## Ceremony and Celebration Family Edition, The Hagim, Tu BiShvat, Tu BiShvat for Our Time ###### Ceremony and Celebration Family Edition, The Hagim, Tu BiShvat, Tu BiShvat for Our Time 1 [Ceremony and Celebration Family Edition, The Hagim, Tu BiShvat, Tu BiShvat for Our Time 1](https://torahapp.org/share/book/Ceremony%20and%20Celebration%20Family%20Edition%2C%20The%20Hagim/s/Tu%20BiShvat,_Tu%20BiShvat%20for%20Our%20Time/r/1) **Ceremony & Celebration Family Edition, Maggid Books, 2023:** **The Stewardship Paradigm** ###### Ceremony and Celebration Family Edition, The Hagim, Tu BiShvat, Tu BiShvat for Our Time 2 [Ceremony and Celebration Family Edition, The Hagim, Tu BiShvat, Tu BiShvat for Our Time 2](https://torahapp.org/share/book/Ceremony%20and%20Celebration%20Family%20Edition%2C%20The%20Hagim/s/Tu%20BiShvat,_Tu%20BiShvat%20for%20Our%20Time/r/2) **Ceremony & Celebration Family Edition, Maggid Books, 2023:** Few texts have had a deeper influence on Western civilisation than the first chapter of Bereshit, with its momentous vision of the universe coming into being as the work of God. Set against the grandeur of the narrative, what stands out is the smallness, yet uniqueness, of humans, vulnerable but also undeniably set apart from all other beings. ###### Ceremony and Celebration Family Edition, The Hagim, Tu BiShvat, Tu BiShvat for Our Time 3 [Ceremony and Celebration Family Edition, The Hagim, Tu BiShvat, Tu BiShvat for Our Time 3](https://torahapp.org/share/book/Ceremony%20and%20Celebration%20Family%20Edition%2C%20The%20Hagim/s/Tu%20BiShvat,_Tu%20BiShvat%20for%20Our%20Time/r/3) **Ceremony & Celebration Family Edition, Maggid Books, 2023:** The words of the psalmist echo the wonder and humility that the primordial couple must have felt as they beheld the splendour of Creation: ###### Ceremony and Celebration Family Edition, The Hagim, Tu BiShvat, Tu BiShvat for Our Time 4 [Ceremony and Celebration Family Edition, The Hagim, Tu BiShvat, Tu BiShvat for Our Time 4](https://torahapp.org/share/book/Ceremony%20and%20Celebration%20Family%20Edition%2C%20The%20Hagim/s/Tu%20BiShvat,_Tu%20BiShvat%20for%20Our%20Time/r/4) **Ceremony & Celebration Family Edition, Maggid Books, 2023:** When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, ###### Ceremony and Celebration Family Edition, The Hagim, Tu BiShvat, Tu BiShvat for Our Time 5 [Ceremony and Celebration Family Edition, The Hagim, Tu BiShvat, Tu BiShvat for Our Time 5](https://torahapp.org/share/book/Ceremony%20and%20Celebration%20Family%20Edition%2C%20The%20Hagim/s/Tu%20BiShvat,_Tu%20BiShvat%20for%20Our%20Time/r/5) **Ceremony & Celebration Family Edition, Maggid Books, 2023:** The moon and the stars, which You have set in place. ###### Ceremony and Celebration Family Edition, The Hagim, Tu BiShvat, Tu BiShvat for Our Time 6 [Ceremony and Celebration Family Edition, The Hagim, Tu BiShvat, Tu BiShvat for Our Time 6](https://torahapp.org/share/book/Ceremony%20and%20Celebration%20Family%20Edition%2C%20The%20Hagim/s/Tu%20BiShvat,_Tu%20BiShvat%20for%20Our%20Time/r/6) **Ceremony & Celebration Family Edition, Maggid Books, 2023:** What is humanity that You are mindful of it, ###### Ceremony and Celebration Family Edition, The Hagim, Tu BiShvat, Tu BiShvat for Our Time 7 [Ceremony and Celebration Family Edition, The Hagim, Tu BiShvat, Tu BiShvat for Our Time 7](https://torahapp.org/share/book/Ceremony%20and%20Celebration%20Family%20Edition%2C%20The%20Hagim/s/Tu%20BiShvat,_Tu%20BiShvat%20for%20Our%20Time/r/7) **Ceremony & Celebration Family Edition, Maggid Books, 2023:** The children of mortals that You care for them? ###### Ceremony and Celebration Family Edition, The Hagim, Tu BiShvat, Tu BiShvat for Our Time 8 [Ceremony and Celebration Family Edition, The Hagim, Tu BiShvat, Tu BiShvat for Our Time 8](https://torahapp.org/share/book/Ceremony%20and%20Celebration%20Family%20Edition%2C%20The%20Hagim/s/Tu%20BiShvat,_Tu%20BiShvat%20for%20Our%20Time/r/8) **Ceremony & Celebration Family Edition, Maggid Books, 2023:** Yet You have made them little lower than the angels ###### Ceremony and Celebration Family Edition, The Hagim, Tu BiShvat, Tu BiShvat for Our Time 9 [Ceremony and Celebration Family Edition, The Hagim, Tu BiShvat, Tu BiShvat for Our Time 9](https://torahapp.org/share/book/Ceremony%20and%20Celebration%20Family%20Edition%2C%20The%20Hagim/s/Tu%20BiShvat,_Tu%20BiShvat%20for%20Our%20Time/r/9) **Ceremony & Celebration Family Edition, Maggid Books, 2023:** And crowned them with glory and honour. (Tehillim 8:4–6) ###### Ceremony and Celebration Family Edition, The Hagim, Tu BiShvat, Tu BiShvat for Our Time 10 [Ceremony and Celebration Family Edition, The Hagim, Tu BiShvat, Tu BiShvat for Our Time 10](https://torahapp.org/share/book/Ceremony%20and%20Celebration%20Family%20Edition%2C%20The%20Hagim/s/Tu%20BiShvat,_Tu%20BiShvat%20for%20Our%20Time/r/10) **Ceremony & Celebration Family Edition, Maggid Books, 2023:** The honour and glory that crowns the human race is possession of the earth, which is granted as the culmination of God’s creative work: “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it.” This notion is fortified in Tehillim 115: “The heavens are the Lord’s heavens, but the earth God has given to humanity.” **While the Creation narrative clearly establishes God as master of the universe, it is the human being who is appointed master of the earth.** ###### Ceremony and Celebration Family Edition, The Hagim, Tu BiShvat, Tu BiShvat for Our Time 11 [Ceremony and Celebration Family Edition, The Hagim, Tu BiShvat, Tu BiShvat for Our Time 11](https://torahapp.org/share/book/Ceremony%20and%20Celebration%20Family%20Edition%2C%20The%20Hagim/s/Tu%20BiShvat,_Tu%20BiShvat%20for%20Our%20Time/r/11) **Ceremony & Celebration Family Edition, Maggid Books, 2023:** ☛ **REFLECT** *How does humanity demonstrate that they are “masters of the earth”? How do you demonstrate this in your everyday life?* ###### Ceremony and Celebration Family Edition, The Hagim, Tu BiShvat, Tu BiShvat for Our Time 12 [Ceremony and Celebration Family Edition, The Hagim, Tu BiShvat, Tu BiShvat for Our Time 12](https://torahapp.org/share/book/Ceremony%20and%20Celebration%20Family%20Edition%2C%20The%20Hagim/s/Tu%20BiShvat,_Tu%20BiShvat%20for%20Our%20Time/r/12) **Ceremony & Celebration Family Edition, Maggid Books, 2023:** Grappling with the challenging notion of humans as divinely ordained owners and subduers of the earth, we come face to face with the fundamental questions of our place in the universe and our responsibility for it. A literal interpretation suggests a world in which people may cut down forests, slaughter animals, and dump waste into the seas at their leisure, much like we see in our world today. ###### Ceremony and Celebration Family Edition, The Hagim, Tu BiShvat, Tu BiShvat for Our Time 13 [Ceremony and Celebration Family Edition, The Hagim, Tu BiShvat, Tu BiShvat for Our Time 13](https://torahapp.org/share/book/Ceremony%20and%20Celebration%20Family%20Edition%2C%20The%20Hagim/s/Tu%20BiShvat,_Tu%20BiShvat%20for%20Our%20Time/r/13) **Ceremony & Celebration Family Edition, Maggid Books, 2023:** On the other hand, as Rav Kook, first chief rabbi of Israel, writes, any intelligent person should know that Bereshit 1:28 (the command to rule the world), “does not mean the domination of a harsh ruler who afflicts his people and servants merely to fulfil his personal whim and desire, according to the crookedness of his heart.” Could God have really created such a complex and magnificent world solely for the caprice of humans? ###### Ceremony and Celebration Family Edition, The Hagim, Tu BiShvat, Tu BiShvat for Our Time 14 [Ceremony and Celebration Family Edition, The Hagim, Tu BiShvat, Tu BiShvat for Our Time 14](https://torahapp.org/share/book/Ceremony%20and%20Celebration%20Family%20Edition%2C%20The%20Hagim/s/Tu%20BiShvat,_Tu%20BiShvat%20for%20Our%20Time/r/14) **Ceremony & Celebration Family Edition, Maggid Books, 2023:** Bereshit chapter 1 is only one side of the complex biblical equation. It is balanced by the narrative of Bereshit chapter 2, which features a second Creation narrative that focuses on humans and their place in the Garden of Eden. **The first person is set in the Garden “to work it and take care of it.”** ###### Ceremony and Celebration Family Edition, The Hagim, Tu BiShvat, Tu BiShvat for Our Time 15 [Ceremony and Celebration Family Edition, The Hagim, Tu BiShvat, Tu BiShvat for Our Time 15](https://torahapp.org/share/book/Ceremony%20and%20Celebration%20Family%20Edition%2C%20The%20Hagim/s/Tu%20BiShvat,_Tu%20BiShvat%20for%20Our%20Time/r/15) **Ceremony & Celebration Family Edition, Maggid Books, 2023:** **The two Hebrew verbs used here are significant. The first – *le’ovda* – literally means “to serve it.” The human being is thus both master and servant of nature. The second – *leshomra* – means “to guard it.”** This is the verb used in later biblical legislation to describe the responsibilities of a guardian of property that belongs to someone else. This guardian must exercise vigilance while protecting, and is personally liable for losses that occur through negligence. **This is perhaps the best short definition of humanity’s responsibility for nature as the Bible conceives it.** ###### Ceremony and Celebration Family Edition, The Hagim, Tu BiShvat, Tu BiShvat for Our Time 16 [Ceremony and Celebration Family Edition, The Hagim, Tu BiShvat, Tu BiShvat for Our Time 16](https://torahapp.org/share/book/Ceremony%20and%20Celebration%20Family%20Edition%2C%20The%20Hagim/s/Tu%20BiShvat,_Tu%20BiShvat%20for%20Our%20Time/r/16) **Ceremony & Celebration Family Edition, Maggid Books, 2023:** **We do not own nature – “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof” (Tehillim 24:1). We are its stewards on behalf of God, who created and owns everything. As guardians of the earth, we are duty-bound to respect its integrity.** ###### Ceremony and Celebration Family Edition, The Hagim, Tu BiShvat, Tu BiShvat for Our Time 17 [Ceremony and Celebration Family Edition, The Hagim, Tu BiShvat, Tu BiShvat for Our Time 17](https://torahapp.org/share/book/Ceremony%20and%20Celebration%20Family%20Edition%2C%20The%20Hagim/s/Tu%20BiShvat,_Tu%20BiShvat%20for%20Our%20Time/r/17) **Ceremony & Celebration Family Edition, Maggid Books, 2023:** ☛ **REFLECT** *How is seeing our relationship with nature through the terms* le’ovda*and* leshomra*like borrowing your parents’ car?* ###### Ceremony and Celebration Family Edition, The Hagim, Tu BiShvat, Tu BiShvat for Our Time 18 [Ceremony and Celebration Family Edition, The Hagim, Tu BiShvat, Tu BiShvat for Our Time 18](https://torahapp.org/share/book/Ceremony%20and%20Celebration%20Family%20Edition%2C%20The%20Hagim/s/Tu%20BiShvat,_Tu%20BiShvat%20for%20Our%20Time/r/18) **Ceremony & Celebration Family Edition, Maggid Books, 2023:** The mid-nineteenth-century commentator Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch put this rather well in an original interpretation of Bereshit 1:26, “Let us make the human in our image after our own likeness.” This passage has always been puzzling, since the hallmark of the Torah is the singularity of God. Who would God consult in the process of creating humans? ###### Ceremony and Celebration Family Edition, The Hagim, Tu BiShvat, Tu BiShvat for Our Time 19 [Ceremony and Celebration Family Edition, The Hagim, Tu BiShvat, Tu BiShvat for Our Time 19](https://torahapp.org/share/book/Ceremony%20and%20Celebration%20Family%20Edition%2C%20The%20Hagim/s/Tu%20BiShvat,_Tu%20BiShvat%20for%20Our%20Time/r/19) **Ceremony & Celebration Family Edition, Maggid Books, 2023:** The “us,” says Hirsch, refers to the rest of Creation. Before creating the human, a being destined to develop the capacity to alter and possibly endanger the natural world, God sought the approval of nature itself. This interpretation implies that we would use nature only in such a way that is faithful to the purposes of its Creator and acknowledges nature’s consent to the creation of humanity. ###### Ceremony and Celebration Family Edition, The Hagim, Tu BiShvat, Tu BiShvat for Our Time 20 [Ceremony and Celebration Family Edition, The Hagim, Tu BiShvat, Tu BiShvat for Our Time 20](https://torahapp.org/share/book/Ceremony%20and%20Celebration%20Family%20Edition%2C%20The%20Hagim/s/Tu%20BiShvat,_Tu%20BiShvat%20for%20Our%20Time/r/20) **Ceremony & Celebration Family Edition, Maggid Books, 2023:** ☛ **REFLECT** *Do you think nature would have agreed to the creation of humanity if it could have seen how humanity would come to treat the planet in our generation?* ###### Ceremony and Celebration Family Edition, The Hagim, Tu BiShvat, Tu BiShvat for Our Time 21 [Ceremony and Celebration Family Edition, The Hagim, Tu BiShvat, Tu BiShvat for Our Time 21](https://torahapp.org/share/book/Ceremony%20and%20Celebration%20Family%20Edition%2C%20The%20Hagim/s/Tu%20BiShvat,_Tu%20BiShvat%20for%20Our%20Time/r/21) **Ceremony & Celebration Family Edition, Maggid Books, 2023:** The mandate in Bereshit 1 to exercise dominion is, therefore, not technical, but moral: humanity would control, within our means, the use of nature towards the service of God. Further, this mandate is limited by the requirement to serve and guard as seen in Bereshit 2. The famous story of Bereshit 2–3 – the eating of the forbidden fruit and Adam and Ḥava’s subsequent exile from Eden – supports this point. ###### Ceremony and Celebration Family Edition, The Hagim, Tu BiShvat, Tu BiShvat for Our Time 22 [Ceremony and Celebration Family Edition, The Hagim, Tu BiShvat, Tu BiShvat for Our Time 22](https://torahapp.org/share/book/Ceremony%20and%20Celebration%20Family%20Edition%2C%20The%20Hagim/s/Tu%20BiShvat,_Tu%20BiShvat%20for%20Our%20Time/r/22) **Ceremony & Celebration Family Edition, Maggid Books, 2023:** Not everything is permitted. There are limits to how we interact with planet Earth. The Torah has commandments regarding how to sow crops, how to collect eggs, and how to preserve trees in a time of war, just to name a few. When we do not treat Creation according to God’s will, disaster can follow. ###### Ceremony and Celebration Family Edition, The Hagim, Tu BiShvat, Tu BiShvat for Our Time 23 [Ceremony and Celebration Family Edition, The Hagim, Tu BiShvat, Tu BiShvat for Our Time 23](https://torahapp.org/share/book/Ceremony%20and%20Celebration%20Family%20Edition%2C%20The%20Hagim/s/Tu%20BiShvat,_Tu%20BiShvat%20for%20Our%20Time/r/23) **Ceremony & Celebration Family Edition, Maggid Books, 2023:** We see this today as more and more cities sit under a cloud of smog and as mercury advisories are issued over large sectors of our fishing waters. Deforestation of the rainforests, largely a result of humanity’s growing demand for timber and beef, has brought on irrevocable destruction of plant and animal species. ###### Ceremony and Celebration Family Edition, The Hagim, Tu BiShvat, Tu BiShvat for Our Time 24 [Ceremony and Celebration Family Edition, The Hagim, Tu BiShvat, Tu BiShvat for Our Time 24](https://torahapp.org/share/book/Ceremony%20and%20Celebration%20Family%20Edition%2C%20The%20Hagim/s/Tu%20BiShvat,_Tu%20BiShvat%20for%20Our%20Time/r/24) **Ceremony & Celebration Family Edition, Maggid Books, 2023:** We can no longer ignore the massive negative impact that our global industrial society is having on the ecosystems of the earth. Our unbounded use of fossil fuels to fuel our energy-intensive lifestyle is causing global climate change. An international consensus of scientists predicts more intense and destructive storms, floods, and droughts resulting from these human-induced changes in the atmosphere. If we do not take action now, we risk the very survival of civilisation as we know it. ###### Ceremony and Celebration Family Edition, The Hagim, Tu BiShvat, Tu BiShvat for Our Time 25 [Ceremony and Celebration Family Edition, The Hagim, Tu BiShvat, Tu BiShvat for Our Time 25](https://torahapp.org/share/book/Ceremony%20and%20Celebration%20Family%20Edition%2C%20The%20Hagim/s/Tu%20BiShvat,_Tu%20BiShvat%20for%20Our%20Time/r/25) **Ceremony & Celebration Family Edition, Maggid Books, 2023:** The Midrash says that God showed Adam around the Garden of Eden and said, “Look at My works! See how beautiful they are – how excellent! For your sake I created them all. See to it that you do not spoil and destroy My world, for if you do, there will be no one else to repair it.” ###### Ceremony and Celebration Family Edition, The Hagim, Tu BiShvat, Tu BiShvat for Our Time 26 [Ceremony and Celebration Family Edition, The Hagim, Tu BiShvat, Tu BiShvat for Our Time 26](https://torahapp.org/share/book/Ceremony%20and%20Celebration%20Family%20Edition%2C%20The%20Hagim/s/Tu%20BiShvat,_Tu%20BiShvat%20for%20Our%20Time/r/26) **Ceremony & Celebration Family Edition, Maggid Books, 2023:** ☛ **REFLECT** *How have we allowed the situation to get to this point? Is it too late to save the planet?* ###### Ceremony and Celebration Family Edition, The Hagim, Tu BiShvat, Tu BiShvat for Our Time 27 [Ceremony and Celebration Family Edition, The Hagim, Tu BiShvat, Tu BiShvat for Our Time 27](https://torahapp.org/share/book/Ceremony%20and%20Celebration%20Family%20Edition%2C%20The%20Hagim/s/Tu%20BiShvat,_Tu%20BiShvat%20for%20Our%20Time/r/27) **Ceremony & Celebration Family Edition, Maggid Books, 2023:** **Creation has its own dignity as God’s masterpiece, and though we have the mandate to use it, we have none to destroy or despoil it.** Rabbi Hirsch says that Shabbat was given to humanity “in order that he should not grow overweening in his dominion” of God’s Creation. On the day of rest, “he must, as it were, return the borrowed world to its Divine Owner in order to realise that it is but lent to him.” ###### Ceremony and Celebration Family Edition, The Hagim, Tu BiShvat, Tu BiShvat for Our Time 28 [Ceremony and Celebration Family Edition, The Hagim, Tu BiShvat, Tu BiShvat for Our Time 28](https://torahapp.org/share/book/Ceremony%20and%20Celebration%20Family%20Edition%2C%20The%20Hagim/s/Tu%20BiShvat,_Tu%20BiShvat%20for%20Our%20Time/r/28) **Ceremony & Celebration Family Edition, Maggid Books, 2023:** Ingrained in the process of creation and central to the life of every Jew is a weekly reminder that **our dominion of the earth must be *leshem Shamayim* – for the sake of Heaven.** ###### Ceremony and Celebration Family Edition, The Hagim, Tu BiShvat, Tu BiShvat for Our Time 29 [Ceremony and Celebration Family Edition, The Hagim, Tu BiShvat, Tu BiShvat for Our Time 29](https://torahapp.org/share/book/Ceremony%20and%20Celebration%20Family%20Edition%2C%20The%20Hagim/s/Tu%20BiShvat,_Tu%20BiShvat%20for%20Our%20Time/r/29) **Ceremony & Celebration Family Edition, Maggid Books, 2023:** The choice is ours. If we continue to live as though God had only commanded us to subdue the earth, we must be prepared for our children to inherit a seriously degraded planet, with the future of human civilisation put into question. ###### Ceremony and Celebration Family Edition, The Hagim, Tu BiShvat, Tu BiShvat for Our Time 30 [Ceremony and Celebration Family Edition, The Hagim, Tu BiShvat, Tu BiShvat for Our Time 30](https://torahapp.org/share/book/Ceremony%20and%20Celebration%20Family%20Edition%2C%20The%20Hagim/s/Tu%20BiShvat,_Tu%20BiShvat%20for%20Our%20Time/r/30) **Ceremony & Celebration Family Edition, Maggid Books, 2023:** If we see our role as masters of the earth as a unique opportunity to truly serve and care for the planet, its creatures, and its resources, then we can reclaim our status as stewards of the world and raise our new generations in an environment much closer to that of Eden. ###### Ceremony and Celebration Family Edition, The Hagim, Tu BiShvat, Tu BiShvat for Our Time 31 [Ceremony and Celebration Family Edition, The Hagim, Tu BiShvat, Tu BiShvat for Our Time 31](https://torahapp.org/share/book/Ceremony%20and%20Celebration%20Family%20Edition%2C%20The%20Hagim/s/Tu%20BiShvat,_Tu%20BiShvat%20for%20Our%20Time/r/31) **Ceremony & Celebration Family Edition, Maggid Books, 2023:** ☛ **REFLECT** *What change can you make today to live by this message?*