In our morning service, we thank God for the wonder of our bodies in a prayer known as n’kavim n’kavim and follow it by a prayer thanking God for returning our souls to us each morning (elohai n’shama). Body and soul are separated in our liturgy and as a result it can be easy for us as Jews to disconnect body and soul. Even a Rabbi splits the two off in the Talmud:

Rav Huna said to his son, Rabbah, “Why are you not to be found before Rav Hisda, whose dicta are so keen?” “What should I go to him for,” he answered, “seeing that when I go to him, he treats me to secular discourses?... He talks of health matters.” He exclaimed, “And you call them secular discourses! All the more reason for going to him!”[1]

While still alluding to a differentiation between body and soul, 12^th century Moses Maimonides made it clear that a healthy body is essential for a healthy soul:

“Since by keeping the body in health and vigor, one walks in the ways of God – it being impossible during sickness to have any understanding or knowledge of the Creator – it is a person’s duty to avoid whatever is injurious to the body, and cultivate habits conducive to health and vigor.”[2]

As profoundly moving the Rabbinate can be, it is not a healthy profession. Rabbis tend to either sit a lot (for example, when meeting people or when studying) or they stand still a lot (such as when teaching or leading prayers). We eat a lot, too, especially when celebrating Shabbat or festivals. I have come to realise that during my Rabbinate so far that I have forgotten, to paraphrase Rav Kook, that we have holy flesh no less than holy spirit. I intend to change that and for the community to benefit from this change.

It is therefore my intention to complete the Tour of Acoma, a 100-mile bike ride on September 18^th 2016. It has been four years since I cycled properly and I have never faced an endurance challenge like this for a number of reasons – (1) I have never been this unfit before, (2) I have never cycled this far before, (3) I am asthmatic, (4) I have never cycled at this kind of temperature before, (5) I have never cycled at this altitude before. If I am to do this, I need your serious support. The biggest way you can help me while training and on the actual day itself is to sponsor me per mile cycled. The more I raise for the Temple, the more likely I will be to finish this challenge.

My hope is to become much healthier for my benefit, for the community’s benefit and also to raise funds for the community at the same time. I will, essentially, be changing pounds into dollars, and yes, I believe that joke alone deserves at least some kind of sponsorship! This is without doubt the hardest physical and mental challenge I have ever faced, and I really hope that members of the community and beyond will sponsor me accordingly.

You will be able to follow my training exploits here, learn more about how to sponsor me and just send general words of encouragement on this blog.

 

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[1] Talmud: Shabbat 82a

[2] Maimonides, Book of Knowledge, Laws Relating to Moral Dispositions and Ethical Conduct, Law 1.

Being a Winner

I recently took part in a competition for a table-top game called X-Wing Miniatures. It’s a Star Wars themed game that involves spaceships from the Star Wars films. In this National competition with the top prize of a flight to America, there were 60 people playing. I brought a completely unique squad that had never been flown before and came joint 27th. So no flight to America although I did win a playmat signed by one of the game designers. I left the competition feeling fairly happy – I had won three games and lost three games in my first ever tournament where I had tried something risky, made a couple of mistakes and just wasn’t lucky with the dice.

As the days passed, I started to realise that I could have done better (although I probably wouldn’t have reached the lofty heights of the very impressive 7^th place achieved by David Sleet, BRS’s Community IT Director). The joy of coming in the top half of the table started to give way to frustration of not doing better. Then I read an online post by someone who said that he was pleased to have come 51^st because he’d never played the game against other people before! If he was happy with his 51^st place, what was my problem with 27^th? What finally helped resettle my mind was putting it into a larger context. Yes, of course in the grand scheme of things, the ability to move spaceships around a table effectively is utterly meaningless. But I was 27^th in the whole of the UK – that’s 27^th out of around 62,470,000 people who could conceivably play X-Wing Miniatures if they wanted. Being a winner is really a matter of perspective, it seems.

So what’s the Jewish perspective on competition? Well, the Rabbis of the Talmud weren’t into competition because they felt it took away from a life completely dedicated to Torah study, so they don’t have too much to say on the matter.  Perhaps we can say that Jewish tradition doesn’t focus on winning and losing but, rather, on the encounter with God which is something that by definition isn’t competitive. I think that sometimes we need to compete for the excitement, so long as we remember that in the eyes of God we’re all winners, albeit with varying degrees of closeness of relationship to God. And maybe next time I compete I’ll say a little prayer… not to act as some kind of magical enchantment of good fortune but, rather, to remind me before I compete on what’s important in life and why I’m already a winner.

We Were Slaves And Now Others Are Instead

The whole point of the seder service is to bring the Exodus from Egypt, an event from our past, directly into present day relevance. “We were slaves to Pharaoh,” “This is because of what the Eternal did for me when bringing me out of Egypt.” This isn’t a commemoration but a re-enactment. As we read of the Exodus, we take part in it. We become free and explore with food and questions what it is to be free. We are guided through the Haggadah to consider those who are not free and we open the door and invite all those who are hungry to come and eat. Then we close the door, either to keep out the cold or possibly because subconsciously we don’t know what we would do with ourselves if some impoverished person turned up on our doorstep at that moment asking for food.

As a child I always thought the message of the seder was that we are free but actually I think it’s more complex. I think more accurately the seder is a theological exploration of what it is to be free in a world where others are not. The seder doesn’t just say “We’re free!” but, rather, “We’re free…. so now what?” As information becomes globalised we now know more than ever of millions of people who are anything but free. There are people who are oppressed politically, who are oppressed because of their gender or sexuality, who are restricted because of starvation. There are those who have jobs but who are all but slaves in the most obvious sense, earning a pittance so that companies can make the largest profit providing us with the latest trainers, electronic gadgets or designer labeled clothes. The more we learn about this world the more it seems that freedom is the exception and not the norm.

The Seder service demands a choice from us - will you sit around and drink wine, or will you use your freedom to liberate others? Coupled with the Divine call for justice in the Torah – “Justice, justice you shall pursue” (Deut. 16:20) – the Seder service is the enactment of a theological imperative to recognise our own freedom and to use it to liberate others. Yet we spend so long planning the eating, drinking and reciting that we easily forget the urgency of the imperative. This Pesach, let us also hold the enactment of that imperative to be as important as any other aspect of Pesach. Let it be not just “This is what the Eternal did for me” but also “This is what I did for others.”

To Have Or To Hold - A Tu BiShevat Thought

When Zafra walks past a flower, there are two things that she likes to do - to pluck it or to smell it. Sometimes they're mutually exclusive - she'll sometimes pluck but not smell or sometimes smell but not pluck. Sometimes, she does both, in either order. It's rare that she doesn't at least pluck or smell. But this very simple act of plucking a flower (or not) always leaves me conflicted for a number of reasons.

Very rarely before I can stop her, she actually breaks the law. I know... seriously? If you're in park land then according to UK law it's illegal to pick deliberately planted flowers. Normally, though, this isn't an issue because it's normally wild flowers she goes for, but if something is really pretty then she can sometimes really want it. She doesn't terrorise local parks tearing up daffodils, so it's not normally the law I'm worried about.

What I'm more concerned about is what message she'll get from the flower. Are flowers for her to pluck, take with her and enjoy with the family for a few days (before they wither and die) or are they for her to smell and enjoy without taking ownership? I'm reminded of Shel Silverstein's classic text The Giving Tree which is a clear critique of a utilitarian approach to nature. In essence (at least the way I read the book), it reminds us that we can't just take from the natural world according to our own wishes but, rather, have to live with the natural world. So, I want her to not pick the flower and just leave it be.

And yet, if she can take the flower home, enjoy it, and then watch the consequences of an uprooted flower, isn't there the potential for an even more powerful lesson? A lesson, perhaps, in how short-term pleasure isn't as satisfying as long-term pleasure, or that short-term human pleasure can often come at the cost of long-term existence of nature? A bit heavy for someone not yet three years old but definitely there can be the foundation of that lesson.

Then I think to myself, am I overanalysing this? This is a young girl, not an eco-Rabbi like me, simply living in the moment enjoying nature. Can't I just enjoy her enjoyment? So I put the thinking to the side and just live in the moment as she does. And then she goes to pluck the flower and I instinctively cry out "No!" I can't help it.

I share this personal inner debate on Tu BiShevat because while we may wonder about children, I think there can be no doubt about adults. We have passed so many ecological thresholds already that we cannot continue a utilitarian approach to nature. We have to put our short-term pleasures to the side whenever they contradict the long-term health of the natural world.

For me, Tu BiShevat is not just about celebrating trees or, even, planting a tree and helping us feel like we've offset all our paper usage and carbon emissions for the year (!).  Tu BiShevat has to be a call to re-evaluate our relationship with nature. We can have it in our lives for perpetuity or we can try to hold onto it, grasp it, use it, exploit it for a brief while before watching it wither. Let's have nature exist for it's own sake, not for our own. Let it exist because it attests to its Creator not because it's useful for us. Let Tu BiShevat remind us that our relationship with nature does not have to be utilitarian and exploitative but can be, should be... must be mutual and sustainable.

Chag Sameach!

Symbols of the Past, Present and Future

I was talking with someone the other day and they mentioned the Liberty Bell in America. I made some remark about how when I went to see it, I was one of those wise-guy tourists who loudly says, "But it's cracked!"

When I think about it, though, that isn't my overriding memory of the Liberty Bell. There are two things I particularly remember. The first was the security, the extraordinary security designed to protect a bell. The second thing that I remember was that outside in a street lamp a squirrel had made its home! The lamp obviously no longer worked and the squirrel had brought leaves and the like into the shade in order to make a very comfortable bed. I took more photos of that squirrel in the lampshade than I did of the bell, the actual tourist attraction.

This evening, I just heard that Jurgen Moltmann said that the future is more important than the past. I have much sympathy with that position. And yet the present is more important still. The Liberty Bell is an artefact of the past - an important symbol of freedom but a symbol nonetheless. The squirrel was alive, vibrant, a part of the great web of life. Yet the people around us paid more attention to the bell than to the living, extraordinary being in front of them. You might think "But there are millions of squirrels!" To which I would reply "But there are millions of bells." "Ah," you might think, "but there's only one Liberty Bell." "True," I would reply "but each squirrel is unique, too."

I don't intend to demean the Liberty Bell by comparing it with a squirrel... obviously not! Rather, what I'm saying is that the Liberty Bell is a symbol from the past that affects the present and the future. The squirrel is alive in the present, in the here and now. Although, of course, strictly speaking it was in the past, an event many years ago, and that squirrel may no longer even be alive today. Interestingly, the bell endures, a symbol of enduring freedom, in theory, at least. Indeed, the only way I can blog about this entire event is by reflecting back into the past to try to make it alive today.

So the past is important and can be brought into the present and the future, like the Liberty Bell. It can teach us valuable lessons, such as the importance of Freedom. And yet the past is not alive and neither is the future. Only the present is alive, alive as that squirrel I saw on the same day. Life is something so extraordinary even though we so often take it for granted. It is wondrous, beautiful, and awe-inspiring. Just as the Liberty Bell is a symbol, so, too, is every living being - a symbol of the glory of life, the wonder of existence and the need to never become complacent in the face of pure being. Those are the symbols that none of us can ignore.

Please, God, Not Again....

Just the other day I was with the local Imam and he was telling me how difficult things were for the Muslim community given what was going on in Syria. I empathised with him and we discussed their pain. He listed off statistics of innocent people being killed and we shared grief at the situation. Days later, I’m expecting a ‘phone call from the Daily Echo asking for a comment on Israel latest operation in Gaza which will likely be compared with that of Imam Majid and which will reveal our differences once more.

What disturbs me almost as much as the loss of innocent life is the polarisation of the rest of the world observing what happens. That disturbs me because the more polarised we become the harder it will ever be to find a solution and, therefore, the more likely it will be that more innocent blood is shed. Remarkably, last night I found myself online completely polarised, begging some historical revisionists to at least accept Israel’s right to exist. I hoped I could add to their knowledge but it quickly became clear that we were all entrenched in our own views and nothing would move us. I find myself reflecting back on that conversation with the words of the Bible ringing – “Do not answer a fool according to his folly or you will also be like him” (Prov. 26:4). Conflict like that in Gaza can so easily lead to polarisation – Jews flocking to defend Israel and Muslims flocking to defend Palestinians. Suddenly, we’re back where we were with Operation Cast Lead, angrily shouting at each other to get ‘the truth’ heard.

I’m not going to write to defend Israel today or to criticise it. I want to do both. Israel, of course, has a right to exist free from terror and yet it seems to have chosen to launch an attack on Gaza only hours after some kind of ceasefire had been brokered with Hamas. Israel has an absolute duty of care to keep its citizens safe but with every military operation it loses more global support and risks the long-term future of the state itself as the perception of a apartheid state gains ground in the media. We can’t win this. We can never win like this. There has to be another way…. I just don’t know what it is. Perhaps it is to not be polarised, to see both sides, to try to experience the pain of the other as well as of the self – individual or collective. Or perhaps that’s woolly wishful thinking that can be done from the comfort of Bournemouth. So perhaps instead of political commentary, instead of defending one side against the other when deep down we know that both sides have done wrong, perhaps all we can do is open our hearts and mouths in prayer and start by saying ‘Please, God, not again….’

The Search for Serach

In 2003 I had the fortune to study Talmud at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College with two wonderful teachers - Jonah Steinberg and Sarra Lev - both of whom opened up new ways of approaching Talmud. In one of Jonah Steinberg classes, he mentioned Serach bat Asher and suggested that having a cup for Serach would actually be more appropriate than a cup for Miriam (I'm aware that you may be thinking 'Who's Serach?' - don't worry, I explain later!). Miriam's cup is now well established in very many progressive seders around the world so I remember thinking that, as much as I appreciated the narratives of Serach bat Asher, I could never see a cup for her replacing a cup for Miriam.

It was only once I started leading communal seders at Bournemouth Reform Synagogue that I realised that Serach could ... should... make an appearance but not instead of Miriam but in addition to Miriam. All of this, by the way, presupposes a cup for Elijah, the fifth cup on the table, about which the Rabbis didn't know if we should drink from it, so they left it out for Elijah to solve when the Messiah comes.

Below is the text that I wrote to explain who Serach bat Asher is and how and why we should have a cup for her. Please feel free to use this (provided you acknowledge the source!) in your seder if you wish...

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The Cup of Serach bat Asher, Rabbi Neil Amswych, 2006

Not only did Serach bat Asher go down to Egypt with Jacob’s family, but she was also present after the Exodus. Midrash ascribes eternal life to a woman whose presence in modern conscious Jewish history is hardly recorded. Yet we read that she was the person who proved to the Israelites that Moses was genuinly going to redeem the people, and only she knew the locations of Joseph’s bones that were due to be carried out of Egypt.
Serach finds herself in between Miriam and Elijah. Just as Miriam’s Cup reminds us of the past, so too the start of Serach’s journey is a reminder of the past. But her ability to live into the Israelite’s redemption from Egypt also makes her like Elijah, looking forwards into the future. Some commentators say that she died, like Miriam, but others hold that she lives forever, like Elijah. As a keeper of secrets and, according to tradition, the guardian of Israelite folk-memory, she brings the past into the present, and she looks forward from now.
Serach, like each one of us, finds herself not to be a prophet or prophetess, but an ordinary human being capable of extraordinary things. From normality, Serach creates for herself a remarkable destiny. Her cup is the cup of the immediate present, reminding us to be fully present at all times, and yet to remember the past as well as look to the future. She mixes the lives and abilities of Miriam and Elijah, and so her cup of a mixture of water and wine. It is a cup which refreshes us and enlivens us, just as we are to refresh and enliven those around us. As we drink from Serach’s Cup, we remember that even though we may not be a prophet, we are still very human, and it is the gift of our humanity that promises so much.

We pour the wine from Elijah’s cup and the water from Miriam’s cup together into the previously empty cup of Serach bat Asher.
               
בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה ..., שׁהַכֹּל נִהְיֶה בִּדְבָרוֹ:
Blessed are You, our Living God, by whose word all things exist.

We drink the mixture of water and wine.




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We drink the wine from Elijah's cup? Yes, we do. Because it's a ridiculous waste of wine and energy to have it grown, bottled, transported and then sit out on your table only to then be thrown away at the end of the evening, and such a waste is clearly contrary to bal tashchit - the prohibition against needless waste. But we don't drink straight, we mix it with water to show (as well as all the reasons mentioned above) that we're not just drinking from Elijah's cup - hence the blessing is not the one for the fruit of the vine.

Funny Because it’s Wrong or Wrong Because It’s Funny?

The internet has encouraged a new generation of people who complain. Whereas to complain in the past actually involved writing a letter, getting an envelope, going to a postbox and so on, the “Angry from Amersham” brigade can now register utter disgust about anything on twitter and on chatrooms almost instantaneously. So we’re definitely seeing more bursts of spontaneous outrage about various matters in the public domain. I have to be very careful as a blog poster, then, not to fall into that trap quickly and yet I have to be allowed to register discomfort at something as well.

This week a journalist found a tag in the boxer shorts of her partner and registered her disgust online. In case you can't see the picture clearly, the washing instructions tell the man what to do before adding "Or give it to your woman - it's her job." Responses seem to generally fall between two camps – ‘it’s just a joke’ or ‘it’s not funny at all.’ The “it’s just a joke” comment reminds me rather of David Cameron’s “calm down, dear,” comment (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-13207256). In other words, it’s a joke by men for men at the expense of women who really shouldn’t complain because it’s not their (male-defined) place to do so.

I have to admit that when I first saw this, I laughed out loud and then I felt bad for doing so, in much the same way as my reaction to comedians like Jimmy Carr. I laugh at such things because I’m shocked and then I think “the normal reaction to shock should be shock,” not laughter.

What concerns me is that there does seem to be a growing trend of clothing companies manufacturing items that have deliberately sexist messages. A new blokes’ culture seems to be developing which makes completely inappropriate jokes and then says, “calm down, dear, it’s just humour.” The bloke-dominated language of communal discourse – even extending to the horrible facebook term of “fraping” which is somehow meant to be an amusing way of referring to taking over someone’s account while somehow injecting humour with a reference to the obviously horrific practice of rape – seems to be growing, not declining. We seem to be reverting to the normalisation of sexism, made most evident by allowing sexism to be funny again.

If our society were actually equal, if religious discourse were fully egalitarian, if women were paid the same as men, if women had the same access to jobs as men, then we might be in a place to reflect on some post-sexist humour. But, of course, society is nowhere near there. Were this a post-modernist comment on sexism or something similar, perhaps with an equitable tag in girl’s knickers saying “give to boyfriend to beat with club” then it might have been funnier because it would have transcended sexism and would instead have become about gender stereotypes. But it wasn’t – it was a blokes’ gag about women.

Ultimately, I think that I initially found it funny because it was wrong and then found it wrong because it was funny. In a world where we can take things way too seriously, I’m aware that it’s just a joke. But if in the deep south of America the same thing had happened but with the words “Give it to your negroe servant,” which is as possessive as “your woman” (with the emphasis on the possessive “your”), then I don’t think anyone would have found that funny at all. Where, indeed, does it end? A joke about the Jews perhaps? “Calm down, Jew, it’s only a joke.” Being sexist or racist ironically is still being sexist or racist, just doing it with a patronising and dominating smile. Some jokes, ultimately, aren’t funny, they’re just reinforcing symbols of dominating structures that should long have been abolished.

Ultimately, I think this is just cynical consumerism at its best. I’m sure the hope is for the company to shock people, to get them to talk about the product and therefore to mention the company as much as possible with the understanding that there’s no such thing as bad publicity. And that’s why I didn’t even mention the name of the company because I wouldn’t give them that satisfaction.

Since this blog focuses on baby, bible and biodiversity, this post falls under the first category. I want to raise my baby in a world in which she acknowledges that sexism was once a part of society and that it held society back from achieving its full potential. As much as I went to a boys’ school and learned many unbelievably sexist jokes which were funny to me at the time, I don’t want my child to be raised in a society like that. Sexism, in the end, isn’t funny, it’s domination, it’s unjust and it’s unbecoming. I think we’re better than this and I know of many better jokes than this.

Why aren't we angry?

In September 2002, days after Tony Blair put over Britain's spurious case for war against Iraq, somewhere between 150,000 and 400,000 people marched in protest through the streets of London. Over the coming months across the world demonstrations of similar sizes protested against a war that offended a wide range of members of the public. As we know, the US and UK dived into war regardless, dragging other nations behind them and the ratings of Blair and Bush eventually suffered a terminal decline.

In 2009, hundreds of thousands of people took part in The Wave in London, a march to show a desire to move towards a sustainable economy. It was a tremendously good-natured affair, a living expression of contemporary environmentalism's enforced social agenda of being hopeful and not giving in to negativity. It was a protest of sorts - a positive "We're ready for change" kind of protest. It wasn't direct action protest and it wasn't angry.

But why not? Why are so many people happy to rage about a war that cost hundreds of thousands of local civilian lives in order to secure future oil supply but aren't happy to rage about the war on the earth that has the potential to cost billions of lives over the centuries?

The question comes to my mind as my daughter, Zafra, grows. Now 18 months old, I pray she will live to a happy old age. Yet as I consider this I also consider the words of an elderly  congregant of mine - "I'm glad I won't be alive to see the things that you'll see." She understood. The environmental legacy that we pass onto the next generation becomes more and morelikely to become horrific with each day of inaction. If Zafra lives to see the end of the century, I shudder to consider what she might see and that makes me angry.

I look at the failure of the COP talks that essentially locks us into a minimum of 2 degrees of global heating, with the potential of much more, especially considering the possibility of runaway feedback effects, and I think, "You are potentially harming my child. You are potentially exposing her to horrors and hardship that you could have prevented."

Perhaps one of the differences between the war in Iraq and anthropogenic climate change is that we - the average civilians - didn't cause any of the deaths in Iraq whereas while we continue as excessive consumers, we are at least partly responsible for anthropogenic climate change. Putting pressure on government is important but focussing all criticism on government is misplaced. Some of the anger should be aimed towards ourselves for our own hypocrisy.

But there is a place for angry challenge. Not shop-smashing challenge (if for no other reason that to repair violent damage uses yet more precious global resources), not rioting, but actually unifying as a mass of people and saying to the political parties, "Unless you take this much more seriously than you currently do, you will not win the next election." Putting environment before the economy should be a political win, not a loss, and the reason that it isn't is because of us, the voting public and our inability to expressanger.

We limit ourselves, but hardly. We say "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" but what we really do is "reduce costs, buy cheaper reused products and recycle, recycle, recycle" as though recycling alone will somehow avoid dangerous climate change. We limit ourselves but only as a meagre contribution. "Is this the fast that I have chosen?" says Isaiah (58:5). In other words, this is it? That's pathetic! Isaiah is angry at the tokenism of the masses and the leadership who influence them.

Maybe it's time to reignite some of that anger, that passion, and say, "We will not tolerate this. We must all do better. No ifs, buts or maybes. No more excuses." Well-focussed anger, dissatisfaction at the status quo, is surely what we need to kick-start the dramatic changes that our society needs. Let's generate that anger and focus it properly.... and soon.

Tu Bishvat - a reflection

Only when the last tree has been cut down;

Only when the last river has been poisoned;

Only when the last fish has been caught;

Only then will you find that money cannot be eaten.

This Cree Indian maxim comes to my mind after having last night watched the film The Road, based on Cormac McCarthy’s bestselling novel. In that film, social order has broken down entirely as the biosphere essentially collapses. Amongst other things, all the trees have died and throughout the film the thudding of another dead tree as it falls to the ground echoes in the distance. It is a chilling vision.

But it won’t happen to us, right? Well, strictly speaking it won’t… even if we can’t limit global heating to 4 or 5 degrees Celsius (which is looking harder and harder for every year of pontificating and posturing at Climate Change summits), it seems almost impossible for the biosphere itself to die. And yet the idea that social order could collapse is not as impossible. There is increasing realisation that our society now is “nine meals from anarchy” – after three days of lack of food, it seems that most people will do anything to make sure that they and their loved ones can eat.

But it won’t happen to us, right? Well, not as such. Even with positive feedback loops starting to kick in, toppling the millennia-held climate stability upon which our civilisation was based, we’re still unlikely to witness social breakdown in our lifetimes. Instead, it is the inheritance that we seem to want to give to our children, grandchildren or perhaps great-grandchildren. Rabbi Charles Middleburgh writes “our children might forgive our silence and apathy on environmentalism, but our great-grandchildren will curse us for our selfishness…” [MANNA 94, Winter 2007, p.22]. If we continue to think in the short-term, it won’t happen to us, no. But if we live from the perspective of “us” being our extended family through the generations then, yes, unless we all make significant changes now, it will happen to us.

Today is Tu Bishvat, the New Year for Trees. I find it hard to celebrate this year. Yes, there’s the glory and beauty of every tree in the garden and local parks but the crashing of the millions of trees globally that fall to provide people with land, palm oil, coffee and more just echoes through my soul today. Maybe today for Tu Bishvat as well as singing happy songs about how lovely trees are, we should remember the thought from Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer - when a tree is cut down, its cry rings from one end of the world to the other, though no sound is heard. Maybe it’s time to hear the sound so we can help more trees, and future us, live together in harmony.