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I was born in Toronto, Canada in 1953. I come from a traditional Conservative Jewish family where Jewishness was more familial and ethnic than religious. My grandfather had come to Toronto in 1907 from Poland. Over the next few decades he brought out several of his siblings and their families, but when World War II began several remained, including an older brother, Lazar. Lazar, his wife and two children were killed by the Nazis, probably in the Treblinka death camp. I was named after him. I have a picture of Lazar which is on a postcard sent to Toronto by members of my grandfather’s community in Poland before the High Holidays. Lazar belonged to the community’s interest-free loan society. The society’s governing committee is shown on the postcard, which urges people to make donations before the holidays as a means of atonement. As a teenager I was given the postcard, and it became an inspiration to me. I have felt since then that I wanted to live a life devoted to a higher purpose. When I was nine, my parents sent me to a northern Ontario summer camp, where I first began to feel a close connection with the natural world. This occurred particularly during canoe trips in Algonquin Provincial Park, where some of my most intense spiritual experiences took place. These experiences gave me a sense of something beyond the day-to-day, a sense of wonder, a glimpse of the transcendent. I carry these and other moments like them with me even now - the meetings with wildlife, the night stars, the Aurora Borealis, canoeing in the early morning when the lakes are like mirrored glass. I spent ten years at summer camp, first as a camper and then as a counselor. I have spent a significant amount of time in nature throughout the rest of my life. I have come to realize - whether through time in my backyard looking at birds on the feeder or hiking on a trail – that my relationship with the sacred in Creation is the foundation of my spirituality. The natural world is inspiring and restorative. I now know that most people have similar experiences if they are willing to remember and to open themselves to this. My intellectual journey towards religious environmentalism began when I was in rabbinical school at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City. I originally intended to become a history professor. History, especially ancient and medieval history, had fascinated me. Several years before rabbinical school I had spent my junior undergraduate year at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, both to further my study in medieval Jewish history and to use the year to become more religiously observant. This desire for stronger observance had grown in me since my teenage years when I studied Jewish mysticism, Kabbalah. I decided to become a rabbi because I felt the pull of the intellectual and religious training that the Seminary offered. When I entered JTS, I knew a lot about history but little about philosophy or theology. Under the guidance of several great teachers, theology became my focus. I had a particular interest in the relationship between science and religion. I published my first papers during these years, one on the ethics of genetic engineering. After ordination I continued to study, teach and write on these subjects. In my first pulpit as the assistant rabbi of a large Toronto congregation, I gave a series of lectures on science and religion to a group of adults interested in my teaching. Among those attending were several active environmentalists. Through our friendship I became aware of the environmental crisis and the need to articulate a Jewish response. That was more than twenty years ago. Ever since then, I have pursued my religious-environmental interest in several ways. The pattern of encounters with the divine in nature has continued, especially at times of intense encounter with wild Creation, such as on a wilderness kayaking trip in Alaska in the summer of 2001. Parallel to those existential experiences, I have continued to study, lecture and write on the science/religion dialogue with a focus on environmental theology. I have been particularly influenced by the writings of Thomas Berry, Ian Barbour, John Haught and Hans Jonas. Over the past five years, Jonas has become the philosopher who has most influenced me. I helped to create a conference on his life and work at Arizona State University this past November and I have written several papers exploring aspects of his philosophy as they pertain to environmental theology and ethics. I have also worked as an environmental activist. In 1992 I attended the conference in Washington DC that created the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life (COEJL). I served on COEJL’s board until 2004 when I became COEJL’s Rabbinic Fellow. When I moved to New Jersey in 1993 I became involved with GreenFaith, serving on its board until 2004 when I became its Rabbinic Scholar. I have served for a decade on the Interfaith Partnership for the Environment (IPE), an advisory group to the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). My activism on regional, national and international levels is a direct outgrowth of my work as a theologian and ethicist. I have been a rabbi since 1982. During that time I have worked in congregations in Canada and New Jersey. Over that time period, my personal theology and vocation have become more intimately connected to a religious response to the environmental crisis, to articulating a view of God and Creation that speaks to this critical reality. In the fall of 2002 I was diagnosed with prostate cancer. In the wake of this diagnosis, I decided that I wanted to devote the rest of my life to working for the restoration of Creation, referred to in Judaism as Tikkun Olam – the healing of the world. I believe that this is a critical moment in human history and I feel called upon to respond. I feel that my experience as a congregational rabbi and a theologian give me the particular skills to bring this message to religious leaders. I know of no more important religious work.
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Rabbi Lawrence Troster