O pinion
Jewish Tradition Celebrates the Rhythm of Nature. What
Happens When it’s Thrown Off Balance?
BY HANNAH S. PRESSMAN
EVERY HOUSEPLANT I’ve
ever been responsible for could
attest, from beyond the grave,
that I don’t exactly have a green
thumb. So it was interesting
to move out to Seattle over
a decade ago and be thrown
into the Pacific Northwest
gardening scene.

People out here take
their horticulture, like their
outerwear, very seriously.

Raised veggie beds dot the
sidewalks, and many houses
sport carefully tended flowers,
lavender and rosemary mixed
with mountain-chic rock
clusters. The former gardening
correspondent for the local
news is popular enough to go
by one name, like Shakira.

Though I felt at odds with
this gardening culture when
I first arrived here, over the
past few years I have gradually
taken more of an interest in
the art of tending a garden. I’ve
also realized that taking time
to weed and water can provide
a lovely break from the nutti-
ness of life with three kids.

In the spring we upped our
sustainability game by planting
lettuce, chard, broccoli and
berries in raised beds in our
backyard. (I freely admit that
this required some profes-
sional help — I’m even worse at
building than I am at growing
things!) As our area slowly emerged
from the monotony and
strain of pandemic-induced
lockdowns, our home garden
18 JULY 22, 2021
began to thrive. The kids each
contribute to the workload: My
12-year-old mists the raised
beds, my 9-year-old digs up
weeds and my toddler totes her
pink watering can over to the
fuchsia and lavender.

My favorite “pet” outside,
though, was growing here long
before we moved in: a beautiful
midsize Japanese maple. Its
base is covered with soft green
moss, its branches are the
perfect height for kids to hang
from, and its leaves change
from bright green to vibrant
red-orange as the seasons go
by. I take pictures of this maple
all year round, in every variety
of sunlight.

That’s why I was especially
dismayed last week when,
after three consecutive days of
temperatures over 100 degrees
in the Pacific Northwest, I saw
visibly scorched, crumpled
leaves all over the maple. Two
days later, once the cool marine
air moved in and returned
Seattle to the overcast mid-60s
and 70s days we’re used to,
I saw something even worse:
hundreds of healthy-looking
green leaves carpeting the
ground. Clearly the stress of
the heat dome, as experts called
this extreme weather event,
caused a swath of the maple’s
leaves to fall off prematurely.

This isn’t supposed to
happen, I thought. Something
is wrong with our planet.

Just as with the West Coast
wildfires that kept us shut
inside last summer, the heat
dome can be directly linked
to climate change. Just as
with the wildfires and smoke
plumes, I had to explain to my
kids why this was happening,
and I felt ashamed. Just as
before, I am now incredibly
angry and scared that this new
reality — tarnished air quality,
sweltering days, warming
oceans, unlivable condi-
tions for flora and fauna and
humans — is now the reality
of the planet that our children,
and our children’s children,
will inherit.

Judaism offers us so
many chances to celebrate
the rhythms of the natural
world: trees on Tu b’Shevat;
spring greens on Passover; fall
harvests and outdoor living
on Sukkot. But what does
our tradition offer when the
rhythms of the natural world
are knocked askew? We have
blessings for seeing large and
small wonders of nature, light-
ning and rivers, animals and
trees — even a special blessing
for seeing a rainbow. What
language is available for the
opposite of rapture, when we
witness something on our
earth that should not be? Is
there a reverse bracha to mark
the sadness of seeing tree leaves
fall when it’s not yet autumn?
We are witnessing drastic
changes to our earth in real
time, and no area will be spared:
The Associated Press reported
recently that while the West is
getting hotter during the day,
the East Coast is becoming
hotter at night, a worrying trend
because that means fewer cool
nights for relief. As a society,
we must be concerned about
the public-health ramifications
for those who cannot afford or
access cool indoor air during
ever-warmer days. As parents,
it is getting harder to tell our
kids that some terrifying
weather event is a rare circum-
stance likely not to repeat itself
for many years, when actually
these extreme events have
started to repeat themselves
with increasing frequency.

Last week’s heat dome was
billed as a “once-in-a-millen-
nium” convergence of factors,
but as the Portland-based
journalist Tove Danovich
wrote in The Washington Post,
“Unprecedented is becoming
the norm.”
JEWISH EXPONENT
In fact, the last time Seattle
experienced heat on this level
was not 1,000 years ago —
it was the summer of 2009,
shortly after my first child was
born. Like most residences
there, our rental house did
not have air conditioning at
the time; locals took pride in
having the least air condi-
tioning of any American
metropolitan area. But now I
view that heat wave as a grim
harbinger of things to come.

I remember the moment
the houses on our street
collectively darkened as the
overtaxed electrical grid blew.

Local hotels were completely
booked with people fleeing the
heat, so we had nowhere to
go. My parents happened to
be visiting from Virginia, and
my dad insisted that we’d all
be safer sleeping outside since
the house felt so stifling. My
husband hoisted the bassinet
into the backyard and my
infant son slept peacefully
under the stars in a short-
sleeved onesie, while the rest
of us tossed and turned on
blankets beside him.

That baby boy is now
studying for his bar mitzvah,
and the “freak” heat wave
that occurred during his first
summer on the planet can
no longer be considered an
outlier. As we recover from
the heat dome, he is practicing
the blessings for the Torah
service. As we gird ourselves
for wildfire season, he is
starting to learn his Haftorah.

At a moment when so much
of nature feels off-kilter, the
cycle of Jewish life reliably
continues. For this mom
witnessing climate change
affecting our earth in real
time, tradition is sometimes a
cold comfort.

As parents we learn to
compartmentalize our own
fears in times of immediate
urgency. When my daughter
ran into the corner of her
brother’s metal bed frame a
few months ago, I stanched the
bleeding, calmed her down and
consulted with a doctor about
whether to come in for stitches.

I could see that the wound on
her forehead was bad, but I was
able to put my fears aside and
act out of necessity. Mediating
the drastic changes happening
to our environment feels like a
different level of crisis manage-
ment, though. When it comes
to the wounds being inflicted
upon the earth, I am not sure
how to compartmentalize my
fears, nor do I know whether
I should tell my kids that “it’s
going to be OK” when they can
plainly see the vibrant green
ferns in our yard scorched to a
dark maroon.

The Jewish response to a
crisis is to care for others and
take responsibility for those
who are most vulnerable. I am
trying to turn my emotions
about the climate crisis into
action, seeking out organi-
zations that are educating
and making an impact, and
informing myself about policies
that might create change. But I
still have my garden to tend,
and so I will head outside in the
cool air tomorrow morning,
and my daughter will bring
her watering can. I’ll sweep up
the maple leaves that fell too
soon, check on the mulber-
ries still taking root and give
the yellow Hakone grass some
extra water. I will bless any new
raspberries that appear on the
vine, praising God, “Baruch
atah Hashem, Elokeinu Melech
HaOlam, shekacha lo be’olamo”
— “Blessed are You, source of
all life, Who fills the world
with beauty.” l
Hannah S. Pressman writes about
Jewish languages, gender, and
religion. She lives in Seattle. This
article originally appeared on
Kveller. JEWISHEXPONENT.COM



O pinion
I Helped Organize the Washington Rally Against
Antisemitism. It Wasn’t Perfect, But it was Necessary
BY ELISHA WIESEL
WHEN NAZI
TANKS surrounded Warsaw, my father
related in a rare moment of
frustration, the Jews were in
shul arguing over who should
get shishi (the honor of being
called up third to the Torah).

It was a story I thought
about often on Sunday, on
Tisha B’Av. The day marks
the destruction of our Temple
in Jerusalem and the begin-
ning of exile, the day our sages
teach was brought about by our
anger at each other. And it’s
a story I couldn’t shake from
my head this past month as
our small team of organizers
worked nonstop to inspire Jews
and our allies to join us in
Washington, D.C., for a rally
against antisemitism.

Critics and doubters awaited
us at every turn.

We were criticized for
asserting that anti-Zionism
was a form of antisemitism.

How dare we include groups
who praised Donald Trump,
many asked. How dare we
exclude groups who call for an
end to the Jewish state? Cynical
left-leaning Jewish publica-
tions ran articles claiming that
this rally would be a right-
wing gathering, warning their
readers to stay away.

We were criticized for
having a diversity and inclu-
sion statement.

Certain right-leaning Jewish leaders
circulated concerns by email
and social media, arguing that
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM the rally had been compro-
mised by the left. How dare we
include groups who use terms
like “occupation,” they asked.

How dare we exclude groups
who call for hatred or violence?
And those were just the
ideological battles. Every day
we received grief for giving not
enough kavod, or honor, to one
group, for giving too much to
another. And we were warned
turnout would be low — perhaps
a few hundred or fewer — in the
intense summer heat.

I understood that some
would choose to stay away.

But we were determined to
take that first step — even if it
was imperfect — and on July
11, under the banner of the
American Jewish Committee,
the Anti-Defamation League
and dozens of other organi-
That group was the
relatively unknown Alliance
for Israel. Within a couple
weeks, we had partnered with
the ADL and AJC, and brought
together the vast majority of
the Jewish world from right
to left, Orthodox to Reform,
to stand with us as sponsors.

Together we created a platform
for powerful testimony that
needed to be put on the
record for the thousands who
attended and the many more
who watched at home.

Rabbi Jeffrey
Myers described reciting the Viddui
(the deathbed confession)
while a murderer stalked his
congregants at the Tree of
Life synagogue in Pittsburgh.

Just out of the hospital, Rabbi
Shlomo Noginsky of Boston
drove eight hours with his arm
Israeli army. Both received
respect and applause from the
audience. Ron Klein of the
Jewish Democratic Council of
America and Norm Coleman
of the Republican Jewish
Coalition — former members
of the House of Representatives
and Senate, respectively
— jointly declared that
antisemitism was a bipartisan
problem and that both parties
need to work together to stop
it wherever it emerges. Their
on-stage embrace is a refuta-
tion of everything partisan we
have heard for the past eight
years. In a profound demon-
stration of allyship, Joshua
Washington, the director of the
Institute for Black Solidarity
with Israel, sang “Gesher
Tzar Me’od” (“The World
I am saving my anger for the antisemites who threaten our safety in the
Diaspora and in Israel, who lie about us in the halls of Congress and in
American universities, who work within social, published and broadcast
media to spread bias against us.

zations, some 3,000 Jews and
allies came together in front of
the U.S. Capitol to demonstrate
Jewish solidarity.

I never wanted to organize a
rally. I just wanted to attend one.

When Hamas rockets started
falling in Israel, and Jews found
themselves being attacked on
New York and Los Angeles city
streets, I agitated for someone to
scale the local rallies run by the
Israeli-American Council, like
one I attended in New York, into
an in-person national rally in
Washington. I made many calls.

How many Jews would have to
die or be threatened, in Israel or
here at home, before our anger
overflowed into the streets?
At first, nobody raised
their hand. I vowed to help
whoever did.

in a sling to tell us how his
attacker sought to slash the
many children behind him.

Matthew Haverim shared how
his parents fled Iran, and how
he was beaten for declaring
his Jewish identity to a group
of anti-Israel protesters in an
L.A. restaurant. Talia Raab
from Illinois described how an
anti-Israel mob screamed “kill
the Jews” as they attacked her
family’s car. These testimonies
could not wait another day.

Rabbi David Saperstein,
a light within the Reform
movement who feels Israel
needs to withdraw militarily
from Judea and Samaria,
spoke moments after Dan
Raab quoted Menachem
Begin and announced his
upcoming enlistment in the
JEWISH EXPONENT
given how much disagreement
there is among American Jews
on Israeli policy and how best
to combat antisemitism.

But I believe the cynics are
wrong. There is another way.

Imagine the possibility that
your ideological opponent
is not an enemy, but is a
champion of something rooted
in Judaism.

If you believe in land for
peace, can you see someone
who is committed to holding
onto territory for Israel’s
security as a champion of
saving Jewish lives? And if
you believe a continued Israeli
military presence beyond the
Green Line will be needed for
the foreseeable future, can you
see someone who is committed
to Palestinian self-deter-
mination as a champion of
Jewish values?
Yesterday was Tisha B’Av.

Yesterday we mourned 2,000
years of exile, brought about by
our hatred for one another.

Yesterday many of us mourned
what is happening now.

Yesterday I felt the sense of
loss for our divided commu-
nity. I am done being angry
at Jews with whom I disagree.

I am saving my anger for the
antisemites who threaten our
safety in the Diaspora and
in Israel, who lie about us in
the halls of Congress and in
American universities, who
work within social, published
and broadcast media to spread
bias against us.

Today is the day after Tisha
B’Av. It is time to rebuild. l
is a Narrow Bridge”) with
Rabbi Menachem Creditor of
UJA-Federation of New York
and reminded us that we do
not stand alone.

On Tisha B’Av, I reflected on
all the anger sent my way. We
had tried to build a broad coali-
tion among those who agree
on the Jewish people’s right
to exist in peace and security
here, in the Jewish state of
Israel and around the world.

The cynics insisted that this Elisha Wiesel is the son of Marion
unifying belief was not enough and Elie Wiesel.

STATEMENT FROM THE PUBLISHER
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published. JULY 22, 2021
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