This coming Thursday is Rosh Chodesh Sh’vat, the beginning of the Hebrew lunar month. This week, we’ll explore the history behind the month and the questions it poses for the modern Jew.
Though the etymology of the Hebrew month Sh’vat almost certainly comes from its Assyro-Babylonian antecedent, the Hebrew root for sh’vat, shin-bet-tet (שבט), represents the basis for several Hebrew words with an array of meanings.
In the Bible, שבט refers to a rod or staff used as a weapon, as an instrument for counting and shepherding (most famously in Psalm 23), and as a symbol of authority or prestige. It’s also used on many occasions to refer to the 12 tribes of Israel. How does the same word come to symbolize violence, caretaking, power, and identity all at once?
It’s all in how we use the tools at our disposal. A rod or staff may be used for all these things. It can be a tool for striking. It can be a tool for counting or caressing. It can be a tool for signifying power or identity. We choose what שבט means when we choose how to apply it.
So, too, do we choose the associations with all the tools we use. The myriad implements at our disposal – from artificial intelligence to forks and knives to our words and thoughts – can easily become tools of violence or of care, of pain or of compassion, of utility or of identity. We must simply choose how we will use them.
– Rabbi Josh Knobel