Tu B'Shvat celebrates the first blossoms of the almond trees at the tail end of winter, hinting at the beginning of spring.
Pesach marks the beginning of the first month of the Hebrew calendar, celebrates the birth of the Israelites as a people, and their annual intentional renewal of their descendants' freedom from the slavery in the Narrow Places we often find ourselves in, whether we are being squeezed from the outside or are doing the squeezing form within ourselves. The Israelites are, of course, the genetic/ethnic/cultural ancestors of not only most Jewish people (Rabbinic and Karaites), but also Samaritans and probably an awful lot of currently Muslim, Christian, and otherwise non-Jewish long-term inhabitants of the Middle East (the Levant in particular) and their decedents all over the world. Indeed the Torah even reminds us that a multitude of peoples followed Moses and his Hebrew tribes out of the Narrow Place and into the desert, the place of no-thing, where together they formed a new identity as Israelites.
Rosh Hashanah, on the other hand, is not about us, its about the birth of the world, or at least the birth of the world as we know it. Since we like to lay cycles on top of cycles, the beginning of the new year does not correspond with the beginning of the first month of it. This Rosh Hashanah brings us into the year 5771 by the ancient Hebrew recognition, meaning this beginning took place around 3761 bce. If you look at it from a larger geologic or astronomical time scale, this is very close to the beginning of the Mayan calendar (3114 bce) and the beginning of the current Kali Yuga cycle in the ancient Indian calendar (3102 bce).
Now, i think someone would be hard pressed to claim that our species, homo sapiens sapiens came into existence only 5771 years ago, not to mention the living planet we are a small part of; the solar system Earth is a small part of, with the living Sun at its heart; the Milky Way Galaxy Sol is a small part of, with a living supermassive black hole at its heart; the galactic cluster Milky Way is a part of with nothing at its heart but the combined center of gravity of its constituent galaxies; the galactic super cluster that the Milky Way's cluster is a part of; or the larger unimaginably large and old universe that even our unimaginably large super cluster is but an unimaginably small part of.
On the other hand, if you let go of the notion that scriptures should be taken literally and think about what we know about what our species was up to during the 4th millennium, it seems totally rational to see that time period as a huge change in the world as we perceive it and thus the beginning of the world as we know it. This was a time when agriculture, metalworking and living in permanent settlements was becoming more wide spread. Think about how different the world view and experiences of someone from a big city vs a small town can be, and magnify it enormously. This was also the beginning of the current desertification of the Sahara.
In settling down, people had to learn to trust and belong to a larger group. Often this larger group was in conflict with another group of roughly similar size over resources, potable water, arable land, natural beauty, etc. The good part of this was that people learned to be a part of a larger community, but they also learned about the other.
This served its purpose for a time, but that time is long since passed, and yet we cling ever so tightly to pointing to the other as a way to deflect from our own internal problems. Its great and wonderful to feel that you belong to a community of people who accept you for who you are.
This can be based on religion, culture, nationality, languages and many other factors and that is all good because its hard to perceive the whole of the humanity, but we have to get to a place where we understand them as dynamic and dotted lines. Because when you follow back in time, all these categories eventually disappear. Every one of them, though they may go back a handful of thousands of years, have evolved a great deal over that time and all started in the last 6000 years or so. Abraham the Hebrew would not have recognized the practices of David the Israelite, any more than David would have recognized Classical Judaism of Talmudic period, or Rabbi Akiva would recognize any service by any current genre of Judaism - no matter how traditional they think they are.
The point is, if you follow any of these identifications back far enough, you see how they came to be founded by other previous ones and the historical context that reforged it. As completely and totally positive as they are for our emotional well being, we can't be attached to them to the extent that we miss what it is that we all have in common.
Every human, without exception, belong to the species homo sapiens sapiens who have shown time and again through history to be able to adapt to almost any circumstances. We have developed different languages and cultures and religions at different places and in different times, not to express something unique of that context, but to express the same universal human experience of the world through whatever current context it and we need to adapt to.
I am truly saddened lately by all the talk about the so called "Ground Zero Mosque", which is neither a mosque, nor at "Ground Zero." I am also truly saddened by this preacher in Florida and his Koran burning, which G-d Willing won't happen this Saturday.
The first large european settlements which lead to our United States of America were largely religious zealots who's ways and beliefs were not that far from the Taliban or the Maccabees of the Chanukah story, completely happy to slaughter not only those who weren't of the same religion as them, but even more especially those who were, but just not in the "right" way.
Luckily, by the time United States came into being itself, our founding fathers, though flawed in plenty of other ways, were not religious zealots, but rational thinkers who saw the wisdom in creating a nation-state FOUNDED on the idea of absolute religious freedom for all and separation of "church" and state. Thomas Jefferson owned a Koran and made his own translation of the new testament that removed all the miracles and just focused on Jesus' actual teachings.
Also the thankful reality is that the religious nutjobs are almost always a small minority in any religion. They just happen to be a loud, vocal, and often violent minority. But it we accept that as true, we can stop wasting time trying to stop one religion or another from some imagined world wide conspiracy and realize the problem is asshole extremists of all backgrounds, not any background in particular.
Because of this foresight of our founding father, the Jewish population in the US has enjoyed a period of relative peace and prosperity not seen since the Golden Age in Muslim controlled Spain, which was ended by the same Christian Spanish King & Queen who tried to send Columbus to India.
Even if there is regional conflict over resources between those who are Mulim, Jewish, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist (Tibet invaded China in the Tang Dynasty), or whatever religion, that doesn't mean that its a Holy War between all members of that religion. Even if some loud extremist idiot says that it is, most people of whatever background just want to live their lives in peace.
If there is one thing this country is founded on, its freedom from religious persecution, and we need to all wake up and realize that if we let one group get persecuted, we easily could be next. If you don't believe me, pick of a history book. Its a cycle that will continue to repeat until we stop pretending to tolerate one another and actually accept each others differences as not just ok, but important for adding to the dynamic cultural richness that we as a species have built. And giving up our unique cultures to be a part of a shallow homogeneous world culture is not a realistic answer either.
There are plenty of other very real things for us to worry about without wasting one more minute hating on each other out of pure ignorance. Its only a matter of time before an asteroid hits the earth, or a supervolcano erupts or the next ice age comes, not to mention the very real human accelerated environmental and climatic changes which will not destroy our galaxy or solar system or planet, but will render the earth unable to sustain us.
My greatest hope for this new year is for us to all let go of the illusion that we are separate and to choose to come together to extinguish human causes suffering by stopping the finger pointing. If we can ensure that everyone has their basic needs met (food, potable water, safe shelter, healthcare, education, freedom to worship or not worship as they please) - and there is enough to go around, its our modes of distribution that are uneven - then there will be a significant drop in war, famine, etc.
May all beings have a year of great sweetness, but not so sweet as to deprive others of their sweetnesses.
L'Shanah Tovah,
jason
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