A new light is shining at Shaarey Zedek Congregation. It began to glow in a totally unexpected way, but at a perfectly appropriate time: in the dead of winter, at our annual Shabbat Tu B’Shevat Seder. Tu B’Shevat — the fifteenth of the Hebrew month of Shevat — is the New Year of the Trees. It arrives at that moment when, in the deep darkness of winter, a full moon shines; and in a place hidden from human eyes, the sap of life begins to rise in the wood of bare and seemingly dead trees.

 

Against all appearances, the trees are still alive. In fact, they are already preparing for the explosion of green and growth that we customarily experience in early May.

 

We who are involved full time with Jewish life see this latest period of Jewish history as a kind of winter darkness. Never have so many Jews enjoyed more freedom and material abundance than today. Yet never has the threat of assimilation loomed greater than it does today.

 

Interfaith marriage rates have zoomed to 80 percent along the North American coast — a statistic that is truly frightening, now that we know that some 95 percent of the grandchildren of interfaith marriages no longer identify as Jews. This wave of assimilation will inevitably wash up in Winnipeg, and many other communities, within a generation. Short of a dramatic shift in the spiritual awareness of North American Jewry, our Jewish population certainly will age and shrink dramatically over the hundred years.

 

This impending cultural Holocaust is not unlike the trees that we see at this time of year: so stark against the white snow; seemingly devoid of life, or hope for the future.

 

But at our Shabbat Tu B’Shevat Seder celebration last week, suddenly, unexpectedly, came an explosion of new Jewish life and light. Suddenly, to almost everyone’s surprise, there was singing, dancing, joy, and celebration. The spirit of Shabbat, joined with the emerging life of Tu B’Shevat. All at once, it became possible for people to have a spiritual experience in their own synagogue.

 

The energy in the room was positively electric. The Jewish “patient” (which is to say, us) — suffering the illness of a long exile from its own spirituality — began to revive. The sap of spiritual possibility began rising in a tree — the Torah — the Tree of Life — that many of us already have written off and given up for dead.

 

You should do more than take my word for it. Now, every Shabbat evening, at 6:00 PM, we have a wonderful, spiritually nourishing, musically accompanied Shabbat service led by Chazzan Mass. I consider myself something of a connoisseur of Jewish services, and I can tell you that this service now ranks among the best I have ever experienced.

 

Particularly when that service is followed by a Shabbat meal, I believe that you will have a beautiful experience. On Shabbat, there are no real limits — not to time, to space, or to the possibilities for inner joy.

 

The prayer book tells us, YIS-M’CHU B’MAL-CHUT’CHA SHOMREI SHABBAT — “Those who celebrate Shabbat, experience the joy of God’s kingdom.” This is a kingdom of joy, serenity, and fulfillment. It is now possible to live in this kingdom every Shabbat, week in and week out, at your Shaarey Zedek.