Tevet Shevat Adar Aviv

Sunday, January 6 2019 - 29th of Tevet - Parasha Bo Yom Echad

The divine called the light day, and the darkness the divine called night. -Genesis 1:5

"The “light" refers to Abraham, whose light is the light of day as radiance increases and strengthens like the light of day. . . . "The darkness" refers to Isaac, who represents darkness and night, and this is why when he was old his eyes became dim. -Zohar 2:140 1B - 142 A

The Darkness of Tevat

We often think of light and darkness as “good" and "bad," yet at the beginning of Genesis the holy one calls both day and night "good." Tevat, the dark month whose name means "goodness" reminds us of this truth: the darkness of Tevet teaches us about the nature of our spirits just as much as the brightness of the summer months. Dark and light, increase and restraint, clarity and mystery, are two branches of our experience, both valuable and necessary.

The Zohar teaches us this by naming two of our ancestors "light" and “darkness.” Abraham, a master of loving kindness is called "light," where as Isaac a master of strength and faith, is called "darkness." Abraham and Isaac also represent water and fire, the two opposing energies of the season. Both of these patriarchs live within us. It is our task to unite them and balance their energies, so we can act with greater wisdom.

We began Tevat with Judith, a woman who exemplifies darkness and light together. Now we end Tevet by remembering Abraham and Isaac, who teaches us the preciousness of light and darkness as separate gifts. As Tevet, the month of branches, passes, we discovered truths about the many branches of ourselves.

Meditation

Are you ready to recognize the benefit to your life that the dark periods in your life represent. Contemplate the truth of this statement? And the statements above.

Monday, January 7 2019 – Rosh Chodesh Shevat - Parasha Bo Yom Sheini

It was in the 40th year, on the first day of the 11th month, that Moses addressed the Israelites in accordance with the instructions that the eternal had given him for them. -Deuteronomy 1:3

The new moon of Shevat is the new year of the trees: these are the words of Beit Shammai, Beit Hillel says: the 15th of Shevat. -Babylonian Talmud, Rosh Hashanah 2 A

Teaching of the trees

New moon of Shevat

On this day in the final year of wandering in the wilderness, Moses began to teach the people from a new book of the Torah: Devarim, or Deuteronomy. This is also the day, according to Shammai, that trees become a year older: it is the new year of the trees. Although according to the majority opinion, the children of Israel will not celebrate the trees new year until the 15th of this month, the new moon of Shevat represents the first moment when we might consider the trees to be renewed after the winter.

Like the budding trees, Deuteronomy is a new flowering of the divine will. On the first of Shevat as the people prepare to enter the land without him, Moses offers them the best of his wisdom to sustain them. So too the branches that have survived the winter sustain this new life, and the tree waits to burst into new buds. Indeed, in Israel and similar climates, trees may be budding at this time.

Shevat is a month of renewed growth and vigor and that this first day of Shevat begins that renewal. As Moses begins to teach new Torah, the trees teach us there Torah by shaking off their slumber and awakening to growth. Deuteronomy 20:19 teaches that a “person is like a tree of the field." This is the message of Shevat as well.

Meditation

Contemplate how you relate to Trees. Are you growing not just physically but also spiritually and mentally or are you stagnant and dying – not physically.

Sunday, January 13 2019– 7th of Shevat - Parasha Beshalach Yom Echad

Awake, Northwind! Come, O Southwind! Blow on my garden that it's perfume may spread! -Song of songs 4:16

In the month of Shevat, HaShem throws down three burning coals to warm the earth. On the seventh of Shevat the first coal falls to warm the air. On the 14th of the month the second falls, to warm the water in the trees. On that day the Arabs say: "Today water has entered the trees." On the 23rd of Shabbat, the third coal is thrown, to warm the soil. -Hai Gaon

The first coal

It is a sacred moment, a stirring of the Shechinah when the first warm breeze blows our way. Even without language, buds know when to form, and sleeping animals remember to uncurl. The return of life in plant and animal is a kind of signal fire, telling us the seasons are on the move once more.

Hai Gaon tells a story about how the holy one throws coals into the wind to warm it. Inside Hai Gaon's legend of the three coals, today is the day God throws the first coal to warm the air. Though Hai Gaon legend is not science but myth, the Sage teaches us that learning about the world and the way it works is one way to encounter the mystery some of us call HaShem. To be a religious being is not to ignore the physical world but to study it and engage with the.Physical World.

In this season of inner fire, fire begins to move outward. Something about the warmth and the wind makes us happy in our bones. The eternal light burns in the trees in the sky during Shevat, if we go outside, we will see it and even smell it.

Meditation

Consider various ways that you can learn about the physical world and from that knowledge extrapolate the laws of the spiritual realm. This is how our Sages learned the spiritual laws – by observing the physical world and extrapolating through their meditations the spiritual laws.

Monday, January 18 2016 – 8th of Shevat - Parasha Beshalach Yom Sheinei

The Eternal spoke to Moses, saying: "next take choice spices: 500 weight of solidified Myrr, half as much-250 weight of fragrant cinnamon.... Make of this a sacred anointing oil." -Exodus 30:22, 25

The trees of Jerusalem were of cinnamon, and when they were cut down their smell would waft through all the land of Israel. When Jerusalem was destroyed they were hidden away,. Only a few of them remain, and they can be found in the treasuries of Tzimtzemai. -Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 3A

The branches of Queen Tzimtzemai

The Trees of this season recall a legend of the branches of Jerusalem. In one passage in the Talmud, the trees of Jerusalem smelled like cinnamon when their branches were cut down to make firewood for the Temple. These unusual trees did not fall into enemy hands when the Temple fell. Rather they disappeared. The remaining fragrant branches are hidden in the treasuries of Queen Tzimtzemai.

Who is this mysterious Queen Tzimtzemai? In the Kabbalah, the word Tzimsum meaning “making the self smaller” refers to the actions that the divine took at the beginning of the universe, making the house of HaShem smaller so that there would be room for a world. Queen Tzimtzemai in a mystical way, may refer to the divine, who becomes smaller so there is room for us.

Where is the treasure house of the Queen that makes her self smaller? Is it the garden of Eden or the heavenly Jerusalem? Or is it the world itself? Maybe if we keep searching for the cinnamon trees, we will find out during these days of Shevat, everything around us becomes a treasure box we prepare to open.

Meditation

Meditate on the location of the Hidden Trees of Jersalem. Meditate on trying to remember the smell of Cinnamon from the branches of the Trees of Jersalem.

Sunday, January 20 2019 – 14th of Shevat - Parasha Beshalach Yom Echad

”Then one of the Seraphs flew over to me with a live coal which he had taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. He touched it to my lips." Isaiah 6:6-7

In the month of Shevat, the holy one throws down three burning coals to warm the earth. On the seventh of Shevat the first coal falls to warm air. On the 14th of the month the second falls, to warm the water in the trees. On that day the Arabs say: "Today water has entered the trees." On the 23rd of Shabbat, the third coal is thrown to warm the soil. Hai Gaon

The second coal

This is the last day of the season of fire within water. As we learned on the 7th of Shevat, Hai Gaon retells the legend that at this season the Holy One throws down three coals to warm the world. On the 14th of Shevat, a coal falls into the water within the trees, and the sap begins to rise. This mythic event propels us out of the season of branches and into the season of sap. Fire within water, the elements of this season, is the heat inside the trees, a heat that will bring flowers and fruit to the world.

In the book of Isaiah, an Angel uses a coal to open Isaiah's lips and purify them so that he may speak prophecy. Today, a coal opens the closed passages of the trees and cleanses them, preparing them for the trees new year. We prepare for the warmth of the sun to increase and spur us to greater action and growth.

We begin this stage of the year in Tevet with the festival of the daughters, a night of Hanukkah when one generation celebrates with the next. On the 14th of Shevat, we prepare for the Festival of the trees, when one ring of the tree trunk yields to another, and all the trees become a year older.

Meditation

Contemplate how the spring is arriving? Will it be delayed? Or will it start early? What will change in your life with the spring?

Monday, January 21 2019 – 15th of Shevat - Parasha Beshalach Yom Sheinei

Today is Tu BeShevat - The New Year of the Trees

And from the ground that the Divine caused to grow every tree that was pleasing to the sight and good for food, and the tree of life was in the middle of the garden. -Genesis 2:9

At the hour that the holy one created the first human being, the holy one brought that being before all the trees in the garden and said: “behold the beauty and abundance of my works. All that I created, I created for you. Consider this and do not destroy or ruin my world, for if you ruined it, there will be no one after you to make it right." -Ecclesiastes Rabbah 7:28

The tree of life

Tu B'Shvat

The 15th of the month of Shevat, or Tu B'Shvat, is one of the four years listed in the Babylonian Talmud - Rosh Hashanah, the new year of trees. Tu B'Shvat was once a Talmudic tax day, but 16th-century mystics in the city of Sefat invented Tu B'Shvat practice of eating fruit, drinking wine, and honoring the divine as the tree of life.

Isaac Luria invented the custom of drinking 4 cups of wine on Tu B'Shvat – white, white mixed with red, red mixed with white, and red. This line of wines can also represent the rising of the sap. The fruit of tu B'Shvat is divided into fruit with rinds, representing earth and body – Assiyah: Fruit with pits - Yetzirah; and fruit that is completely edible, representing Briah. Some use the scent of fruit to represent essence, or Atzilut. In the 17th century Nathan of Gaza, a mystic, created the Passover like Seder for Tu B'Shvat that included biblical and rabbinic passages about trees.

In modern Israel, Tu B'Shvat celebrates the fruits of the land, dates, figs, carobs, oranges, and other fruits of local trees. As the above midrash on creation reminds us, the Tu B'Shvat Seder has also become a way to remember the human responsibility to care for trees in all of nature. If we do not take care there will be no one to fix these mistakes after us.

Meditation

Today eat some fruit and remember to say a blessing over this fruit. Drink some wine and say a blessing over this wine. As you eat think about the mistakes of mankind that have removed various species and how we can stop this from continuing. Also contemplate how we can renew these lost resources.

Sunday, January 27 2019 – 21st of Shevat - Parasha Mishpatim Yom Echad

Then Moses caused Israel to set out for the sea of End – Yam Suf. . . . They traveled three days in the wilderness and found no water. They came to Marah but they could not drink the water of Marah because it was bitter; that is why it was called Marah. And the people grumbled . . . Saying, "what shall we drink?" So he cried out to the HaShem, and the HaShem showed him a tree. He threw it into the water, and the water became sweet. -Exodus 15:22 – 25

What was the tree? Rabbi Joshua said it was a willow. Rabbi Joshua said it was a bitter oleander. . . . There are those who say it was a fig or a pomegranate, but in any case, it was certainly a bitter tree that Moses threw. -Midrash Tanhuma Beshallach 24

The Tree of Mara

The Torah fortunes of this season tell of the Exodus, in preparation for the spring reenactment of freedom from slavery. In one story, the Israelites come to a bitter spring called Mara. They are thirsty, but the water is impossible to drink. Moses cries out to I Shem, and how Shem shows him a tree. Moses throws a branch of the tree into the water and the water becomes sweet.

The sages argue about what kind of tree has such human power. They do agree that the tree had bitter wood. It was not the inherent sweetness of the tree but the holy ones intervention that made the tree able to turn water sweet.

This story to is reminiscent of the running of the Sap. The sap of the tree is sweet, not because of the taste of the wood itself, but because the tree is able to to make sugar from the light it receives from its leaves. So to Shevat HaShem teaches us that only when we allow ourselves to take in the light can we bring sweetness to the world.

Meditation

The Zohar on the story of Marah explains that this was similar to the Children of Israel drinking the waters of Sotah to prove there was no infidelity among any of the community while in Egypt. They are connected to HaShem. Use a meditation on any of the Names of HaShem to strengthen and cleanse all aspects of your own work in the month of Shevat.

Monday, January 28 2019 – 22nd of Shevat - Parasha Mishpatim Yom Sheinei

When they came to Elim, where there were 12 springs of water and 70 palm trees, and they encamped there beside the water. -Exodus 15:27

This teaches that Israel never camps except by water. -Seder Olam 5

The Trees of the Elim

After the Israelites leave Egypt, they come to a mysterious place known as Elim. The Elim has 12 springs of water, one for each tribe of Israel, and 70 palm trees, one for each of the elders of the people. The water and the trees are connected: both symbolize the life force that the Israelites experience now that they are free. They also represent Torah: trees and water are both common metaphors for sacred text. The Elim represents a community gathered around a common purpose, just as trees in the desert gather around the water source to grow.

In this the season of earth within air, and the fragrant trees of the Elim remind us how the sense of trees can carry in the wind. Perhaps the scents leads the Israelites as they approached the oasis. Torah also is earth within air, the strength and prominence of trees, surrounded by ever-changing currents of human interpretation.

As the Israelites rest and begin to expand their horizons. At the end of Shabbat as we prepare for spring, we to expand our horizons. Like the Israelites, we look for waters, physical and spiritual, to sustain us as required during a new season.

Meditation

the word Elim in Hebrew is cognate – sounds like – to Elan which translates as “Tree”. The 12 springs represent the boundaries in the Tree of Life. The 70 Palm Trees represent the 70 meanings built into the each letter, word, phrase, and verse of Torah. Contemplate the meaning of a Tree as it represents going growing against the desire to receive for oneself alone which we call gravity.