There are official website alerts in Japan for the cherry blossom season. Sakura Watch will anticipate the flowering dates in different cities. It is a sort of national spring watch that everyone who wants to see the opening of those pink and white petals engages in.
I have always been taken by this collective watching of spring and what it can teach us. Particularly now.
Our collective hearts are breaking at the renewed outbreak of fighting in Gaza and the misery of the last few hostage families, terrified by what it means. Our eyes are glued to the news and the geopolitical situations, which are sapping hope from us as we witness yet more suffering.
We have good reason for that – paying attention is our responsibility. You are not allowed to be indifferent – lo tuchal l’hitalem, as Deuteronomy reminds us.
But in all of this, we forget to watch for spring. To keep our eyes looking outwards to nature and the passing of seasons. And that is our responsibility too – to watch that as well.
It is always at this time of year that I remind myself of Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlav’s invitation to take time out of doors in nature. He wrote: “Grant me the ability to be alone; may it be my custom to go outdoors each day among the trees and grass – among all growing things and there may I be alone, and enter into prayer, to talk with the one to whom I belong.”
The trees, grass and onset of spring, wherever you are – even without Japan’s glorious Sakura – provide energy, nourishment and the capacity for hope. Seasons wait for no one. And we can watch the natural passage of time.
An American synagogue offered an innovation a few years ago of a green thread to be worn during – and even in the build-up to – Passover. Green for spring and the thread a reminder of all those not yet free.
On Pesach we’ll offer Hallel those psalms 113-118 both at synagogue and around our Seder tables: “Min hametzar karati yah v’ani b’merchav yah” – From a narrow place I called to you and you answered me in wide expansiveness.
What a brilliant, visceral wearing of hope. I love the integration of both together. To ground us in the outdoors and the greenery of spring and yet pull us to hope for a better, safer future.
From that most familiar of anthems; od lo avda tikvateinu – let us never be without hope. And may spring, its blossoms and its greens inspire us.
Rabbi Rebecca Birk is at Finchley Progressive Synagogue
