ט"ו בשבט | Tu Bishvat

Yesterday, January 30, was Tu Bishvat, also known as the "New Year of Trees," or basically, Jewish Arbor Day. There is a tradition dating from a few hundred years ago (a recent thing in the grand scheme of Judaism) to have a seder, somewhat like the one we normally do on Passover. However, unlike the Passover seder, the Tu Bishvat seder does not tell a story. Instead, it focuses on appreciation for nature. We eat certain types of fruit and nuts and drink four types of wine. Our group created a seder on Wednesday (Jan. 27) with lots of delicious fruit and nuts and soup. With Jesse's help on guitar, I/we also did a bit of singing. Photos from our seder are up here.

On Thursday, we had an Oranim-organized day trip to Jerusalem. To tell you the truth, I wasn't particularly looking forward to it, since this would be my fourth visit to the city in the last six months, and my seventh visit overall. Add to this the fact that I had already participated in the exact same Oranim trip back in August, so there would be no new sights or information presented. Well, turns out I wasn't completely correct in this assumption. Since Tu Bishvat was coming up, they first took us to "haShalom Forest" (Peace Forest) in southeastern Jerusalem, where we planted trees in a KKL/JNF (Jewish National Fund) project. Other than that, it was basically a repeat of the August Oranim Jerusalem trip. Oh well. I did get some good pictures though, which you can see here.