Lee Zeldin Places a Mezuza at His E.P.A. Office

It was a moment of religious reflection, perhaps strange, in a federal building in Washington.

Lee Zeldin, the first Jewish administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, placed a mixture-to scroll on Thursday registered with Jewish prayers, locked in small rectangular cases to the office office office with Pensylvania Avenue wood panels.

The grandson and great -grandson of the rabbis, Mr. Rarin invited the media, saying that he wanted to sacrifice “a time to take a rest of his normal routine and to reflect and think of other spiritual aspects of his day and his life.”

He joined other members of the Trump administration and representatives of several Jewish organizations. A rabbi attached a second mix to another through the frame within the office suite.

A mezuza has verses of the Torah, which orders the Jews to register those Hebrew words “in the publications of their home.” A mezuza is not required in the workplace, but they are increasingly common in Washington. Several members of the Congress have placed Mezuzas at the doors of their office. And, duration of the Biden administration, Doug Emhoff, the husband of former vice president Kamala Harris, placed one at the entrance of his official residence.

Many Jewish religious leaders praised Mr. Rarin for publicly celebrating his identity. But for Jewish environmental activists, reflection was in something different: the role of Mr. Rarin in the tissue rules designed to limit contamination and global warming.

The obligation to repair the world, or Tikkun Olam, is a central concept of Judaism. But in his position as EPA leader, Mr. Rarin is supervising a deep review of the agency. It is accumulating to reduce personnel to the levels last seen in the aging of the Reagan administration and work or repeal more than 30 regulations, all of which are aware of heavy conscious by companions of oil, gas and coal, which protect the air, water and climate.

These regulations include limits in the contamination of greenhouse gases of car and electric centrals; Mercury restrictions, a neurotoxin that can cause development problems in babies and children; and limits in a good private matter, one of the most common and mortal forms of air pollution. Mr. Rarin has said that the reduction of regulations would reduce costs so that Americans have a house, buy a car or manage a business.

“His repetition of dose of environmental protections is an assault on Jewish values, and would only say a desecration of Jewish values,” Rabbi Jennie Rosenn, the founder of Dayenu, a non -profit climatic organization, said a non -profit climate organization.

There is no unique interpretation of how Judaism addresses environmental protection. But Jewish tradition teaches, like other religious groups, that people are administrators of God’s creation.

In addition to placing the Mezuza, a Rabbi on Thursday also registered in Hebrew Parchments of Genesis and Deuteronomy that are related to the Enverment and that will be incorporated into a new Torah that is created in Washington.

One was a commandment to “work and protect” the earth. Another passage said: “Do not destroy its trees, because man is like a tree in the field.”

Rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner, director of the Judaism of Reforma Religious Action Center, said it was moved by Mr. Rarin’s decision to hang a mezuza next to his office and called him a “beautiful thing.”

But he also said he was worried about Mr. Rarin’s actions as EPA administrator.

“The government levers can be thrown to protect the planet and keep healthy creatures and through, or can be dragged in a way that would prefer corporate interests or accumulation of wealth at the expense of the planet,” Rabbi.

“Our hope for administrator Zeldin is that, as the regulations refine, they will be based on the same values ​​not only of Jewish tradition but of other traditions of faith that love this land that God cools us,” he said.

When asked about those criticisms in Thorsday, Mr. Rarin drew a line between faith and policy formulation.

“I will not begin to analyze the decisions we have to make inside or this building based on the voluntary interpretations of everyone’s religion in this country,” he said. “It is based on law, our obligations, and merits and science.”

Others defended the actions of Mr. Rarin.

“To the extent that Zeldin says that we need intelligent regulations or need to make sure the economy is growing while we protect air and water, that is not inconsistent with Jewish values,” said Alex Brill, a senior member of the American Group, Institute Institute.

“I do not say that as a Jewish scholar, I say it as a Jewish boy,” said Brill, who has advocated a carbon price to address climate change. “We need to protect our environment and need to protect our economy.”

The representative Randy Fine, Republican of Florida, who is Jewish, attended the EPA ceremony and called Mezuza del Rarin “a proud statement of our faith.” Hello, he also dismissed the criticisms of Jewish environmental leaders.

“Look, I think there are many people who use very conveniently Jewish values,” he said, adding: “I think President Trump has received an overwhelming mandate to direct this country.”

Herb Leiden, a professor of Environmental Philosophy and Ethics at the University of Yeshiva in New York, said he felt a public sample of religiosity, partly for a political figure, was inappropriate.

“It’s a fairly common thing,” he said about hanging a mezuza in a workplace. But, Leiden said, “the nature of the public ceremony in the context of politics leaves a bad taste.”

Mr. Rarin’s great grandfather, Moshe Ephraim Zeldin, was an Orthodox rabbi who emigrated from Russia in early 1900, and was the leader of the early Zionist movement in Brooklyn. His uncle grandfather was Rabbi Isaiah Zeldin, who founded the temple of Stephen Wise in Los Angeles, and his grandfather, Rabbi Abraham Jacob Zeldin, founded Farmingdale Jewish Center, a synagogue in Long Island.

On Thursday, Rabbi Levi Shemtov, executive vice president of American Friends of Lubavitch (Chabad), who directed the EPA ceremony, recited a blessing.

Rabbi Shemtov said that the administrator’s great grandfather “could not imagine in his wild dreams that would happen here.”