Enjoy your Tu b'Shvat Seder!

If you've never participated in a seder for Tu B'Shvat, you're missing out! I want to give you the tools to host your own this year. Modeled after the Passover seder, it can be a very beautiful experience full of delicious fruits and nuts, great discussion, music, and a chance to explore your spiritual connections to the rest of creation.

PREPARING THE SEDER

The preparation itself is a wonderful way to get in touch. So while you choose the fruits, wash and divide them up, be sure to pay close attention to the feel, smell, sight, and taste of each one.

Each place setting should include a plate, fork or toothpicks for tasting, 2 wine cups, napkin, and a small flower pot or paper cup for planting. This is a great time to decorate your table with fresh flowers.

THE SEDER PLATES

Every seder will lead to a unique discussion about the symbolic explanations for these fruits. Go to town with it, there are infinite ways to look at it.

Choose five from each of the different lists:

1. Fruits with an inedible shell. The shell conceals what is inside and also protects it. These fruits remind us of our own personalities, often hardened on the outside. It also reminds us of our connection and reliance on a world enveloped by materialism.
Tangerine Grapefruit Kiwi
Walnut Pomegranate Pistachio
Coconut Peanut Almond
Orange

2. Fruits with an inedible pit or seed. Deep inside us is where we find our truest self, this is about getting in touch with and honoring the still small voice inside us.
Peach Avocado Olive
Apricot Plum Date Cherry
Mango

3. Fruits which are edible inside and out. Is it possible to be at one with ourselves and with the world around us at the same time? Celebrate a way of living with no barriers, no holding back, and fully living an awesome life.
Grape Fig Apple
Strawberry Raisin
Cranberry Pear Carob

4. Instead of fruit, the 4th plate contains different seed packets for planting. We take action to make the world a better place. Think about how seeds hold the potential for new life, rebirth, hope, and change.
Herbs (Parsley is a fun choice in preparation for Passover a few months away)
Vegetables Flowers
Be sure to have a pitcher of water near by so that you can water your seeds after planting.

THE 4 QUESTIONS

Here are the four basic questions, hopefully you will have many more to add!
1. Other New Year celebrations honor events and people. Why do we have this special New Year to honor trees?
2. On other days we eat many kinds of food. Why today do we especially eat fruits from Eretz Yisrael, the Land of Israel?
3. On other days we take trees and the abundance of different things that grow on trees for granted. Why today do we think about conserving and sharing?
4. Here and in many parts of the world it is wintery and cold. Why today do we speak of trees and planting?

Present these questions one at a time as you go through the seder.

THE 4 CUPS OF JUICE

The different colors of white and red grape juice represent the changing seasons:

1st Cup. This one is just the white grape juice. It represents winter, when nature is asleep. The earth can be snow-covered, taking a rest from blooming and blossoming.
2nd Cup. This one is white juice with a little red mixed in. It represents the spring approaching and the colors of the season changing as the snow melts and flowers begin to show themselves.
3rd Cup. This is mostly red with a little white mixed in. It reminds us of summertime, and flowers in full bloom.
4th Cup. This one is all red. It represents the rich and dark fall autumn colors Leaves are changing, crops are growing, and the trees are filled with blossoms.

THE SEDER!

Now you've got all of the tools, just add some friends and family who enjoy each other's company and who like to eat and talk. Start with the first cup of juice, followed by a tasting from the first seder plate and then go into a discussion of the first question. Follow this with round two and so on all the way through the fourth of everything. Instead of eating fruit for the fourth seder plate, take this opportunity to plant seeds. Why plant? Discuss.

Check out these seven special foods found in Israel. How many have you tried this year?

Chasidic story, Adapted by Shira Kline

©ShirLaLa 2007

Two farmers lived side by side for many generations. They had been neighbors for a long time but they weren’t very friendly with each other. Why is that you ask? Because once upon a time they had an argument about a certain olive tree on the top of a hill.

"This olive tree is mine!" said one of the farmers, “because this land belongs to me!”

"No! No! NO!" shouted the other farmer. "This hill has always belonged to my family, so the olive tree is mine!"

"Mine!" growled one farmer as he grabbed the trunk of the tree.

"Mine!" stomped the other farmer as he grabbed the leaves of the tree.

After many, many years of arguing and being in a bad mood around each other, they decided to settle their difference. And where did they go to do that? To the Rabbi of course! And they agreed to abide by her decision.

The Rabbi listened carefully to one. And then to the other. "So you want to know," said the Rabbi, "to whom does the land belong?"

"That’s what we want to know!" answered the two farmers.

"Well," said the Rabbi, "Why don’t we ask the land?" The two farmers looked at each and then at the Rabbi with a puzzled look on their faces. They watched as the Rabbi bent down and put her ear to the ground. A moment later, she jumped up and announced, "My friends, the land says that it belongs to neither of you!"

"What?" shouted one farmer. "What?" shouted the other farmer. "Not to either of us?" they shouted together.

"The land says that you belong to it!!" exclaimed the Rabbi with a big smile on her face.

From, “Taste of Tradition”  by Ruth Sirkis

Ruth, considered to be 'the Julia Child of Israel" tells us, Tu B’Shvat is all about “going on a nature kick.” In Israel, “meadows, orchards and vineyards begin to blossom.” So, “foods of the holiday are related to nature and trees as well. It is traditional to serve fruits. Since few are available fresh at this time of year, dried varieties are most often used.”

Almond-Prune Sweets

40 medium size pitted prunes (you can also use dried apricots)
8 oz apricot jam (or any other kind of jam)
20 blanched almonds
20 small paper cups

1. Place a prune in each cup. Spread with jam.

2. Top with another prune. Press together with your fingers. Spread top prune with more jam and tuck an almond on top.

Date-fig-walnut treats

4 oz pitted dates
4 oz figs
2 tblsp breadcrumbs
2 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp brandy (optional)
4 oz chopped walnuts
20 small cups

1. Remove fig stems. Grind figs and dates together in a food processor. Add one tablespoon of bread crumbs. Put into medium bowl.

2. Add lemon juice and brandy. Mix well with wooden spoon. Add remaining breadcrumbs and blend until a smooth dough forms.

3. Form ropes the thickness of a finger. Cut into 2 inch strips. Spread chopped walnuts on a plate and press each “finger” into them. Place in cups walnut side up.

"Taste of Tradition" is available in the USA via Amazon and also via many Jewish book stores.  Ruth has another book in English "Popular Foods From Israel", which covers typical Israeli dishes.

Another suggestion from my mom, Barbara Kline

1. Fill dried apricots with softened cream cheese and top with a few dried cranberries or cherries.  You can do the same with dates.

From, “Jewish Holiday Kitchen” by Joan Nathan

Poached Fruit with Wine

6 oz pitted prunes
6 oz dried figs
½ C pecan halves
1 ½ C dry red wine
¼ C sweet red wine or port
¼ C brown sugar or to taste
1 stick cinnamon
4 cloves
grated peel of 1 lemon
½ sliced orange
1 handful of juniper berries

1. Place prunes, figs, and pecan halves in saucepan, adding enough wine to cover ¼ of the way up the fruits and nuts.

2. Add remaining ingredients and simmer uncovered over low heat for about 20 minutes.

3. Serve with whipped cream. It’s all very rich so serve small portions.

She also makes a salad with

1 peeled and sliced orange in round pieces
1 avocado sliced
1 endive separated
1 bunch of watercress
½ head romaine lettuce
2 pitted dates slivered small
seeds of ½ pomegranate or ¼ C cranberries

1. Combine all in bowl.

2. 15 minutes before serving, mix in the following salad dressing (15 minutes is in honor of the 15 kinds of fruits and nuts eaten on the 15th of Shvat).

Dressing

1. Combine all ingredients except olive oil.

2. Slowly drizzle in oil, whisking until well blended.

by Shlomo Yaffe
used with permission
Chabad.org

Tu B'Shvat –the 15th of the Hebrew month of Shvat — is known as the "New Year for Trees." Naturally this would be a time for trees to engage in soul-searching the way people do on Rosh Hashanah. Here is a tree's New Year Checklist:

• Did I shelter the seedlings that live in my shade –so they will grow up to be a next generation like myself?
• Did I grow towards the sun as a tree should, reaching up higher and higher towards that which I can never grasp, but which nurtures me all the same the more I strive towards it?
• Did I make sure my roots remain firmly planted in the soil that nurtures them, and did I drop my leaves there in the fall to give back life to that which sustains me?
• Did I ensure that my fruit were sweet and nourished all that came to enjoy them? Did everyone walk away from me with a smile?
• Did I bend gently in the wind, accepting what G-d sends but never breaking or giving up hope?
• Did I grow in strength and wisdom with each new ring this year?

Come to think of it, not a bad checklist for us humans either!

Rabbi Shlomo Yaffe is the spiritual leader of Congregation Agudas Achim of West Hartford, Connecticut.

 www.Rockinoutgreen.com  has several resource pages for both children and adults!

Check out COEJL's page on Tu B'Shvat packed with learning about the environment and it's connection to Judaism. You'll also find a beautiful Tu B'Shvat Seder here.

Read Tu B'Shvat articles at the Shalom Center by Rabbi Arthur Waskow, a master teacher, author, and political activist.

Babaganewz's Tu B'Shvat Central, my favorite place online for children's activities and family learning!

Using Gematria, the Hebrew T U is made up of a Tet, which has the numerical value of 9 and Vav which has the value of 6. Together the two letters equal 15. Tu B'Shvat occurs on the 15th day of the Hebrew month, Shvat. Shvat is the 11th month of the Hebrew calendar usually coinciding with January/February.

Why is the Torah compared to a fig tree? The fruit of most trees - the olive tree, the vine, and the palm tree - is collected all at once, while that of the fig tree is collected a bit at a time. So, too, regarding the Torah. Today a person learns a little, and tomorrow she shall learn much, for the Torah cannot be learned in a single year or two.
(Babylonian Talmud 53b)

Oh, and did you know that the Torah is compared to a fig, too!
Because every fruit has in it something inedible: dates have pits, grapes have seeds, pomegranates have skin. But every part of the fig is good to eat.
(Yalkut Shimoni Joshua 1)