“Every place is holy. But the holy presence [of the redwood forests] will overwhelm your senses,” Steinberg said.
In hopes of preserving the spectacle of the nearby Headwaters forest, Steinberg and Rabbis Lester Scharnberg of Temple Beth El in Eureka, and Margaret Holub of the Mendocino Coast Jewish Community, called upon its private owner to make tshuvah shelaymah — complete repentance, a genuine change of direction.
Their message appeared as an advertisement in last Friday’s Los Angeles Jewish Times and will show up in newspapers around the country. It is a plea to Houston financier Charles Hurwitz, whose Maxxam Co. owns Pacific Lumber Co. in the Humboldt County town of Carlotta. The signers want him to protect the virgin old-growth redwoods of Headwaters forest and establish a prudent logging rate for residual and second growth timber. Headwaters is the largest stand of privately owned old-growth redwoods in the world.
Logging is scheduled to begin in about two weeks.
Hurwitz purchased Headwaters in 1988 and vowed it would be harvested by the year 2006. In the eight years since Hurwitz took control, Pacific Lumber has tripled its harvest rate from 1.5 million board feet each year to 4.5 million. Environmentalists fear at that rate both the old-harvest reserves, and about 700 logging jobs, will be abolished within five years.
Hurwitz agreed to put off logging for two weeks last Friday while state and federal officials continue talks about a land swap for his 3,000-acre grove. The discussions focus on a “debt-for-nature” swap. Pacific Lumber would relinquish control of a portion of Headwaters for surplus government property elsewhere, and the government would eliminate some of the $250 million in outstanding claims against Hurwitz from his role in the 1988 collapse of a Texas thrift.
An estimated 2,000 to 5,000 protesters, including Steinberg and Scharnberg, demanded permanent protection of the Headwaters forest during a demonstration on Sunday. After stepping onto the private timberland, hundreds were arrested, including former North Coast Rep. Dan Hamburg, who is Jewish.
For both Steinberg and Scharnberg, Sunday’s appeal marks a continuation of efforts aimed at Hurwitz’s spiritual conscience.
“For me it’s essential for a rabbi to get involved in compelling environmental concerns that affect her immediate region,” Steinberg said. “It’s a question of simple piety. If it doesn’t begin with reverence for the natural world, for your neighbors, where does it begin?”
Last year Scharnberg joined religious leaders from San Francisco, Santa Rosa and Eureka in speaking out against logging the old-growth redwoods — specifically the Headwaters forest. Scharnberg suggested Hurwitz, who is Jewish, had “forgotten the teachings of his ancestors.” Scharnberg promptly received a call from Rabbi Samuel Karf, spiritual leader of the congregation Hurwitz belongs to in Texas.
“The rabbi asked if I had met Mr. Hurwitz and would I like to speak with him? He pointed out that Mr. Hurwitz was good and charitable in the Jewish community and the comments I made were hurtful to Mr. Hurwitz in questioning his spiritual integrity,” Scharnberg said.
Hurwitz, notorious for being well-protected and inaccessible, spoke with Scharnberg for 45 minutes on the telephone.
“I invited him to spend time up here,” Scharnberg said. “I respect him in many ways. I found him to think of himself as a man who does great deeds of tzedakah — which he does. But I think that he never did see the Headwaters as anything other than a business deal.
“He’s done millions of dollars of charitable activities. He’s spent millions in acquiring this land. He said if the environmentalists were as forthright as he, they would purchase it. This is not an issue connected to sacredness for him.”
In fact, citing Torah, Hurwitz’s rabbi says “law of the land” protects the Texas mogul’s action. But Scharnberg is calling for a new understanding of the law — both spiritual and secular.
For instance, Torah permits slavery, “But slavery has no place in our world,” Scharnberg said.
Similarly, “many, many people lived fully within the law of Germany during World War II. They never violated a public law, while all around them moral horror was perpetrated against others. It didn’t make their actions right,” he added. “I think our tradition is an etz chayim — a living tree. From time to time it sloughs off leaves, bark or even branches. The root remains solid. The basic structure is clear but aspects of it change with the seasons and the years.
“Today we understand, at least in some circles, that ruthless exploitation of the environment certainly has no place in Judaism today. We can’t accept despoliation of God’s creation.”