Shabbat Shira is called as such because this week’s Torah portion, Beshalach, contains Shirat HaYam, the song which Moses, Miriam, and all the Israelites sang together after seeing Pharoah and his army drowned in the very same sea that had been split for them to pass through on dry land. Though this Shabbat has always been marked by a special trope for its Torah reading, services during this time have become increasingly infused with special music, liturgical and otherwise. In recent years, Shabbat Shira has also become an opportunity to especially honor the music of Jewish women in recognition of the chain of tradition handed down since Miriam took her timbrel in her hand and all the Israelite women followed her in song and dance.
So too, Tu Bishvat has continued to expand its meaning and observance l’dor va’dor, from generation to generation. When the holiday is first described in the Mishnah (Rosh HaShanah 1:1), it is mostly clerical in nature; a reference point by which one might judge when it is permissible to offer a tithe from a given tree. However, the kabbalists of 16th century reinvigorated Tu Bishvat, interpolating mystical theurgic rituals like the Tu Bishvat seder which had the potential to repair a broken world. Three centuries later, the early Zionist movement also reclaimed Tu Bishvat in furtherance of their goal to make the desert bloom and as a symbol of the revival and revitalization of the Jewish people in addition to reforestation. Tu Bishavat was chosen as the opening date for the Technion in 1925 and Israel’s first Knesset in 1949. Furthermore, as early as the 1960s, Rabbi Arthur Waskow and others endeavored to give Tu Bishvat a more universalist arc towards conservationism and climate activism. Even though 5782 is a shmitah year, one where we traditionally let the land rest from planting and harvest, we remain steadfast in our commitment to stewardship of the planet.
In 1978, during the month of Shvat, the Committee for the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Forest in Israel announced the completion of its first 10,000-tree forest planted in the Galilee in honor of the slain civil rights leader. In 1984, the day after Tu Bishvat, Navy Chaplain Rabbi Arnold Resnicoff conducted Israel’s first presidential ceremony in commemoration of Dr. King two years before President Reagan signed Proclamation 5431, marking the first official observance of King’s birthday as a national holiday. Ten years later, in 1996, President Clinton broadened the observance of MLK day to include community service, interracial cooperation and youth anti-violence initiatives.
What do Shabbat Shira, Tu Bishvat, and MLK day have in common? They remind us that what is sacred need not be sacrosanct. They invite us to use every holiday as an opportunity for meaning making. May we have the wisdom and courage to do so this weekend and beyond.
Shabbat Shalom, Tu Bishvat Sameach, and Happy MLK day,
Rabbi Preston D. Neimeiser
