Earlier this week, Rabbi Saxe and I had the pleasure of joining a number of you at TRS’ annual Tu BiShvat seder. This seder (which is made possible by the volunteer work of a lot of wonderful leaders – shout out to the TRS Climate Action Corps & Sustainability Initiative, and everyone who brought a potluck item!) is always one of my favorite winter moments. Each year, a different part of the seder stands out to me. This year, it was a moment near the beginning, focused on snow.
After we had framed the seder and before we drank the first cup, we said, “The first glass of wine or grape juice is pure white, like winter snow. It represents the barren nature of winter, but also the first spark of divine creation, the way change can begin in the most unlikely and empty-seeming moments.”
As we drank from the first cup and I glanced outside the window at the huge piles of icy snow (unusual for us in winter, these days), I found myself thinking, really seriously, about all of the life beneath the snow: the tree roots and seeds deep in the ground, the insect eggs and burrowed animals, and the underground rivers than line our region – maybe frozen like rivers above, but maybe flowing strong.
The Tu BiShvat seder takes us through the year to come, in part with four cups of wine or grape juice that gradually change color to match the seasons: winter, spring, summer, fall. Just as we celebrate the trees at their most dormant, we celebrate the entire earth and everything on it, not just for what it is, but for what we know it will be. We visualize a cycle in which we know we have a part, and we recommit to residing on the earth responsibly.
In our Torah portion this week, Yitro, the Ancient Israelites receive the ten commandments at the foot of Mt. Sinai. It’s a grand moment, full of unity and hope and the promise of a better, more ethical future, one where people will serve God and respect themselves and one other.
One of the details I have always loved in Yitro (and maybe talked your ear off about in the past, apologies if so …) is that some of the commandments are written with an assumed audience who are living in permanent homes on land where they can farm. (For example: the listeners are reminded that Shabbat extends to everyone in the community – including “the stranger within your gates” (Exodus 20:10) – and they are told that if they honor their parents, they will long endure “on the land” (Exodus 20:12).)
What feels radical about this is that the listeners in Yitro aren’t living in permanent homes yet – they do not have “gates,” or “land,” or even a clear sense of where they’ll be in two days’ time. So the ten commandments are, in part, an invitation to imagine the future they are walking to.
Just like the Tu BiShvat seder reminds us that winter will become spring, and dormant plants will grow and blossom, the ten commandments in Yitro promise their listeners that one day they (or their descendants) will have settled homes, and an established society.
But the key thing about both the Tu BiShvat seder and the ten commandments in Yitro is that neither one is only about recognizing the changes in our future that are beyond our control. They’re not only about saying “the future will be better” or (maybe more to the point) “the future will be different.”
In the Tu BiShvat seder, we identify our place within the earth and its changing seasons in order to reaffirm and recommit to the fulfillment of our responsibility to the earth. We remind ourselves that change and growth are possible so that we can become agents of change and growth. So too, in Yitro, the Israelites receiving the commandments are hearing that they will have a different, more settled future, in the context of learning about the responsibilities they will have in that future. One day they will have homes, and gates, and land – and the choice they will be left with is how to live within those homes and gates, and on that land. Their obligation, at every moment they have a choice, is to choose to live ethically, and boldly, and imaginatively.
This is our obligation, too. And lest we feel daunted, there is one other commonality between Tu BiShvat seders and the giving of the ten commandments that I think we can learn from: they are both collective enterprises. Neither one can occur unless the community comes together. The work of responding ethically to our moment, in large and small ways, is also very much a collective enterprise. We each need to (re)commit to ethical living as individuals, and we also need to (re)commit to reaching out to each other, and working together. We cannot go it alone.
With and without us, the world keeps turning and changing. Jewish tradition encourages us to find our place within that change, and work for justice, healing, and positive growth.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Alexandra Stein
