March 2006
Dear Friends
By happy coincidence, we have (mostly) made our move to our new home in time for Rosh Hashanah. How can that be, you ask? It is because Rosh Hashanah is such a happy holiday, we actually do it twice a year—once for us humans and once for the trees.
Tu B’Shevat, just celebrated, is more than a minor holiday dealing with tithes and taxes. After all, why celebrate taxes? What we do celebrate is our connection to the earth and to the world. We recall and renew our duty to care for our environment, as our tradition is that we are only stewards of the land. We are reminded to be responsible not only to the land and its produce, but also to remember that we are required to provide for the less fortunate among us.
Tu B’Shevat is a festival of renewal, originally demarking the boundary, for trees, between one year and another – as well as the boundary between the rainy and dry seasons. It is customary to eat a new fruit of which one has not yet partaken during the present year and recite the blessing of SheHecheyanu.
Celebrating renewal and rebirth, our community moved into our shul during the Tu B’Shevat season. How moving it was to see our Ark being moved in, in three sections, and placed in the specially designed alcove. How special it was to have the Ner Tamid, the Eternal Light, lit in the first synagogue ever in the Brattleboro area. How awesome to place our Torah’s into the Ark in our shul.
There is so much more to be done, and we need willing hearts and hands to volunteer time and effort and energy and money. The BAJC community has an amazing range of skills and talents. Many have contributed knowledge and expertise that they have already possessed. Others have learned as they have contributed. We have taken upon ourselves a sacred duty to properly care for the land and the buildings thereupon. Our gratitude is boundless to all, past and present, who have contributed in whatever measure to this years special Tu B’Shevat.
B’Shalom,
Paul
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