The National Council of Jewish Women has proclaimed this Shabbat the Shabbat of Reproductive Freedom.

Tu B’Shvat is famously the new year for the trees. A day, at least in our modern context, to honor trees and the natural world and the importance of Jewishly-inspired ecological care and stewardship. A day to marvel at trees - their ancientness, their roots, their branches. Alas, this year I could not inhabit Tu B’Shvat with that simple delight because I’ve been following along with what’s been happening in the Welaunee Forest in Atlanta, where trees and human life alike have been tragically and horrifically destroyed.

Next Sunday evening, on the Full Moon of midwinter, we are taught to gather for the Seder of Tu B’Shvat, the ReBirthDay of trees and of the One Great Tree of Life. Here are four brief teachings that you might introduce into the Four Worlds of the Seder, with time for conversation about each. And two brief teachings about the Four Cups of wine or grape juice that we drink in honor of the Four Worlds.

The Shalom Center for this Shabbat is offering a new Haftarah shaped from an essay by Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, written in 1964. Heschel uses the Torah text as a framework to face the everyday oppressions that racism poses to Black Americans.

His words are like the Prophetic flame of the Burning Bush — destroying nothing, not even the Bush in which it burned, but birthing commitment to make a new world of love and justice — and are just as Truth-filled today as in his own generation. We believe that reawakening them in the awe-filled melody of Haftarah is what the Prophetic readings should be.

Rabbi Waskow was recently interviewed by Moment Magazine for their “Wisdom Project”, in which he was asked to share his wisdom for the next generation. The interview is shared here, with a postscript from Rabbi Waskow.

Honoring the anniversary of the assassination of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. — a man in whom Dr. Abraham Joshua Heschel said “we hear a voice like the voice of the prophets of Israel . . . his presence is is the hope of America.” Edited by Rabbi Marcia Prayer and set to Haftara Trop by Hazzan Yakov Kessler.

In the last week, we all watched the “ultra-right-wing“ of 20 out of 435 Congresspeople, those 20 flung into office by a tiny minority of voters, paralyze the one branch of the US government intended to represent the People’s Will. It called me to remember when vigorous climate action should have started — but fell afoul of the Fossil Fuel Pharaohs. I was personally involved in that misadventure, but I’ve never written the story till now. Read on!

We at The Shalom Center, we good friends of Dr. Susannah Heschel of Dartmouth University, and we throughout the world are about to celebrate a moment of joyful learning that is half a century old and rooted in a grievous loss: the 50th yohrzeit of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. A loss that calls us to turn the hearts of elders and youth to each other, their minds and legs to work together.

We are sponsoring three webinars that will bring his teachings to the eyes and ears, the hearts and minds, the legs and souls, of Americans facing arrogant neo-fascists and modern pharaohs who are burning Earth for the sake of cash. The webinars will be Wednesday evenings January 18, Jan. 25, and February 1. Details below!

This report is by Jacqui Patterson, long-time lead thinker/activist on environmental and climate justice for the NAACP and now the founder and director of The {Shirley} Chisholm Legacy Project. She led the Chisholm Project’s delegation to COP27 in Egypt.

In the Q&A format here, the questions come from staff of the Chisholm Legacy Project to its director, Ms. Patterson. The Shalom Center begins 2023 with this report on how racism and uncontrolled capitalism unite to poison and kill in modern crematoria without chimneys.

Brazil went through the agony of an elected fascist President who did his worst to subjugate the poor and destroy the Amazon Forest, the lungs of all life in/on Planet Earth. But an alert and informed nation voted him out and voted in again a President who had tried to end poverty and protect the Amazon Forest.

When an election is at hand, VOTE.