Tu B'ishvat

[I would like to note to my readers that the image I am getting of Israel is based in an orthodox religious community in Jerusalem - in fact it is one of the most religious parts of this city.]

The Ottoman battlements of the ancient city of
Jerusalem.

This week, I had been planning to write about the little known Jewish holiday of Tu B’ishvat. It is my favorite single day holiday of the Jewish year, the New Year for Trees. The truth is, though, the more I think about the ways in which I spent Tu B’ishvat, this year the more I think about the ever present contradictions surrounding me here in Jerusalem.

One of the many speakers we have had through this program said that the reason the people of Israel seem so rude is that they treat every part of the country as home, from their living rooms to the middle of the street. This is an amazing statement in any country, but there is a certain truth to it here. People are free with their thoughts and ideas, they share their feelings in every venue, public and private. You can see it in the way Israelis drive and park as much as in the way they debate and discuss. There is still a line between public and private, but it is fine and fuzzy.

There really are olive trees
everywhere here.

When I was growing up, we went to synagogue for Tu B’ishvot. We talked about the spiritual values of different fruits, we followed a seder*, read poems, drank wine in a ritual manner, said prayers, and generally enjoyed a beautiful ritual about the meaning of spring**. It was a reminder that every part of creation is important, that we can not live without taking from others, even if those others are not human.

This year, I was very excited to experience Tu B’ishvat in Jerusalem. I felt that the spirit of Tu B’ishvat, the spirit of the land in which planting a tree is a mitzvah, a divine prayer, would shine forth showing me a beautiful display of all the ways in which a New Year for Trees could be celebrated! Apparently, I had no idea where to look. While there are many amazing things to do for Tu B’ishvat, it is not a very popular holiday in Israel. In fact, some of the people I talked to didn’t even know it existed! I did end up going to two seders, the first with the Jewish learning program, the second with Rabbis for Human Rights, a group working with underprivileged residents of one of the oldest communities in the New City of Jerusalem.

Yes this is someone's front yard. Right next to the sidewalk.

As I think about my experience with Tu B’ishvat in Jerusalem, I am awed by the struggles of environmentalism even in a setting where the need to care for the environment seems obvious. So many of the people living in this land believe that is was hand-picked for them, and they can’t even pick up the trash on their front lawns! They believe that they were given this land, and they are willing to risk the lives of their children to keep it, and that many of them have over 600 commandments that they try to follow every day, in order to strengthen their relationship with their creator, and some of them make decisions about whether it is good in the eyes of G-d for children to build snowmen on Shabbat. Yet, the first gift their creator gave them, the entirety of Earth, this they can not be bothered to maintain!

I give up, I'm going to spend the rest of my life
taking pictures of doors in the Old City. Isn't
this a nice door? Aren't monasteries pretty?

I expect this kind of behavior from the secular world. I don’t like it and it hurts me (see my earlier Ramble on the Environment), but it is not unexpected. But here, in the most holy city for, not one of the largest religions in the world, but three, I am ashamed. I am ashamed of all the ways in which humanity can destroy itself. I am ashamed of the people who live without thinking and thanking. I am ashamed of the waste generated by the people who see themselves as higher on the spiritual ladder than those around them.

I’ve seen the way Israelis treat the streets of Jerusalem, and it is nothing like the way they treat their living rooms. In many ways, it feels as though the living room is considered more public than the street, because on the street, it’s only between you and God, in your living room, everyone who sees it knows it was you.

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*Seder is the Hebrew word for “order”. It is the word used for several Jewish rituals including Passover. A seder generally follows a Haggadah

**February is defiantly the beginning of spring in Israel. It is a time when seeds are considering the possibility of life and preparing to spring forth.