ritual

Ways to commemorate Oct. 7

Erev Rosh Hashanah, from Shalom Hartman Institute’s Memory and Hope. For each holiday and Shabbat evening in Tishrei, the institute suggests we light a memorial candle before kindling the holiday and Shabbat lights, and offers an intention to recite before lighting this candle and a text to read afterward (both in English and in Hebrew).

Each year during Elul, the month leading up to the High Holidays, the women of medieval Ashkenaz would measure each of the graves in their community cemeteries with string. They would then dip these lengths of string in melted wax that had been collected from candles lit throughout the year in the synagogue when the community gathered to pray, to study, to cook and to connect. They would light these new candles, each made from string representing the dead and wax representing the living, on Yom Kippur as yahrzeit candles, a way of honouring and remembering deceased relatives.

On Rosh Hashanah, we will welcome a new year. And then, in the midst of the 10 days of repentance that lead up to Yom Kippur, we will reach the one-year anniversary of Oct. 7 and, with it, the anniversary of the day on which at least 1,139 people were killed by Hamas terrorists and more than 240 people were taken hostage. We will pray for the return of the remaining captives, and we will mark the start of the war that has since killed so many in Israel and Gaza.

We have struggled to fully mourn these losses as this war continues to unfold and expand; as not all the hostages have yet returned home; as, in North America, many of us navigate antisemitism in our communities and shifting relationships with local allies. And yet, we feel the need to grieve. The chaggim (holidays) offer us a pause in which we can reflect, cry and pray.

The Shalom Hartman Institute has developed two rituals for the anniversary of Oct. 7, one that spans most of the month of Tishrei, for individuals to use at home, and one for communal gatherings on Oct. 7 or on Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah.

Commemorating Oct. 7 at home

Every week, we begin Shabbat by lighting candles. Every Tishrei, we usher in Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah by lighting candles. Our ritual for commemorating Oct. 7 at home is woven into these traditions.

More specifically, for each holiday and Shabbat evening in Tishrei, we suggest that you light a memorial candle before kindling the holiday and Shabbat lights. We offer an intention to recite before lighting this candle each night and a short text to read afterward. These materials – inspired by the work of Hagit Bartuv and Rivka Rosner of the Shalom Hartman Institute’s Ritual Centre in Israel and in collaboration with Maital Friedman, Masua Sagiv and me from the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America – connect us with some of the central themes of the last year. Our hope is that the light of the memorial candle, the ner neshamah, literally a soul candle, and light of the festive candles flickering together will connect the strands of our grief and celebration.

Like the candles dipped by the women of Eastern Europe, this ritual honours both the dead and the living. It brings us back to the devastation of Oct. 7, and it also celebrates the artists, soldiers, teachers and ordinary people who helped us through a difficult year. Similarly, while memorial candles are traditionally lit to remember the dead, the ritual invites us to use these candles to light the way for the living – for peace, healing and hope.

While many Israeli Jews light candles on seven evenings from Rosh Hashanah through Simchat Torah, many diaspora Jews light candles on nine, the two additional candles marking the second night of Sukkot and for the start of Simchat Torah. As a statement of Jewish peoplehood, this home-based ritual is for seven nights of candlelighting, so that it will be used in Jewish homes around the world on the same days. If you want to use this ritual to accompany your candlelighting on the second night of Sukkot or on erev Simchat Torah, you might repeat an intention and text or offer an intention and reflection of your own.

Developing this ritual led us to ask about the meaning of memorializing Oct. 7. Is this ritual only about Oct. 7 or is it about everything that occurred that day and since? What do we mean by “heroism” at this time? Are we referring to military bravery or to the ways civilians stepped up to support and protect one another this year as well? Can the entire Jewish world share this one ritual, or have our experiences of this year been too different? What is the right balance between particularistic and universalistic yearnings?

For many of these questions, we looked to our Israeli colleagues to set the tone in creating a ritual that met their needs for their grief and vulnerability this year, as well as their sources of hope and comfort. For other elements, we offer suggestions to adapt the framing or created a slightly different version in the English that we thought might be better suited for those outside of Israel. You may want to use this resource exactly as is, but you may also find yourself adding different texts or focusing on different themes. We encourage creativity and would love to hear from you about how you adapt it to meet your needs for this moment.

Commemorating Oct. 7 in community

Many communities in North America will gather to mark the anniversary of Oct. 7, whether in synagogues, JCCs, Jewish federations, Hillels, schools or other Jewish centres. Our second resource is a collection of texts and prayers to be used in a communal ritual context, including suggestions of three different ways to use these rituals in your community.

The supplement also gave us the opportunity to add more texts, prayers, songs and perspectives, including texts with expressions of grief for the suffering of Palestinian civilians, which did not fit in the more particularistic framework of the home ritual above.

This Elul, as we reflect on the past year and gather up the wicks that measure our lives and our communities, may we continue to find ways to bind our wicks together, to find strength in community and ritual, and may all who mourn this tragic anniversary find comfort among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem. Shanah tovah.

Rabbi Jessica Fisher is the director of rabbinic enrichment at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America. To read and download various Hartman Institute resources, including Memory and Hope: Rituals for Tishrei 5785 and accompanying resources for commemorating Oct.7 in community, visit hartman.org.il.

It’s that time of year

Tu b’Shevat is a popular day to go into the fields and plant saplings. (photo from usa.jnf.org)

‘In Israel, just before the Hebrew month of Shevat, the landscape begins to change. It has been winter; the fruit trees bare, their leafless, light grey branches silhouetted against dark clouds. Then, as Shevat is ushered in, they begin to bud, and reddish leaflets burst forth. Fields that have been covered with pale crocuses, white narcissus and cyclamens give way to red anemones, tulips and broom bushes starred with flowers. And the almond trees burst into blossom – the first harbinger of spring. It is at this time we celebrate Tu b’Shevat, the 15th of Shevat, which is known as the New Year of the Trees.

Tu b’Shevat, which falls this year on Jan. 17, is mentioned in the Mishnah as one of the four “natural” new years. The first of Nisan is the “new year for Jewish kings and seasonal feasts”: that is, for calculating the reigns of Israelite kings and determining the cycle of calendar festivals. The first of Elul is the new year “for tithing cattle” and the first of Tishri is the new year for calculating septennial cycles and 50-year jubilees.

The new year for the trees was moved from the first of Shevat to the 15th in accordance with the opinion of Rabbi Hillel (30 BCE – 10 CE), for it is then that the sap begins to rise with the full moon, in Israel’s fruit trees. The Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds also designate Tu b’Shevat as the date to calculate taxes on fruit: “You shall tithe all the yield of your seed, which comes forth from the field year by year.” (Deuteronomy 14:22)

During the days of winter, Israel’s fruit trees are dormant. It is wet and cold and, because of the low temperatures, the trees cannot absorb the nutrients from the soil. But, regarding the 15th of Shevat: “Till this day [the trees] live off the water of the past year; from this day on, they live off the water of this year.” (Jerusalem Talmud, Rosh Hashanah 1.2)

This date is the start of the fruit’s formation. Arabs also mark it, calling it “the second ember,” when fruit trees begin to absorb water. According to Arab folklore, there are three “embers,” which began as fire falling from the sky and changed to caterpillars. The first falls from the sky when the earth begins to warm up; the second when the warmth spreads. They follow this with a third “ember,” as summer begins.

Tu b’Shevat is one of Judaism’s popular celebrations that does not involve special synagogue services. It is a day when it is customary to eat the fruits of Israel: apples, almonds, carobs, figs, nuts and pomegranates. Many scholars stay up late on the eve of the holiday, reciting biblical passages dealing with fruits or the earth’s fertility. They read from Genesis how trees were created along with all the plants of the earth; from Leviticus, the Divine promise of abundance as a reward for keeping the commandments; and from Ezekiel 17, the parable of the spreading vine, symbolizing the people of Israel.

Kabbalists hold a special seder for Tu b’Shevat and they celebrate, not so much the new year of the trees, but the New Year of the Tree, meaning the Tree of Life, which is rich with mystical connotations. At the seder, they drink four cups of wine, beginning with white wine and ending with red, with the second cup a mixture more of white and the third more of red wine. It is rather like how the landscape changes from white (the pale narcissus and crocus) to red (anemones and tulips) as Tu b’Shevat approaches.

Tu b’Shevat is a popular day to go into the fields and plant saplings. Over the last several decades, Israeli schoolchildren have helped Keren Kayemeth, the Jewish National Fund, plant 130 million trees, many of them on Tu b’Shevat, and these evergreens have become the backbone of the reforestation program.

Tu b’Shevat affirms that the soil of Israel is holy. And the New Year of the Trees reminds us annually of the wonder of God’s creation.

Dvora Waysman is a Jerusalem-based author. She has written 14 books, including The Pomegranate Pendant, which was made into a movie, and her latest novella, Searching for Sarah. She can be contacted at [email protected].

Tu b’Shevat when it’s -30°C

As I went through my undergraduate and graduate school years, I cobbled together several different part-time jobs. One of my favourites was teaching Jewish music at weekend religious schools. This time of year, Tu b’Shevat (aka the New Year of Trees), songs were part of the lesson plan. Often, the kids I taught were just learning Hebrew for the first time, so I taught in English, too. One of my all-time hits was “The Garden Song,” which started with “Inch by inch, row by row, I’m gonna make this garden grow. All it takes is a rake and a hoe and a piece of fertile ground.” My second chart-topper was “Inchworm, inchworm, measuring the marigolds, won’t you stop and try to see how beautiful they are?”

Now, as I write this, I feel transported to a warm, sunny day in my garden, which is good, because it was -30°C with the windchill when I walked my dog in Winnipeg this morning! It’s good to be in touch with both the long-term hopes and dreams of summer and the realities of where we are. Holding that paradox, of both frostbite weather and sunny heat at once, is a great metaphor for where many of us are these days.

As a dual U.S.-Canadian citizen, I’ve been in knots over the unrest “down south” and the U.S. presidential transition. As well, I’m worried about the pandemic and about how poorly vaccine roll out has gone so far in Manitoba, and in Canada overall. I’m both thrilled to hear that all my children’s grandparents have gotten their first vaccine shot in the States, and also so sad to know that our local “adopted” Manitoba grandparents, both over 80, have no idea when they’ll get theirs.

Many people who have been sick with COVID-19 have struggled with challenging effects afterwards, including significant mental health issues. The anxiety and mortality struggles are pretty serious concerns for many of us, even if we haven’t gotten sick. One way my household has succeeded in coping is in burrowing in at home – into learning, good books, art and other DIY projects, building Lego and cooking. Everyone here, from age 9 and up, has kept busy with work and learning. We try to keep positive things in mind as much as we can.

I’ve been thinking about all of this, as I’ve considered what my plans are for the next days, months and even the year. In early January, I celebrated a birthday and the one-year anniversary of starting to study Daf Yomi, a page of Talmud a day. I am proud of finding the time to do this, however brief and poor my attention span may be sometimes. While I struggled with finding good (quick) resources for study, I found an Instagram page, posted by a rabbi, which seemed to summarize each page of study.

Hurray! I thought, I can review this in a glance while I help my kids with remote school lessons. Of course, anything that is in my Instagram feed has to then be kid-safe. Imagine my surprise when my account dumped two Daf Yomi posts with very scary images at me. One showed a person with a plastic bag over her head, struggling to breathe. The other showed someone’s hands, coated and dripping with blood.

Normally, I would simply unfollow this kind of thing without comment. However, these posts about Talmud were written by a rabbi, so I messaged her. “Hey!” I said, “I am so pleased to be doing Daf Yomi. I followed your posts, but I have to unfollow. These images on Tractate Pesachim 57 & 59 are too graphic. I don’t want my kids to see them.”

I got a response that left me, well, reminded that rabbis are just people, and that some of them may miss the mark at times. It was a “sorry to offend” kind of message. She indicated that she was a visual learner, that these posts were meant for those over 18 and that, to her, these seemed essential as an artist/interpreter, and she was guessing others felt the same. While she congratulated me on taking on Talmud study, I was also “othered,” as she, an artist, felt that dedicated followers would prefer this gory imagery in their social media feed.

I was disappointed. Although I am way past age 18, I am choosing, over and over, to focus on what I can gain positively from the talmudic text, even during a hard time. The talmudic rabbis, in parsing what had happened in Temple sacrifice, were trying to understand ritual events that had occurred a long time before. It was a disruptive period in history. Things weren’t stable. In fact, they weren’t actually doing sacrifices or actively harming people who didn’t observe properly. They were ironing out Jewish law for centuries to come, by confronting the past and figuring out the future through discussion, debate and study.

They did this by examining one small thing at a time. Much like the “Inchworm” song, Jewish rabbinic tradition teaches us to examine what is in front of us and to find solutions to challenges. I am distraught when I have to “hold” overwhelming images of rioting in the U.S. Capitol, the pandemic illness and deaths, and even a gory Instagram feed in my mind. Instead, I’m choosing a different path. It’s one that focuses on the next kids’ snack and meal, the next dog walk, and the next time I pick up the warm handknit mitts from the radiator as I face a cold morning outside. Inch by inch, row by row, we will get to sunny days in the garden ahead.

Sometimes, we do best when we embrace the ritual of “one thing at a time.” It’s one wintertime walk and, even, to knit each stitch as it presents itself on the needle to make more mittens. We’ve got a lot on our plate these days. Even so, we must eat only one bite at a time. It’s a metaphor and a paradox that the talmudic rabbis knew well. It might be a cliché but, for us, it also works.

Joanne Seiff has written regularly for CBC Manitoba and various Jewish publications. She is the author of three books, including From the Outside In: Jewish Post Columns 2015-2016, a collection of essays available for digital download or as a paperback from Amazon. Check her out on Instagram @yrnspinner or at joanneseiff.blogspot.com.

Fruits for the holiday

The holiday of Chamisha Asar b’Shevat or Tu b’Shevat is not mentioned in the Torah but makes its first appearance in the Talmud, where it is called Rosh Hashanah l’Ilan (New Year of the Tree).

Jewish literature of the sixth to 11th centuries identifies Tu b’Shevat as the day on which the fate of the trees and fruit is decided. The holiday gets its name from when it occurs. “Tu” is an acronym for the Hebrew letter tet, which in the Hebrew system of counting is nine, and the letter vav, which is six, thus adding up to 15, the day on which the holiday falls in the month of Shevat.

The date was chosen when the rabbinic schools of Hillel and Shammai (from the time of the Second Temple) argued about the dates. Hillel said it fell on the 15th of Shevat; Shammai said it began on the first. Hillel’s opinion prevailed because it was thought that, by the later date, the winter rains in Israel were almost over.

Tu b’Shevat links Jews to the land of Eretz Yisrael. In the time of the Second Temple, on the 15th of Shevat, Jewish farmers would estimate their obligatory tithes for tax collectors, as well as other contributions that Jewish law required. In effect, Tu b’Shevat was the beginning of the new fiscal year.

Part of the celebration is a seder with certain foods.

In her book The Jewish Holiday Cookbook, Gloria Kaufer Greene mentions that the drinking of four cups of wine at the seder symbolizes the changing of seasons. She suggests that the first cup is chilled, dry, white wine, to symbolize winter. The second cup of wine is pale, perhaps a rosé, and signifies spring and the early thaw. The third cup of wine is deeply coloured, like a dark rose, and represents the late spring and the blossoming trees. The fourth cup of wine is rich and red and stands for the fertility of summer.

In between drinking, one eats fruit in order of “ascending spirituality.” After the first cup of wine, one eats fruit with inedible coverings, like almonds, avocado, banana or melon, to represent the body covering the soul. After the second cup, one eats fruit with pits, such as plum, prune, date, apricot, olive or carob, to symbolize the heart being protected. After the third cup of wine, one eats fruit that can be eaten in its entirety, such as berry, apple, pear or fig, because they are closest to the pure spiritual creation.

In Encyclopedia of Jewish Food, the late Rabbi Gil Marks lists different ethnic dishes for the holiday, including borleves, Hungarian wine soup; salata latsheen, Moroccan orange salad; dimlama, Bulgarian vegetable and fruit stew; savo, Bukharian baked rice and fruit; gersht un shveml, Ashkenazi barley with mushrooms, fruit strudels and fruit kugels; and schnitzelkloese, German fried dumplings with fruit. Food customs associated with Tu b’Shevat are fruits and nuts connected to Eretz Yisrael, such as the seven species mentioned in Deuteronomy 8:7-8 – barley, wheat, figs, dates, grapes, olives and pomegranates.

Here are a couple of my fruit recipes. The first is one that a friend gave me about 40 years ago.

CREAMY FRUIT SALAD
6-8 servings

2-3 cut up apples
1-2 peeled, cut-up oranges
2-3 cut-up bananas
1/4 cup coconut
1/4 cup chopped nuts
3/8 cup sour cream or 3/4 cup lemon yogurt
1 1/2 tbsp sugar or whipped cream
1/8 cup orange juice
3/8 cup vanilla yogurt
raisins (optional)

Combine apples, orange and bananas in a bowl. Add coconut and nuts. Combine sour cream or lemon yogurt, sugar or whipped cream, orange juice and vanilla yogurt. Pour over fruit and refrigerate.

I have altered this recipe at times and use pareve whipping cream to make it pareve, leaving out the sour cream/yogurt.

HOT SPICED FRUIT
4 servings

6 peaches, pears or apricots, halved
1/2 cup red wine
2 tbsp sugar
dash cloves
1/8 tsp cinnamon
dash cardamom
3/4 tsp grated orange peel

Combine wine, sugar, cloves, cinnamon, cardamom and orange peel in a saucepan. Add fruit and cook 15-20 minutes. Drain and reserve liquid. Chill fruit. Serve with vanilla ice cream. Spoon sauce on top.

Sybil Kaplan is a journalist, lecturer, book reviewer and food writer in Jerusalem. She created and leads the weekly English-language Shuk Walks in Machane Yehuda, she has compiled and edited nine kosher cookbooks, and is the author of Witness to History: Ten Years as a Woman Journalist in Israel.