Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Cites The Torah In Her Latest Twitter Retort

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Image by Getty Images

By Jenny Singer January 23, 2019

“Pray as if everything depends on God, but act as if everything depends on you.” – Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel

“The world is gonna end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change.” – Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

New York State representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has a reputation for writing the best comebacks since Abraham said, “But what if there are 10?” The freshman congresswoman has used hard statistics, personal anecdotes, and Spice Girls lyrics to smite her haters.

On Wednesday, Raw Story reported on a Fox News interview in which press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders suggested that, rather than Ocasio-Cortez, the end of the world should be left in “the hands of a much, much higher authority.”

The first-time representative responded with a takedown as old as time (well, maybe). In a drash-like tweet, she simply referenced nine moments in the Torah that suggest human responsibility for the earth. Nine.

â€œGenesis 1: God looked on the world & called it good not once, not twice, but seven times.

Genesis 2: God commands all people to â€œserve and protectâ€ creation.

Leviticus: God mandates that not only the people, but the land that sustains them, shall be respected.â€ https://t.co/AhWd3vuVBd

â€” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) January 23, 2019

Dang, congresswoman! And at risk of getting too ecclesiastical, may we add — One generation goes and another, more worldly and tech-savvy generation comes; but the earth remains forever. For in respect of the fate of man and the fate of beast, they have one and the same fate: as the one dies so dies the other; all share the same breath of life.

“You shouldn’t need a bible to tell you to protect our planet,” Ocasio-Cortez added. “But it does anyway.”

Jenny Singer is the deputy lifestyle editor for the Forward. You can reach her at [email protected] or on Twitter @jeanvaljenny

Jenny Singer is a freelance writer with pieces in Vox, the Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, Teen Vogue, and more. She was previously a staff writer at Glamour and the Forward, and she’s currently getting an MFA in nonfiction writing at the University of Iowa.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO