniel Swartz:
Great to be here and excited about the conversation.

Bryan Swartzman:
Rabbi, you're a very busy person. You run an organization devoted to Judaism and the environment. You're a pulpit rabbi at a congregation in Scranton, which I've been to multiple times. You took a break to raft on the Colorado and explore the Grand Canyon, and that got you thinking about big questions about evolution and how we perceive events and reality in the world today. Can you tell us a little bit about that trip and how it got you thinking about these big questions and made you feel compelled to write them down with a lot of else on your plate?

Rabbi Daniel Swartz:
Sure. It was my second time rafting down the Grand Canyon. I had done it almost exactly 50 years before, that time with my dad and mom and sister. And this time it was a family reunion. It was my dad and stepmom and my step-siblings and their families and my sister and her family and Rabbi Marjorie Berman, my wife who's a reconstructionist rabbi. And the first time when I was a kid really ignited for me a passion in Judaism and geology, exploring the natural world, but also thinking about it in terms of my faith.
And so revisiting it 50 years later was a chance to revisit my past even as I always revisiting the Earth's past. And it just made me think, given what I've learned in the interim and different conversations I've had through the years about people, about science and faith and evolution in particular, about how we're afraid of some of the facts of the natural world, which is not a good thing to do given that they're real, A, but also B, that there's no need to. That if you understand it with the right perspective that they're beautiful and not scary.
And particularly this idea that we hear in different places, but especially from folks in the faith world, that evolution must have some purpose, that we're evolving towards something. And that if there isn't this goal, then there's not meaning in life. And for me the unfolding of history with all of its, whether we're talking about the Earth's history or human history, with all of its uncertainties and all of its possible pathways is just deeply exciting. And it also gives me much more of a sense of agency in the world, believing and understanding that things could have been different, that there's not this inevitable plan that we're cycling our way towards. But that we could make not just mistakes, but also good choices and that those choices make a difference in the future.
So, seeing how life unfolded and the different pathways that it took and didn't take, and dead ends in the evolutionary term just made me think a lot about how I would take that in personally about there's not a future that I'm destined to try to fulfill and if I don't fulfill it, I've failed. But there's these possibilities of life in front of me. And if I really understand that, first of all I can make-

Speaker 5:
Here's what I found.

Rabbi Daniel Swartz:
Sorry, first of all, I can make better choices, but also I recognize the possibility of choice itself.

Rabbi Jacob Staub:
This is very exciting to me. As I shared with you last year I wrote a piece on the evolving definition of evolution 25 years ago. Well, I'm very excited about this piece because you actually take me by the hand and tell me what to do about the non-progressive nature of evolution. But I want to slow down a little and make sure it's clear when-

Rabbi Daniel Swartz:
Sure.

Rabbi Jacob Staub:
... particularly reconstructionists say Judaism is an evolving religious civilization. We mostly all think that that means that our Judaism is superior, more evolved than medieval or rabbinic or biblical Judaism. And I think I personally have less trouble thinking about the fact that the human species might never have evolved if some asteroid had wiped us out at the given time, then [inaudible 00:11:01] with that then with the idea that gender equality is superior to non-gender equality. Or any one of our deeply held values, it's just a contextual, to use your term, contextual evolution because given the Industrial Revolution, it works that way, but back. Another time, another place, I could give lots of examples. It was perfectly fine to do things in ways that seem boring to us now. So, love for you to comment?

Rabbi Daniel Swartz:
Yeah, you raised a really important point, Jacob, and that is there are both deep similarities but also some differences when we're talking about the way that evolution precedes in the natural world and particularly cultural evolution. I think humans may be messing with our own physical evolution in ways we don't quite understand, but the same basic laws apply whether we're trying to create certain physical characteristics or not. But one of the things that can be very dangerous is to map blindly from one into the other. That is part of what led to some of the horrors of social Darwinism.
When we talk about cultural evolution, we're looking at not ... The way that physical evolution is graded, so to speak, is survival. And survival's always contextual. What enables me to survive in one place in one time is very different from what enables me to survive in another time. And so there's not an absolute form of survival. And in fact, that's a huge problem with history is that we get stuck on the idea that because we needed to fight in this kind of method in the past, it means that fighting is the best way to survive in the present, which is often wrong.
Cultural evolution really can have a goal of not survival, but of I guess in Jewish terms redemption. Taking a world that is imperfect and broken and trying to heal it. But it does help a little with humility if we understand that just as we can look in the past and see some really things that just look to us like blatant obvious errors that we're so glad that we have evolved past and have corrected, that perhaps the brilliant solutions that we have come up with today that some future time is going to look at and say, "Boy, they were foolish." And recognizing that I think is a pretty helpful dose of humility. It's very easy looking at the past and seeing some of those mistakes to feel superior.
And I think we've gotten some things right that they got wrong. I think conversely there are at least some places where we have lost important wisdom, but probably most importantly of all, we haven't reached redemption yet. We're not at a place where we should be satisfied with where we are and think that we've got it all right. There can be progress I think in cultural evolution in the evolution of civilizations, but we shouldn't be too self-satisfied with it.

Rabbi Jacob Staub:
That's helpful.

Bryan Swartzman:
I think it was Sir Paul McCartney who sang the Sergeant Pepper lyric, "I got to believe it's getting better. It's getting better all the time." I think I just, I came close to there. So, I mean, we know late 19th, early 20th century, a good bit of the industrialized world there was a real strong sense and faith in progress, in scientific progress, in human progress. In lots of ways, measurable ways, human life was getting better for certain number of people in a certain number of places. Then we have the Great War that blows up that sense and we have this lost generation that lived with that balloon getting burst.
And of course, the Second World War, the Holocaust, the birth of the nuclear age, but I mean, my sense is certainly pretty recently, there was a sense certainly among a lot of progressives, I know that by and large if you blocked out and didn't look at certain things, climate change or race relations, that rights were expanding, things were getting better. It was sort of this slow progress to more and more rights.
And then we've had 2016 and suddenly, I don't know, everything ... We're asking ourselves, "Is our democracy going to hold and more will our planet hold?" It just seems like there's so much of it. I guess this is a long-winded way of asking, "If you don't believe that things are getting better, how do you live, how get up in the morning, how do you use philosophy, the kind of philosophy and theology you're talking about to act with some purpose?"

Rabbi Daniel Swartz:
Excellent. I wish I believe, but I don't believe as Martin Luther King said, "That the arc of the universe is long, but it is bending towards justice." That would be great. I think the arc of the universe bends this way and then bends that way. And so I guess my advice is a little bit like Rabbi Bunim, that you need to have two truths, one in each pocket. And he talked about the idea of in one pocket dust and ashes, dust and ashes in the other pocket, the world was created for my sake. And a similar thing is, progress is not inevitable in one pocket and in the other pocket progress is possible. That if I stand on the sidelines I can't expect the world to bend towards justice.
But I know that it has sometimes. And so that's my calling then as a human being is to figure out what I can do to be part of a better story unfolding. That might not happen if I don't do it. One of the interesting things from looking at the grand history of the planet is Jacob mentioned one of the big unexpected things, asteroids hitting the planet and how they can make a big shift. But there are all sorts of stories of what has happened in the history of the world in terms of evolution and in terms of human history where seemingly minor insignificant things ended up having huge impacts.
Even if it seems like the whole world is trending towards authoritarianism, we really don't know what next act might shift that, whether that's just being kind to somebody who turns out to help shift the world because you were kind to them, or something more dramatic. So yeah, it's not inevitable. We have probably more ways to screw up life today than we have had at any point in human history. And yet, we also have amazing tools for making life better, and we have multiple paths in front of us. So, it's all about what we're going to choose.

Rabbi Jacob Staub:
I want to take advantage of your rabbinic pastoral expertise to help me and I think a lot of other people. It's possible that we reached the two degrees or will any day and that it's over. That my grandchildren might live because they're going to be privileged. But really human history, it's a possibility that it's not inevitable that we will continue. And all right, so I hear you saying, "Okay, but the only response is let's do the best we can to turn that around." But there's something existentially, emotionally disastrous, just really leveling about that possibility. How do you deal with that?

Rabbi Daniel Swartz:
I remember vividly when I was in college and was friends with somebody who was an RA, residential advisor. And one of her advisees was feeling suicidal. And it was a young woman who I had had some connection with. And so I took a walk with her and we talked about what was going on for her. And I gave her my version of a pep talk, which is fairly depressing, which said, "There's no guarantee that anything is going to get better. You're feeling alone, you might feel alone for a long time, but there's a possibility and you and I have connected. And that speaks for the fact that you're a really interesting person and you've got something worthwhile. And hopefully you'll find some people who share that even though a lot of people won't."
And for her that was exactly what she needed to hear because everybody had told her everything was going to be okay. And she knew experientially that not everything was going to be okay because for her at that moment everything was really not okay. So, to say it's going to all be okay was just not helpful. I don't know that my prescription is universally helpful, I'm sure it is not, in fact. But I don't know a single person who has managed to get past 20 who has not experienced deep tragedy. There's no way to live life without having our heart broken again and again.
But at the same time, I think our lives all demonstrate that that tragedy is not all that there is. And that even in the midst of those tragedies, there's, if we give them the space to be felt and to really experience mourning and to not say everything's okay, there's the love that remains. And so I would just kind of scale that up when we think about society. There's going to be huge losses. They're going to be heartbreaking. We're going to lose wonderful, beautiful species and beautiful places. There's going to be aspects of civilization that are going to be strained at best and wiped out at worst, but there will be much that remains and that will be astoundingly beautiful and wonderful. And I want to make a choice to not just be in the state of grief. I need to feel grief, because it's real. And if I try to tamp it down it's going to come out in all sorts of unhealthy ways.
But I can also see the love that remains in not just in a personal way, but in the wonders of the world around us. We know from the history of the planet that there have been these huge, major extinction events that have radically shifted what life is like, but life has continued. It is, I think the likelihood that human civilization is going to look like it does today in a 100 years is actually pretty small. But the ways that it's going to look different are not yet decided. It could look different in that all order has broken down and we've got a completely anarchic, dystopian world. Or it could be that we actually figure a few things out. And some of the really dysfunctional parts of today we've doing better at the same time that there's been loss. I guess, A, feel the grief, there's going to be rough and terrible things. And B, know that humans have been built to survive grief when they are in touch with it, and that there's more to life than that. That there's profound beauty and love, even as there's profound loss and destruction.

Rabbi Jacob Staub:
Thank you.

Bryan Swartzman:
Okay, bear with me. I see a path to a question, but it might be a winding one. I mean-

Rabbi Daniel Swartz:
Hey, we're on Paul McCartney, so has to be, it's Long and Winding Road.

Bryan Swartzman:
Long and Winding Road, and I'm sure imagine if we go to [inaudible 00:26:01], he'd come up, we're imagining a lot. I mean, humans really think in stories. I don't know if there's ever been, our popular culture has ever been as rife with apocalyptic, dystopian stories as we are now. There's so many examples I just read and then watched the show Station 11 about a pandemic that wipes out a chunk of humanity. There's also this tremendous human need to know the end of the story, which I think maybe is one reason we have these apocalyptic scenarios in different religions and maybe this pessimism now that, "Oh, the environment is doomed, we're all doomed. We can't do anything about it." I mean, I think your opening message here today was, "We have agency." But we might not have agency to save every species you talked about. I guess it's a repeat of, how do you scale up that message? What is the story that we could be telling ourselves that would be helpful and useful and not fantasy, I guess?

Rabbi Daniel Swartz:
I'm working on, and that probably could be put in quotes, a "sci-fi novel" that had set aside for a number of years and I'm now dabbling in it again. No humans appear in it. Part of it was just, I was once at a gathering, this is the way my mind works and this is perhaps illustrative of why I managed to be optimistic at the same time that I'm a Cubs fan. The-

Bryan Swartzman:
Didn't they win eventually? They won the world-

Rabbi Daniel Swartz:
They did eventually, 106 years they won. That's part of the story is, and it may be another a 100 years before they win again, but they will, they will. But this particular species, their holy book has just a front cover, it doesn't have a back cover. Because what's central to their story is that the story's not done and that the ending hasn't been written. And the great thing about the Torah cycle in Judaism is that even though it's a set five books, we read it as if it doesn't have an ending. As if each time we look at it it's different and we learn something new and we can tell new stories, even though they're linked to this particular foundation of stories. The evolutionary thinkers, not Darwin, because he saw it much more clearly, but the folks who followed in his footprints who became much more orthodox Darwinians than Darwin was, really did think that there was progress unfolding.
And we have social thinkers, particularly again, as you said, Brian at the end of the 1800s and beginning of the 1900s who see progress is inevitable. And they see the stories ending and the people who think that humanity either has no chance or shouldn't have a chance or that dystopia is inevitable, also think they know the end of the story. And I think they're both wrong. I don't think we know the end of the story. I think it's going to be a story with a lot of tragedy. I do believe that. But how much tragedy and the mixture of tragedy and triumph is not written in stone or in the cosmos and it will make a difference.
It's a trite parable, but there is truth to it of this guy walking down the beach and where a bunch of sea stars have been washed up and he's throwing them into the water and somebody comes up to them and says, "There's no way that you can save all these. It's just part of life. They die." And he says, well, "I made a difference to that sea star and I made a difference to that sea star," as he throws them back.
What we do will make a difference to each other. And that's both a short-term thing and a huge cosmological thing. So yeah, it's not going to be all happiness. But I think part of the reason that we tell dystopian stories, I believe, is that the authors want there to be a different ending than the one that they've written. And maybe if they depict that society and we rebel against it, that we'll do something better. I think that's the same impulse that you get for utopian stories of wanting to envision a better world. And we learned both ways. Some of the most valuable things I've learned about having a good relationship is from people who had terrible relationships and learning, "I'm not going to do that." As well as learning from people who have great relationships. And I think we can apply that to the world as well. Our imagination allows us to see some terrible futures and some wonderful futures and we should learn from both of those.

Rabbi Jacob Staub:
I just want to observe that I'm just loving listening to what you're saying. What I'm hearing is, this is a theological path for anyone who doesn't believe in supernatural purpose and divine direction. And for someone who doesn't want to buy into the notion that things have inherent purpose, that even though they don't, it's okay, we can still have a loving world worth saving.

Rabbi Daniel Swartz:
Yes, I deeply believe that. And I personally am glad that it's that way. Both because of the agency it gives me, but also because frankly, if there was a right path, odds are that I wouldn't find it. And then I would just feel terrible about, "Oh man, I just screwed up because here's this, I got 73% on this exam of life." And if I got, just knowing from my days as a student, if I got a 95 I'd be just upset about the 5% that I got wrong. How could I have done that? But the test of life I'd barely pass and I'd just be so upset about all those things that I did wrong. And what I try to take out of this and what I see in the world of evolution, in the world of humanity, is that there's rarely a single answer.
There's some things that are genuinely wrong, but there's many ways of being right. And there's many things that are an interesting and complex mixture. And so it's not just that I either pass or fail, it's that I try to find a path that creates meaning for me and that honors people in life around me. And there's a lot of different ways to do that. And my hope of folks for whom Judaism is an important part of their lives is that they recognize that historically there have been many Judaisms and that odds are that there's not going to be a single Judaism that answers all the questions of all Jews in the future. And that that's a good thing that there would be some diversity in the ecosphere of Judaism.

Rabbi Jacob Staub:
So, not only does this promote humility, but I think it's a firm foundation for compassion and self-compassion, right? Yeah. Forgiveness of self and others.

Rabbi Daniel Swartz:
Right, there's, it's both responsibility and compassion kind of mixed together. On the one hand I do have to try to figure out how the choices I'm making affect the people around me and myself. And on the other hand, understanding that there's absolutely no way I can see all the consequences of everything I'm going to do. That there's so many unexpected, unintended consequences that even when I try my best and do what I think is exactly the right thing, it's going to have some disastrous elements. And sometimes I'm going to fail to live up to my own vision, and that's because I'm imperfect and can't expect perfection. So, it's that mixture.
It's not saying, "Well, because I can't figure out everything that's going to happen, just doesn't matter. I'm just going to take care of myself and screw the rest of the world." No, we are so interrelated that I can't ignore what I do to others, because that's just part of reality and part of my life and certainly should be part of my thinking as an ethical being. But just understanding that there's not a right answer, that we don't have the perfect knowledge as we make choices. And so we strive, but we are compassionate. And finding that balance of, as you said, humility and compassion, I think is really key to being able to keep going in the world.

Bryan Swartzman:
If you're enjoying this episode, please take a moment to give us a five star rating or leave a review an Apple podcast. These really help other people find the show and get tuned into it. We'd like to get to 100 five star ratings, and we're nearly halfway there. Please help us out if you have a moment. We really appreciate it.
Now, back to our conversation with Rabbi Daniel Schwartz. So, I mean, you also very much have an activist side. You've been an activist for decades trying to show agency in the human story, in the ecological story. And not that long ago you had a chance on a big stage to try to play a part in shaping that story, gathering with religious leaders from across the world at the Vatican to influence the UN Climate Summit at the time, I think it was in Scotland that year. I mean, can you tell us a little bit about that experience and what you took from it?

Rabbi Daniel Swartz:
Sure. I got this invitation, which I didn't quite believe at first, and I still am profoundly puzzled as to exactly how the Vatican knew of my existence, let alone wanted me to be part of this select group of 40 leaders from around the world. But I approached the bishop of the Diocese of Scranton, not having any sense of how the Vatican works, for his input. And he's a, Bishop Bambera is a profoundly compassionate, lovely person who grew up in the Jewish neighborhood of Scranton and whose mom cook Rugelach and learned how to make chicken soup and all sorts of things. And he said, "Daniel, if they invited you, this pope, when he invites people wants to actually hear from them." And if he hadn't said that, I think I would have at least for a period of time have felt just intimidated to have spoken up and tried to impact the way that this meeting went on.
But I really took his words to heart and as a lesson for me in this moment and as a bigger lesson. So yeah, it turned out that there were all these folks who were in charge of much, much larger religious organizations. The Pope, for example, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the General Secretary of the Muslim World League. But I knew I was much about the subject that we were talking about as any of them, and in many cases more, because this was one of the little corners of the world that I specialized in. And so to really see that I had something to contribute to this discussion was a real important part of what unfolded. And I really felt that part of what I could do is push them farther to be more prophetic, to be more courageous. And also, to speak specifically about ways that the world operates with criteria other than justice and that we needed to lift up justice. And that justice here was both results oriented but also process oriented.
There's this tendency even among religious leaders who believe that they're called to be prophetic, to speak for others, on behalf of others, as opposed to speaking up so that other voices can speak up for themselves. Part of the problem with having a bunch of white men having discussions and part of what was trying to be changed in this meeting in terms of diversity, to recognize what voices weren't there. So, I pushed and it made a difference. Folks were willing to go at least a little further because of some of the pushing that I did and that some of the other more activist, not quite so senior leaders at this meeting said.
And we wrote, I think both a statement with some vision and some demands and some beauty behind it about the possibility of what a faith vision from all these different faith traditions could offer the world as it was considering what to do about climate, which included hope, included this message of not blocking out the terrible things that are going to happen. Not denying them, but nonetheless having a sense of hope and possibility. But working out of love, love for other human beings, love for all of life on the planet, working out of a sense of the innate value. They're not a economic utilitarian value, but an inherent value.
And how in just the way that the world has unfolded since human history began, that so often the powerful benefit from certain situations and other people who are less powerful pay the cost. And how those dynamics are writ large in climate change. Together we came up with this document that I helped shape many parts of that we sent to what's called COP26, Conference of Parties 26, which was that particular climate conference in Glasgow in October of 2021. And it served as kind of the mezuzah to the meeting in both a physical and I hope symbolic, spiritual way in that the meeting took place in two major rooms and our document was on the wall in between one room and the other.
And it was read to people, and I think they heard some of its calls, particularly as, and again, this has always been an important lesson for me as an activist. It's sometimes the immediate impact of what you do seems to be zero, but that you've planted some seeds that actually bear fruit. That last year's discussion, which took place in Egypt, really focused on some of the key points that we talked about, which is that in addition to solving this problem, as we start to address the things that we haven't solved of climate change, which are going to be enormous, nations with more resources need to be helping out nations with fewer resources. Both as they shift their economies, but also to deal with the disasters that frankly can be laid at our doorstep because of our own use of fossil fuels.
And the language of justice and the language of inclusion that we called for really started to be there in a more noticeable way in the discussions this past October and November in Egypt. Again, we're far from a foregone conclusion that they're actually going to follow through on the promises that they made. But I feel like we may have been one of the things shifting direction of understanding this, not just as a global problem to be solved, but as something that is affecting different people radically differently, including radical injustices about who's caused the problem and who's suffering.
And that we can't try to globally solve the problem without dealing with some of those injustices. And referring back to our idea of multiple answers, one of the things that used to obsess me as a younger activist was my most effectively using my activist energy. And eventually I realized, I have no idea, and I'm going to be wrong at least as often as I'm right. But if I'm doing something I believe in in a method that I believe in, that that's probably as good as I can do and that it will make some difference. I should always try to learn what's more effective and what's less effective.
But in the end I'm going to be choosing to interact with the world in ways that I can do, which may not be the thing the world most needs, but it's what I can do. And hopefully there's somebody else who's doing it too, and maybe I can help inspire them and they can do it their way just like I do it my way. But it really did in the bishop's message that I should trust that I have something important to say was the precursor to all of it. If I hadn't believed that, I wouldn't have made a difference there. And I think the document wouldn't have been as good and it would had less chance of making a difference in the discussion. And I hope folks listening to this see that not as Pollyanna-ish, but very real, that there is something that they know because of their lived experience that other people don't know. And they have something to offer if they get involved.

Bryan Swartzman:
So, you were in the room with Pope Francis, who for a decade now has been the most recognized religious leader on the planet, I think we can say, has made an effort to make the case for the relevancy of religion in confronting some of the world's problems. And he's spoken and gotten a lot of coverage for issues that you care about. A, the environment and climate change and B, sort of the linkage of that with human wellbeing, with poverty, and talking about these as different sides of the same coin. And I guess I'm just wondering, have you seen this making a difference either in just how governments approach these problems or how other religious leaders talk about these problems? I guess that was trying to be a better way of saying, "You met Pope Francis, what was he like?" But I think there was a serious question behind that.

Rabbi Daniel Swartz:
Oh yeah. I think Pope Francis has made a difference in a bunch of different ways. But one of them, linking to our main theme, is that he has really told the story in a way that people have heard it differently. And it is a way that people of faith are used to operating that scientists and policy makers often aren't, which is that the same ... That holding at the same time the big picture, the overall overarching questions of injustice and planetary climate and the individual human being or animal and what its life is like. Francis has demonstrated love for individual human beings who are devalued by systems in a way that makes much more real his overarching picture. When he washes the feet of somebody or hugs somebody, it shows where he's coming from in this bigger picture. That he is not just thinking of statistics or abstractions, but of the real human and planetary life dimensions of these questions.
I do think it is much easier to talk about the link between faith and climate and the link between climate and justice now than it was 10 years ago, and to not get just puzzled expressions. And Francis is a huge part of that. When I first started working on faith in the environment issues many years ago now, my mom, a blessed memory, would tell her colleagues what I was doing and she said, "Oh, my son works on Judaism and the environment." And they would all go, "What? What's that? I don't understand. What's the connection?" And there's much less of that now. And I do think that Francis' work is part of that. And because of that then we have this way, this added voice that does, I think really add something to the equation. And here's where he succeeded less, but somewhat, new populations of people getting involved. I do think that there are many more people addressing environmental justice and climate conditions out of their faith than there were before Francis' work on this.
But I think there's still a lot of resistance and a lot of folks who somehow have this idea that religion is about what happens in your house of worship in a particular ritual way and anything else is not really the core of religion, where both Pope Francis and I would feel very differently about that. But he really, it was a limited experience, but in my limited experience with him I really got the sense of that integration of how he actually dealt with individual human beings and his grand ethos.
I've met people with beautiful grand philosophies who are just mean to the people around them. And I've met people who are really loving but don't see the big picture and don't understand that there's got to be more than a soup kitchen, but there's got to be societal transformation. And Francis was one of those rare individuals who just seemed to exemplify direct love and a grand vision, really, really pulled together. And he's not a perfect person and he's also dealing with an imperfect institution that he's trying to shift after thousands of years and millions upon millions of people. But it's really the example of his life is profoundly inspiring.

Bryan Swartzman:
Is there a way you would like folks to either think about evolution differently, or the relationship between science and religion differently? What, I guess come back to that, how do we tie these strands together?

Rabbi Daniel Swartz:
Well, given our diving into song lyrics misquote in this case a blue oyster cult. I think religious people should, "Don't fear the scientist." And science people, "Don't fear the faith person." There's a lot of bad stereotypes and a lot of shallow understanding there. I think if you've got a religion that actually actively contradicts the facts and the process of the world, it's not a good thing. It really is not sustainable. And if you try to analyze the problems of the world from just the viewpoint of science and you don't bring in the wisdom and tradition and ethics of faith, you've missed a huge dimension of the way that we actually live our lives.
And these things don't have to be in conflict. And when science challenges us, pass easy answers about, "Oh, it's all going to be okay." I think that's great. It makes us dive deeper and seek harder and grow more. And when faith says to us, "It may not be logical to have hope right now, but it's essential." I think that's also really important. And it's going to become more important as we ... Things are going to get worse before they get better. And so having some touchstone that enables you to bring hope and commitment and belief and possibilities to the work is essential.
Hopelessness justifies itself, because once you feel things are hopeless, then you sit on the side and then they really are. And that happens in so many different ways. If we believe in ourselves and we believe in our agency, sometimes we're going to be wrong, but we're not going to always be wrong. And that's the reason to keep going.

Rabbi Jacob Staub:
Thanks so much, Daniel. This has been really wonderful. I really enjoyed it.

Rabbi Daniel Swartz:
I really appreciated it. And Bryan, I appreciated our pre-conversation and just the thing that you and I both agreed on, that this discussion could be very much residing in the head and we needed to try to uncover the ways that it resides in the heart as well. And having that conversation helped me really think about ways to focus on that.

Bryan Swartzman:
Thank you. You gave us a lot to think about, but also to feel, so it was a pleasure having you.

Rabbi Daniel Swartz:
Oh, thanks for the opportunity.

Bryan Swartzman:
So, what'd you think of today's episode? We want to hear from you. Evolve is about meaningful conversations, and you're a part of that. Send me your questions, comments, feedback. You can reach me at B. Schwartzman, S-C-H-W-A-R-T-Z-M-A-N, at reconstructingjudaism.org. We'll be back very soon with an all new episode. Evolve: Groundbreaking Jewish Conversations is executive produced by Rabbi Jacob Staub and edited by Sam Walks. Our theme song, Ilu Finu is by Rabbi Miriam Margles. This show is a production of Reconstructing Judaism. I'm your host, Bryan Schwartzman. Today joined by Rabbi Jacob Staub. We will see you next time.