Tu B'shevat Teaching and Discussion

With our Tu B'shevat Jam tomorrow night - (NEW LOCATION - 12th West 12th St. at 7pm) - I thought that I would post one of the teachings that I'll be sharing with the community. Hopefully, by sharing a text with everyone on here, we can start thinking about some of the themes of the holiday and begin a dialogue both on the blog and together tomorrow night.

Throughout the year, one of the areas that we have covered on the blog (and in our New Shul discussions) is what role our science and technological advances have influenced, and are influencing, our faith. Rabbi Niles challenged us, during the High Holidays, to hold the opposite point of view in our mind (if we were atheists, to imagine that there is a God; or if we were believers, to imagine that that there is no God). What struck me about that discussion, was that this was a community that was willing to challenge their own beliefs in an intellectually honest fashion.

Tu B'shevat has been understood in our tradition, literally, as the New Year for the Trees. And, in turn, has been rightly celebrated as an affirmation of Judaism's deep rooted concern for our world and our environment. Therefore, our Jam tomorrow night will be a joyous simcha to this wonderful world that God has created.

However, one of the teachings that I will be presenting, puts forth a nuanced understanding of humankind's relationship to our environment by asking whether or not it is our place to interfere with God’s creation. This teaching seems to me to be particularly poignant on the heels of the Rabbis challenge to us and our discussion of faith and science.

This Midrash, (found in Midrash Tanhuma, Tazaria 7), details a discussion between the Roman General Turanus Rufus the Wicked and Rabbi Akiva. In their argument, Rufus attempts to get Rabbi Akiva to admit that there is nothing greater than God’s creation and that humankind should not meddle with it.

I'd be curious to hear from you (either on the blog or tomorrow night), what do you think of this Midrash? What does it teach us about our role within God's world?

Feel free to use the comment section below to get this conversation started.

- Dan

Midrash Tanhuma, Tazaria 7:

Turanus Rufus the wicked asked R. Akiva: “Whose works are superior? Those of the Holy One or those of flesh and blood?”

He replied: “Those of flesh and blood are superior.”

Turanus Rufus the wicked said to him: “Look at the heavens and the earth; can you make them?”

R. Akiva said to him: “Do not speak to me of that which is beyond human beings, who have no control over them; but speak about things which are to be found among men.”

[Turanus Rufus] said to him: “Why are you circumcised?”

He said to him: “I knew you were going to ask me that; therefore at the outset I told you that the works of flesh and blood are superior to those of the Holy One.”

R. Akiva brought him sheaves of wheat and white bread, and said to him: “These are the works of the Holy One, and these are the works of flesh and blood. Are the latter not superior?” He then brought him bundles of flax and garments from Beit She’an, and said to him: “These are the works of the Holy One, and these are made by man. Are the latter not superior?”

Turanus Rufus said to him: “If he [God] desires circumcision, why does a person not exit his mother’s womb circumcised?”

R. Akiva said to him: “And why does he exit with his umbilical cord attached? Does his mother not sever it?” And why is he not born circumcised? Because the Holy One only gave us the commandments in order to refine us through them, and so said David, “[Every] word of God is refined.”