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Rosh Hodesh Shevat | ראש חודש שבט
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Welcoming Shevat
We are excited to devote this issue to environmental sustainability in honor of the month of Shevat and the holiday of Tu b’Shevat—and to include words, artwork, and music from our faculty, alumni, and members of Admat Kodesh, Hebrew College’s environmental sustainability committee.
We are grateful to Nireh Or Instagram Project founders Rabbi Hayley Goldstein`19 and Lizzie Sivitz for their words and artwork introducing us to Shevat.
This new month of Shevat is said to be the month that spring begins. For us in colder climates, where winter is still in its peak intensity, it’s difficult to connect to the sprouting of spring that Shevat is said to embody.The Hebrew letter associated with this month is "tzadi," the final letter in the word "etz" meaning tree, hinting to Tu b’Shevat, which comes in the middle of the month. The sap of the trees is said to be restored to its naturally flowing state, and things begin to come alive. Even as many of us remain in the cold during these days of Shevat, perhaps we can connect to the lengthening days, the lingering light, and the spiritual sap that is being restored within us.
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Admat Kodesh Committee Takes Meaningful Action
By Lorin Troderman & Sara Blumenthal
Rabbinical students & Admat Kodesh members
יעלז שדי וכל-אשר-בו אז ירננו כל-עצי-יער
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"The fields and everything in them exult, then shall all the trees of the forest shout for joy!” (Ps 96:12)
The month of Shevat is an opportunity to take stock of our relationship to the environment as individuals and as a community. As we celebrate Tu B’Shevat, we are in a moment of “The Great Turning.” This is both our individual teshuvah (returning) to our planetary connection as well as what Joanna Macy identifies “as the transition from a doomed economy of industrial growth to a life-sustaining society committed to the recovery of the world.”
At Hebrew College, we are taking meaningful action. For the past year, Admat Kodesh, Hebrew College’s environmental sustainability committee, has been meeting regularly to think about what should be happening in our Hebrew College building and community, to help us to take action in the communities where we live, and to prepare us to lead in the communities where we will serve. We are focusing our attention on our relationship with the natural world, on raising our collective awareness, on coming up with solutions, and on organizing for action—including securing a Hazon Seal of Sustainability.
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The Blessing of the Tree
By Sam Blumberg
Rabbinical student & Admat Kodesh member
I didn’t have much of a personal connection with Tu B’Shevat until three years ago, when my daughter was born at 9:53 a.m. on the fifteenth of Shevat. We bestowed on her the middle name of Arava (ערבה), meaning willow, as a nod to the auspicious day on which she was born, the New Year of the Trees, and to honor my wife’s grandmother who loved the willow tree.
Trees signify all that is good and precious in our world. The Talmud in Taanit 5b relates that when taking leave of one another, Rav Nahman would ask his teacher Rabbi Yitzchak for a blessing. “Let me tell you a parable,” Rabbi Yitzchak replied. “It is like one who was walking through a desert, hungry, tired, and thirsty, and came upon a tree with sweet fruit, beautiful shade, and a stream of water beneath it. He ate from the fruit, drank from its water, and sat in the shade of the tree. When he got up to depart, he said: ‘Tree, Tree, with what shall I bless you? If I say to you that your fruits should be sweet, your fruits are already sweet; if I say that your shade should be pleasant, your shade is already pleasant; if I say that a stream of water should flow beneath you, a stream of water already flows beneath you! Rather, I will bless you as follows: May it be God’s will that all saplings which they plant from you be like you.’”
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Getting Bigger and Bolder: The New Jewish Climate Movement
"Jewish climate warriors are emerging in pulpits, pews, and on campuses. They are bringing their institutions along with them, which, in turn, are starting to shake off decades of paralysis to join the urgent fight for our lives. Still, studies indicate that while 80 percent of the American Jewish community is 'very concerned' or 'somewhat quite concerned' about the climate crisis, most are not taking action." (Rabbi Shoshana Meira Friedman`14)
Read Shoshana's blog post about the Jewish Climate Movement and The Big Bold Jewish ClimateFest on January 27-31, where Hebrew College faculty and alumni are among those presenting online sessions centered around the holiday of Tu b’Shevat. The event is a free, virtual, and collaborative festival by and for people who want to activate Jewish values to move the needle on climate change. (Photo courtesy of The Big Bold Jewish Climate Fest.)
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Religion and Environmental Responsiblity: A Jewish- Catholic Conversation
Excerpt from a lecture by Rabbi Arthur Green Hebrew College Rector
We Jews and Christians have a shared language for stirring environmental awareness. That is the language of Creation. We are religious communities based on our shared faith in this being a created universe, emerging from the word of God. This means that our world, including all that has happened in the several billion years of its existence, is attributable to God, however we may understand that. While far from being a literalist or fundamentalist in my reading of Genesis or the Psalmist’s magnificent hymns to Creation, these remain essential to my spiritual life, binding it inexorably to my loving concern for the fate of this planet and those who dwell upon it, and hence calling me to environmental activism.
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In honor of Tu b’Shevat, we share this Tree Nigun, composed by Rabbi Noam Lerman`20, and Ma Gadlu (text below), composed and performed by Rabbi Micah Shapiro`17 from his 2019 album Ta’ir Eretz – Light Up The Earth.
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מה גדלו מעשיך יי מאד עמקו מחשבתיך
Ma Gadlu Ma’asecha Yah, m’od amku mach’sh’votecha
How great is your work, oh God,
how very deep are your thoughts! (Psalm 92:6)
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