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The Charlotte Jewish News -February 2015 - Page 30 At Tu BiShevat, Digging for Spiritual Growth By Edmon J. Rodman Los Angeles (JTA) - While my neighbors were putting their Christmas trees to the eurb, in what seems like a ritual of re- plaeement, I was preparing to plant for Tu BiShevat. My friend Freda reeently pre sented me a eutting from an Angel’s trumpet - a small tree with beautiful, large, pendulous white flowers that grows in her yard - and to observe the New Year of the Trees (This year on February 4), I wanted to get it in the ground. Looking around the garage for a shovel, I wondered if there were a Jewish eeremony for planting a tree. ATu BiShevat seder introduees philosophieal eoneepts into the holiday. But eould I skip the four eups of wine - you start with white and gradually add more red to eaeh eup - and just do something shorter, and well, more down to earth to help observe what some have ealled Jewish Arbor Day? The Coalition on the Environ ment and Jewish Life had pub lished a tree-planting serviee in a guide ealled “To Till and To Tend: A Guide to Jewish Environmental Study and Aetion.” Though tilling and tending sounded like a lot more work than I was up for, I gave it a look. “There is an order to this, God’s universe, that is beyond our eompre- hension,” read a passage from the eeremony. Piek- ing out the right spot to plant had often been be yond mine. Planting thorny rose bushes near the free-standing basket ball hoop in the baekyard had been one of my ehief blunders. Another was not removing a fieus tree; its roots are now eraeking our briek patio. Freda had told to me that her trumpet tree had done well in a spot that was full sun to part shade. I found a similar spot near a wall next to a bougainvillea vine that when it flowers bathes the area in magenta. Reealling my pruning battles with the spreading bougainvillea, another passage from the serviee eame to mind: “The world of na ture was given to us to join with, not to eonquer.” Perhaps the trumpet tree - it also spreads, Freda’s husband, Stuart, informed me - would pro vide a more natural way to eontrol the quiekly spreading vine. The planting of an Angel s trumpet for Tu b ’Shvat by columnist Edmon J. Rodman was accompanied by an im promptu backyard service, January 2014. (Edmon J. Rod- man) Clearing the area of leaves and debris, I found something brown and pebbled stieking out from the ground. Pulling it out, I realized it was a ehewed-up football that our dog, Oliver, used to bite and shake into submission. Before lapsing into baekyard nostalgia, I reealled what Rabbi Yoehanan ben Zakkai had to say about tree-planting interruptions: “If you are in the midst of planting a tree and word reaehes you that the Messiah has arrived, do not in terrupt your work; first finish your planting and only then go out to weleome the Messiah.” Snapping baek to my shovel, I began to dig. Al most immediately, another line from the tree-planting eeremony - “Take eare not to spoil or destroy My world, for if you do, there will be no one to repair it after you,” from Midrash Eeelesiastes Rabbah - as sumed a different shading as I struek a root from a nearby plum tree. Gauging that the loss would not be fatal, I ehopped it out. The serviee’s warning “And do not wound your neighbors, for they, too, are part of the interdepen dent whole,” reminded me that when you plant near a prop erty line, you are planting for two. Who eould be upset by the tree’s sweet-smelling flowers that are only fragrant at night? And by day, the AngeFs trumpet ealled to hummingbirds. Flowever, after some researeh I also diseovered that the Angel’s trumpet, like other eommon land- seape plants sueh as azaleas, rho dodendron, and oleander, is poisonous if ingested. I would have to remember to keep it from growing into their yard. As I pulled the two-foot shoot from the plastie pot, I saw that it had already developed a good set of roots. “People ean sense God’s pres- enee in nature,” read the text. “We pause in awe at nature’s ele- ganee.” I lowered the plant into the hole, filling in around it with a mixture of earth and potting soil. “Originally, we got this plant as eutting from our neighbor,” Stuart said a few days before I planted the trumpet. I wondered how many generations this plant, whieh is native to South Ameriea, had traveled to reaeh my baek yard. Looking at my little plant that had been passed down, I deeided that not exaetly a renewable re- souree, it was a souree of renewed spirituality. The serviee said that we proteet the world “by planting and by re membering and by eonneeting, from generation to generation.” As I watered the planting, I won dered, onee it grew large enough for a eutting, who would be re newed by the next generation. ^ (Edmon J. Rodman is a JTA columnist who writes on Jewish life from Los Angeles. Contact him at edmoJace@gmail.com.) Op-Ed: France’s Wake Up Call By Simone Rodan-Benzaquen PARIS (JTA) — The kosher su permarket was ehosen deliber ately. Men, women and ehildren were shopping and preparing for Shabbat. Only two days before the attaek, terrorists had left 10 of the best-known satirieal journalists and eartoonists dead at Charlie Hebdo. Three Freneh poliee offi- eers were also struek down, one of and evaluating not only the future of our eommunity but the fate of Franee itself. Let’s be elear: Franee is under assault. The enemy is in our midst. Extremists, faithful to a brand of Islam that eelebrates violenee and martyrdom, have no respeet what soever for the eore, longstanding Freneh values of demoeraey, plu ralism, freedom of expression — Demonstrators carrying a sign reading “We Are Charlie” march in a Paris square during a unity rally following the recent terrorist attacks in the French capital, Jan. 11, 2015. (Dan Kitwood/Getty Images) Read more: http://www.jta.org/2015/01/12/news-opinion/opinion/op-ed-frances-wake-up- callMxzzSPl Gnvi6T them a Muslim. Eaeh Islamist ter rorist attaek targeted a symbol of the Freneh Republie, seeking to bring the eountry to its knees. That Jews were targets of radi- eal Islam was, alas, unsurprising. Four of the hostages — Yoav Flat- tab, Philippe Braham, Yohan Cohen, Fran9ois-Miehel Saada — were killed at the kosher market. Survivors of the attaek are an guished. So, too, are most Freneh Jews, who again are diseussing and, indeed, for life itself Tradi tional forms of protest are alien to them. Instead, as seen in the ear- nage wrought by ISIS, al-Qaida and other jihadists in Iraq, Syria and Yemen, pure barbarism is their vehiele to aehieve their per verted notion of salvation. Tragieally, the events of reeent days are not a new phenomenon. The Jewish eommunity, ineluding the Ameriean Jewish Committee in Paris, has warned for years about the developing and deepen ing threat that radieal Islam poses to Franee. In Mareh 2012, a lone, heavily armed Mohammed Merah murdered three Freneh soldiers in eold blood and, a week later, slaughtered a teaeher and three ehildren at a Jewish sehool in Toulouse. The Toulouse attaek was a game ehanger for Freneh Jews. And although Freneh politi- eal leaders voieed outrage, as time passed and the numbers and fre- queney of anti-Semitie ineidents rose, the eountry seemed to get used to them — even anesthetized to this reality — while many Jews felt a sense of loneliness and iso lation. The reeent attaeks in Paris have shoeked the entire nation, indeed the entire world. What is new this time is the depth and breadth of the reaetions, erisserossing Freneh soeiety, the realization that eom- bating the threat of radieal Islam must be, and remain, a national priority. But will this be the nee- essary wake-up eall for Franee as a whole to eonfront the danger? The terrorists who struek in Paris — as in Toulouse and at the Jewish Museum in Brussels last May — are not isolated lone wolves. They most likely are the tip of a radieal Islamist ieeberg, the small visible part. To eounter this lethal trend, we must delve deeper and understand the faetors that draw eertain individuals to radieal Islam, and find ways to eounter this evil that endangers all of Franee. Freneh sehools must teaeh mu tual respeet and responsibility, a eomponent of the eurrieulum that today is stunningly missing. In- doetrination in extremist ideolo gies in prisons demands attention, as does reeruitment by radieal, vi Simone Rodan-Benzaquen olent groups through soeial media and in mosques. The Toulouse and Paris terrorists spent time not only in prison but also with jihadist groups in Syria and Yemen. Flun- dreds more are eurrently in Syria and Iraq, and maybe in other Arab eountries. That they eould return with Freneh passports to settle baek in our eommunities, or in other European eountries, is a nightmare. Their objeetive is to ereate fear and division in Freneh soeiety, of whieh the extreme right and populists may take advantage. So let’s have the eourage not to let fear take over. The Freneh government eannot stop this trend alone; the effort will require the aetive involve ment of politieal, religious and eivil-soeiety leaders. Immediate reaetions to the attaek on Charlie Lfebdo were inspiring, as millions of Freneh eitizens gathered in een- tral Paris and throughout Franee, eommunieated their outrage on soeial media and ealled for aetion. Unfortunately, the voiees of Mus lim eommunity leaders —with some notable exeeptions — have until now been barely audible. Those leaders, too, must speak loudly and elearly, as Muslims and as Freneh eitizens. Many of us in the Jewish eom munity regretted that no large sol idarity movement rose up after the gruesome kidnap-murder of Ilan Halimi nine years ago, or after Toulouse, or during last summer’s transparently anti-Semitie demon strations. While the government did speak out after attaeks on Jews and firmly deeries anti-Semitism, many in Freneh soeiety and in the media refused to see that our Freneh values were at stake and that Jews were indeed a target. Flatred of Jews never ends with Jews. The menaee of rising anti- Semitism threatens Freneh soeiety at large. The future of Franee will be deeided in the eoming days, weeks and months. The Charlie Lfebdo massaere makes elear that the war against Franee’s demo- eratie values is in high gear. Sunday’s mass rally, with more than 3.7 million people aeross the eountry in attendanee — inelud ing, in Paris, Freneh President Franeois Flollande, German Chan- eellor Angela Merkel, British Prime Minister David Cameron, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other politieal leaders — was a powerful state ment of outrage and solidarity against this barbarism in Franee and in the rest of the world. But what happens in the days and weeks ahead will truly test Franee. Now more than at any other time in its postwar history, the fate of Franee is entwined with the fate of its Jews. If Franee loses them, sooner or later it will also be lost. Is this the wake-up eall that will help the Freneh people under stand the nature of the threat to our eountry, and will they respond firmly and effeetively? The very soul of Franee is at stake. ^ (Simone Rodan-Benzaquen is the director of the American Jew ish Committee’s Paris office.)
The Charlotte Jewish News (Charlotte, N.C.)
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