Ellen Bernstein, a river guide turned rabbi who blazed a spiritual trail in the environmental movement by connecting nature to the Hebrew Bible, died on Feb. 27 in Philadelphia. She was 70.

In 1988, Rabbi Bernstein founded Shomrei Adamah, Keepers of the Earth, which she described as the first national Jewish environmental organization. “The Creation story, Jewish law, the cycle of holidays, prayers, mitzvot, and neighborly relations all reflect a reverence for land and a viable practice of Stewardship,” she wrote in Ecology & The Jewish Spirit: Where Nature & the Sacred Meet.

            Her work gave a new dimension to the words “holy land” and to the synergy between heaven and earth,” The New York Times said.