Tu B'shvat Seder

Today is Tu'Bshevat. The Jewish birthday for trees. I happen to really like this holiday as 1)my name means tree and 2) there are no rules...and I could do with a few less rules. So last night we invited a few friends and family over for our annual Tu B'shevat seder. My son asked me why we weren't going over any one else's house for this annual event. I explained to him that no one else in our community has a Tu B'shevat seder. He said, "so why do we live here? Why are we the only ones doing this?" He had that "you grown-ups are so messed up" look.


Tu B'shvat is not just a "tree holiday." We do not worship trees. Tu B'shevat is a time in the middle of the winter when everything is dormant. There is no active life and yet the potential is so great. Within just a few weeks trees will begin budding. So we take this time to celebrate what will be. We have a seder where we present 4 "worlds" of fruits that change from the first world being very physical (the first platter has fruits with a hard outer sell, like nuts, representing the bad parts we wish to overcome) to the last being very spiritual (the last platter has no shells or seeds and is fragrant representing our purest spiritual selves). So too we as people move (we hope) from the physical closer to our source and to being more spiritual.

So we had our "no -rules" spiritual fruit-lift. And we even have healthy snacks to munch on for a few more days!