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I write to you in the hours of the Hebrew month of Nisan with a time-sensitive invitation to say a blessing. The practice of saying a blessing is intended to cultivate awareness, wonder and gratitude. While almost all Jewish blessings that are not mitzvah related (ie: lighting candles) are tied to an experience (like seeing a rainbow or eating bread), there is one blessing that can only be said at precisely this time of year. (I hope I am catching you just in time!)
Birkat ha’ilanot - the Blessing of the Trees, is recited in response to seeing the buds of fruit trees in the spring month of Nisan. The practice as we know it comes directly from the Babylonian Talmud (Brachot 43b). “Rav Yehuda said: One who goes out during Nisan and sees trees that are blossoming recites: Blessed…who has withheld nothing from this world, and has created in it beautiful creatures and trees for human beings to enjoy.” Before living in the midatlantic region, I never understood the hype and majesty of the cherry blossom tree, nor the timely nature of this blessing. But over the last 10 years, I have come to anticipate these weeks with a flutter of joy. Brushing up against the luscious flowers, heavy on their branches. The way the sky rains flowers. And the sidewalks are glazed with pink petal frosting. It is pure delight to bless these blossoms. In these precious few weeks of the year one single poem consumes my subconscious. In her poem Instructions on Not Giving Up, Ada Limón actually manages to capture the resilient magic of these “almost obscene” trees. This week I had the added blessing of hearing her read the poem in an interview in the NY Times where she shared with so much humility and candor that it was in fact given to her by a tree. But of course, how else could it know itself so well!? I love this poem so much that Rabbi Mó and I made it part of the epigraph to our new siddur. I always try to read it on Shabbat morning at this time of year. And yet hearing her read it, I heard it anew. I heard, “the leaves come” with a defiant, persistent, hopeful certainty. Being that today is the 30th of Nisan, it is your last day to bless the fruit trees - the last hours before shabbat when the new moon of Iyyar begins. If you have not blessed a cherry blossom tree - this is your moment. Listen to this poem. Listen to the trees. “Despite the mess of us,” these are our instructions for not giving up. This Passover, given the festival coinciding with escalating war, I felt particularly connected to the midrash in which the Holy One offers a compassionate rebuke to the Israelites for celebrating while the Egyptians drowned in the sea, proclaiming, “Those are my children too.”
We now must live in what comes after crossing the sea – the messy unknown of the desert, uncertainty, bickering, feeling hopeless and searching for hope in the wilderness – which is where we find ourselves both politically and spiritually. I have heard from many of you and felt in myself looming despair, which is what I want to speak to this Friday afternoon. This week, Rebecca Solnit sent out a long, poetic and spiritually timely missive which I will briefly summarize as saying no matter how bleak the present, the future is not a foregone conclusion. To make her point she shared a story from the memoir of Congressman Jamie Raskin where he writes about one of his early races for office, a race in which one "expert" pronounced his victory impossible. Raskin notes, "So we went from impossible to inevitable in nine months because the pundits are never wrong, but as I told Tommy, we showed that nothing in politics is impossible, and nothing in politics is inevitable. It is all just possible, through the democratic arts of education, organizing, and mobilizing for change." This may yet be the most hopeful truth. Nothing is impossible and nothing is inevitable. And this includes the parting of the sea (not impossible) and our own liberation (not inevitable). This period of time between Passover and Shavuot, known as the Omer, is a very good antidote to despair. The traditional practice associated with the Omer is to bless and count each day, to cultivate heightened awareness of the passing of time. Each day corresponds to a particular spiritual quality that we can choose to focus on. So for example, today being the 8th day of the Omer corresponds to chesed sh’be’gevurah, care as an expression of boundaries. It may seem like a small thing, but many days can come and go without this level of awareness. Paying close attention to our inner lives in this way inspires agency and aliveness. In the words of Rebecca Solnit, “If we know what's going to happen, we cannot participate in deciding what happens, and vice-versa…If you insist that a given outcome is inevitable, you are lobbying against resistance. At best, you've surrendered; at worst you're complicit in the outcome.” If you are feeling this moment is written in history, let this email be a reminder that perhaps you were made for just this moment. Nothing about this moment is impossible and nothing is inevitable. We must wake each day determined to pay attention, to bless the good and believe in our own power. We must internalize the words of Aurora Levins Morales’ Vahavata, “Do not let despair sink into the voice with which you sing”. |
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General Questions: (267) 702-6187 or [email protected]
Shabbat Services: 5300 Whitby Ave, Commercial #1, Philadelphia, PA 19143