Tu B’Shevat and Dr. King's Birthday

The beautiful metaphor of the convergence of Dr. King birthday and Tu B'Shevat is one that cannot be ignored. Especially for us Blewish people, no 2 holidays better exemplify the hope and beauty of our Black and Jewish backgrounds. Tu B'Shevat is the Jewish New Year for Trees. The 15th of Shevat on the Jewish calendar, is the day that marks the beginning of a "New Year for Trees." This is the season in which the earliest-blooming trees in the Land of Israel emerge from their winter sleep and begin a new fruit-bearing cycle. The audacity to believe that we can overcome all the worlds ills and grow a just society is personified around us by the cyclically hope of spring. G-d gave us the living embodiment of King's endowment to us through elegance of the trees around us. Despite the uncertainty that all the fruits we leave will grow to fruition, we spread out our fruits of a new just world through our deeds, our words, our hugs, and our intentions. And through them a seedling is nourished by the world. But the challenges are many, other trees that take away sunlight and water the saplings need, harsh weather and predators work to stamp out this tree before it can spring life. And yet it faces these odds to dare to be. Every spring that life faces the certainty of fallen leaves in the fall and harshness of winter to decide to bloom anyway. We celebrate that hope, that "tree of life," as Jews call our Torah (Jewish Bible) today with this Jewish New Year. Just as Tu B'Shevat celebrates the triumphant return of life in Israel as fruit blooms for the first time so to does Dr. Rev. Martin Luther King's Birthday rejuvenate our struggle for a morally centered just world. "..I believe that what self-centered men have torn down, men other-centered can build up. I still believe that one day mankind will bow before the altars of God and be crowned triumphant over war and bloodshed, and nonviolent redemptive goodwill will proclaim the rule of the land ... I still believe that we shall overcome.” --Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Noble Prize Acceptance Speech, Dec. 10, 1965 RSS Feed