It’s so cold out

The weather app on my phone lists numbers that look like typos for temperatures. What’s this 9? Excuse me but 7? Clearly, Apple, you’re joking, with 2?

The river’s full of big white ice floes calmly floating out to sea.

Nothing makes much sense.

Not the news — too horrifying to discuss, and too sure to provoke rage.

Not even the future — if we want to stop being afraid of what’s happening right now, in front of our eyes, we can think of ourselves as being ruled by our AI overlords, who in some tellings will relieve us of the need to work without telling us exactly what else we’re supposed to do, and in other tellings simply will get rid of us. Poof! We’ll be gone.

It’s too cold to go out, so why not overheat the imagination?

That’s where the wisdom of Tu B’Shevat comes in.

GrowTorah’s Yosef Gillers explained it clearly.

It feels like nothing’s growing, but it is. Deep underground, life stirs. Just before the snow, I saw crocuses. It’s unfortunate for those particular crocuses, but there are more. It is getting light earlier and dark later, even if the change is imperceptible at first. Just wait. It’ll happen.

Now is the time for gardeners to prepare because soon spring will be here and they have to be ready. Even trees get birthdays!

So maybe, just maybe, there’s hope. And that hope begins with us.

During this week of fear and rage in this country, let’s hope for a better future together.

—JP