This week, from the eve of Tu B’Shevat, late Wednesday into the early hours of the morning on Thursday, until late afternoon in Donna’s Zoom Room, I wrote. Feverishly, in the messiest of script, I wrote blog posts and responses to poetry prompts, filling my journal with fragments of ideas. Only occasionally during this holiday of the trees did I stop thinking about the brokenness of our natural world and the grief that has taken up residence in my soul to send text messages and responses to emails.
Much of what I wrote on Tu B’Shevat 5785 will remain unpublished. At least for now. I will savor it; return to it later.
The first piece, titled A Stand of Trees: Torah for Tu B’Shevat, I shared on the Rabbi’s Blog at my still relatively new home, Congregation Beth Tikvah (Marlton, NJ).
It’s been about a month since our last Yoga Shabbat, and I can’t stop thinking about it. Especially today, on the eve of Tu B’Shevat. I remember that moment in the service when we gathered in a circle, at Nancy’s instruction, and formed a stand of trees. Each of us, some more tentatively than others, assumed the Tree Pose. I was particularly self-conscious about how unsteady I felt on one foot. “Remember,” Nancy said in her gentle-firm tone, “you can put your foot on your thigh above your knee, or on your calf below your knee, but do not put your foot directly against your knee.” Then she coached us… read more
The second piece, a poem titled What I think I know, I wrote in response to Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer’s simple, elegant poem, What I didn’t know. It is somewhere between rough draft and partly revised. While it remains under construction, I share it with you here:
What I think I know (after Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer)
It’s okay to be scared.
The world is scary,
with wildfires and floods,
wars and famines.
The Science explaining it is scary;
The Social Science even scarier.
It’s okay to be scared,
but not too scared
to seek an antidote to what ails us.
What can one person do?!
It is too much to bear,
too much is in need of repair.
This is true, and yet there is
still something one person can do.
An act of kindness from one human
to another living being,
whether human, flora or fauna is
still something I think I know
one person can do.
—Pamela Jay Gottfried
February 13, 2025 ~ Tu B’Shevat 5785