| Sumario: | This article explores how Hasidic texts might be read as ethical prompts, not simply as nudges or pushes to do the right thing, but sources that spark a process of thinking, reflection, and discernment. Such encounters with Hasidic teachings can enhance our mental toolbox by providing new conceptual data and methods of reasoning, thereby deepening our capacity for ethical decision-making and our capacity to grapple with real-world problems. We are in the midst of a major ecological crisis manifest in extreme weather events, loss of biodiversity, depletion of fisheries, pollution of air, water, and soil, prolonged droughts, and mass extinction of species. The statistics amount to a grave moral and existential crisis of our day, one that should prompt us to consider our ways of acting, thinking, and being in the world. But in part because of their magnitude and complexity, even cataclysmic reports and dramatic models do not seem to motivate large-scale change. To address dire environmental problems, we must explore traditional sources with an eye to different modes of theorization and valuation that can unseat assumptions about humanity and our relationship to the nonhuman world. I suggest that Hasidic homilies have much to offer contemporary discussions regarding environmental thinking, policy, and planning, and, at the same time, our study of these sermons has much to gain from engaging with the broader methods and disciplines of ecology and sustainability.
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