Once again, it’s the new year of the trees (see below for context on the holiday).  On the one hand, Tu b’Shvat is about hope.   Our tradition notes that even at the height of the global north’s winter, when deciduous trees are decidedly bare and spring feels so very far off, the process toward new verdancy is unfolding as it should.  The trees, bare now, will shortly bear fruit.  Deep within each tree, the sap is already rising.  And so are we.

On the other hand, Tu b’Shvat 5785 comes in the chaotic early weeks of a new U.S. Administration which has already pulled us out of the global climate accords, fired numerous scientists and experts, eliminated the justice and equity divisions within the EPA and Department of Energy, and celebrated the return of plastic straws, among numerous other back-sliding steps.  Dayenu’s Rabbi Jennie Rosenn aptly calls this “nothing less than an assault on the Tree of Life.”  For people of faith and conscience -- who appreciate what a threat climate change poses to us, the globally vulnerable, our descendants, and Creation – it’s a long cold lonely winter, indeed.

Hope can feel hard to come by, as so much that we hold dear gets wiped away by executive fiat (some of it constitutional).  But however thin or far off the hope may feel, it’s real, and we must name and celebrate and grasp it.  Right now, I find hope:

•      in the multifaith coalitions within which COEJL does its best and most important work – like the many congressional meetings that a Quaker, a Catholic, a Lutheran and I are now scheduling to jointly defend clean energy tax credits, urging thoughtful Republican House members to lift up the good things the Inflation Reduction Act has brought to their districts and their constituents. 
•      just today, in a Jewish Earth Alliance Tu b’Shvat lobby day Zoom room with two senate staffers, two rabbis, and multiple policy wonks, where the unquestioned leader was Izzy, a remarkable Adamah-trained Colby College student active with the Jewish Youth Climate Movement.  Go Izzy!  Go Jewish youth!  Go Adamah!  
•    in the growth of the Jewish environmental movement (which I've followed since the creation of Shomrei Admah in 1988 and of COEJL in 1993). Today its advocacy efforts are often led by Dayenu, with thoughtful national offerings and local activist Dayenu Circles doing great work all across the country.  Plan now to join their March 18th (8:30pm ET) Mass Call: Rising to Meet the Moment.  Rising, like the sap.
•       through the many multi-faith religious organizations (including the Conservative, Reconstructionist, and Reform movements) who just joined a lawsuit to stop Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials from entering houses of worship (as the new Administration just  authorized them to do).  Note:  a huge percentage of today's refugees are in motion courtesy of climate change, with more extreme weather and more widespread migration already locked in ahead of us.  Immigration and climate are profoundly intersectional; and both in turn profoundly intersect with racism, now running rampant.  Let us remember, religiously: we are all in this together.

 
And perhaps above all, I feel hope in the expansion of Adamah’s Jewish Climate Leadership Coalition (JCLC), where numerous national Jewish organizations are joined by literally hundreds of synagogues and other local groups in crafting, committing to, and publicizing their own respective climate action plans.  Now in just its third year, the JCLC has already had a catalyzing effect on our national community, and it’s setting a high bar that many communities are now rising to meet.  Rising, like the sap. 

Adamah.org’s Liore Milgrom-Gartner wrote this in a Tu b’Shvat email blas,t earlier this evening:  “Instead of counting the age of trees, today we’re counting our carbon emissions…. we now have over 400 climate action plans from organizations spanning 42 different states. Individually, [each is] a snapshot of one organization’s journey of climate action and resilience.  Collectively they are a testament to our commitment to a livable, beautiful planet for future generations.” 

Do please look up the JCLC – and plan for your group to join it this year, if it hasn’t done so already.  There you’ll see, among other inspiring examples:  “a Los Angeles Hillel that’s focusing on a rooftop solar campaign as fires surround them; an Asheville, North Carolina synagogue that’s creating a space for climate dialogue and action amidst flooding; and an Atlanta synagogue that’s tapping into Adamah’s support to reduce emissions, save money, and lead nature-based Jewish programs.” 

Liore wrapped up her message by affirming that “this Tu B’Shvat we can start anew with the power of community binding us together in action and resiliency.”  Ken y’hi ratzon – may it be so.  May we rise, like the sap, and make it so.

When winter festivals of light overlap...    Excerpt:  "Our work is cut out for us, perhaps now more than ever – but the way we’ll get there is TOGETHER.  Relationship is key to all that we can and will do.  Collective work on behalf of our common home is one of the best ways to develop those connections, and join shoulder-to-shoulder.  It behooves us all to reach out across lines of difference – faith, race, nationality, ideology, and more – and to work (and sing!) in concert with one another." ....

For colleagues in WISC-EEWG (the Washington Interfaith Staff Community - Environment and Energy Working Group) world, this is a memo to which you might point others in your organization -- as you too consider if, how, and how much to work on the Heat Rule…

And for readers of the COEJL blog, this is an example of the coalitional work we and our allies do, taking turns going deep into various issues, and sharing resources and suggestions with one another – in this case, on an issue with great moral clarity, that marries human dignity and worker safety with climate adaptation.  

​    Hi all – yesterday the AFL-CIO held a helpful webinar on the Heat Rule that OSHA recently proposed.  The process will be long, far beyond the public comment period that closes on 12/30/24 – and we’ll want religious leaders involved again across 2025 & 2026, to present testimony, raise visibility of worker safety concerns, etc. The question here is how deeply our sector might be involved in driving large numbers of supportive comments this Fall (i.e. making a widespread but easy ask of our folks to make their voices heard).  My sense is, pretty deeply -- through NRPE and jewishearthalliance.org and others, we've already started -- and I look forward to further explorations with you all on it.    [continued, below...]

It shouldn't be partisan to say that government ought to protect public health, and ensure long-term sustainability and equity and justice across the land. The details are definitely debatable, but morally and Judaically, the basic case is clear.

Some administrations take this responsibility seriously; others downplay or even subvert it. The current one wishes to grant California, and by extension numerous other states, a Clean Air Act "waiver" to tighten tailpipe emissions regulations, reduce climate pollution, address historic racial harms, and save thousands of lives. By contrast, the previous one sought to eliminate the chance for high-pollution states to do this at all, while putting spuriously low dollar values on future generations in their cost-benefit analyses.