Reply To: Kosher Cruise

Here’s more:

“The principle that “one should not drain the water of his well when others need it” is found in the Mishnah.13 A Jew is even commanded to prevent damage threatening his neighbor from an outside force.14

The Sages of the Talmud expanded these rules also to psychological disturbances, such as possible exposure to a neighbor’s observation, noises, and so on. Anyone suffering such annoyances may appeal to the courts to force his neighbor to remove them. This may include the removal of the cause of the noise, although the noise is only indirectly due to it15 and even if its removal will cause the owner financial hardship. Based on these rules, the Ryvash drafts the guiding principle: “One may not protect his own property from damage at the expense of his fellow’s damage.”16 This principle could serve as a guideline in modern legislation for pollution control.

Four particular nuisances are especially liable to legal action according to Jewish law: smoke, sewage odors, dust and similar aerosols, and vibrations.17 Even if consent had initially been given, the offended neighbor can retract it. All of these are forms of pollution which are a source of great concern to this day. In particular, halakhah limits the proximity of certain industrial processes to the city, to prevent air pollution within the city. Included are threshing floors (because of the chaff), processing of carcasses, tanneries (because of the smell), and furnaces (because of the smoke).18 Tanneries are specifically limited to the areas east of the city, in consideration of the prevalent wind patterns in the Land of Israel.19

We have already mentioned the value the Torah places on beauty. It is obvious, then, that mere aesthetic damage such as littering in public places is also included in the prohibition against causing damage — if not according to the letter of halakhah, then according to its spirit. We find at least one example of such legislation: furnaces were forbidden in Jerusalem because the smoke blackened the walls of the houses, “and this is a disgrace.”20

All the above is only a small sampling from over one hundred paragraphs in the Code of Jewish Law21 which deal with damages caused to neighbors, most of them environmental. One who studies and applies these laws in daily life becomes considerate and sensitive, and will not make light of harming the environment. He will beware of causing damage in general, and ecological damage in particular.” (Aish)