Tapping Hidden Sources of Inspiration this Shvat

By Rabbi David Jaffe

Image description: Blog image with a photo of storm clouds over an ocean. On top of the image is text that reads: Tevet 5786 by Rabbi David Jaffe.

This teaching is dedicated to the brave people on the front lines in Minneapolis.

As many have noted, Renee Good’s murder on January 7th, 2026, by an ICE agent in Minneapolis and the administration’s response marked a significant step in the United States’ march towards authoritarianism, where paramilitary forces operate with impunity. I was visiting the Czech Republic when I heard the news, and it was chilling to be in a place where such forces operated in more extreme ways to control society for over 50 years of Nazi and then Soviet rule. Rather than offer more analysis on these events about which I’m sure others have wiser things to say, I want to offer what I’ve found to be an encouraging message related to our new month of Shvat.

As the Hebrew months and holidays are calibrated with the weather and environment of the Land of Israel, Shvat comes in the late winter. The weather is usually wet and cold. In some years, blossoms appear on the almond trees by mid-month, but in years when Shvat comes earlier, the trees are mostly barren. And yet, that sap is rising within the trees, which makes Shvat the month of the new year of the trees. This phenomenon of sap rising in outwardly barren trees is a potent metaphor for our times.

The metaphor is even more potent when extended to wintry Minneapolis, and what’s currently happening there. Covering the streets are ICE (no pun intended), border patrol, and at times, national guard troops carrying out what feels to residents like a military occupation, backed by seemingly unending taxpayer dollars and given blanket immunity by an administration that celebrates force and public spectacles of violence. If only looking at the surface of things, the situation can seem bleak, like a vast tundra of snow where no life can take hold and grow.  

And yet, we know that growth is happening all the time. Sap, the life force that will produce fruit, is moving under the barren surface. Driving this hidden growth is the earth whose northern hemispheric tilt towards the sun is just getting pronounced enough to create slightly longer periods of daylight.  

ICE has a huge budget; there will be more cities occupied, probably more people killed, more neighbors violently abducted off the street, and more families torn apart. AND the resistance is strong. Tyrants often underestimate the human yearning to be free. It is this yearning for freedom and the commitment to stand together to protect our neighbors and communities that is the sweet sap running beneath the surface of these current occupations.  

The spiritual invitation of Shvat is to sense this life force running deep in the structure of our societies, often hidden from clear view. 

I sense this life force from our colleague Abbie Shain, on the front lines in Minneapolis, when, after describing the chemical weapons used by ICE on her neighbors, she writes:

We have so much gratitude to the communities of resistance in LA, Chicago, Portland, New Orleans, North Carolina and beyond who have helped pave the way with whistles, zines, and documentation. May we tell these stories with fierceness and unyielding commitment to collective liberation. And may these pharaohs be transformed, let justice roll on like many waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing river.

I sense it in these words of Rev. Dr. Marin Luther King, excerpted from his final essay, “A Testament of Hope”: 

People are often surprised to learn that I am an optimist. They know how often I have been jailed, how frequently the days and nights have been filled with frustration and sorrow, how bitter and dangerous are my adversaries. They expect these experiences to harden me into a grim and desperate man.

They fail, however, to perceive the sense of affirmation generated by the challenge of embracing struggle and surmounting obstacles. They have no comprehension of the strength that comes from faith in God and man…

The past is strewn with the ruins of the empires of tyranny, and each is a monument not merely to man’s blunders but to his capacity to overcome them.

Shain’s acknowledgement of the broad and deep communities of resistance that will live to tell of their “unyielding commitment to collective liberation,” and MLK’s “strength that comes from faith in God and man,” are examples of ever-present life energy that will ultimately produce the fruit of freedom and security for all.  

The celestial constellation associated with Shvat is the “dipper” or bucket/vessel.  A bucket can draw from many different kinds of wells. May we be blessed this Shvat to draw deeply from the wells of Torah and the living water of collective action and emunah/faith, that can sustain us together to protect freedom in the difficult months ahead. 

Chodesh Tov,

Rabbi David