Category: Tu B’Shvat

[January 26, 2024] The kabbalistic Tu B’Shvat Seder is such a special Jewish ritual, a mid-winter invitation to slow down, to cultivate mindfulness and connection. Together we open four doorways into four worlds, we meditatively drink wine and eat tree fruits as we journey through these worlds of action, emotion, mind, and spirit.  We do all this to bring ourselves into resonance and connection with trees—and not just the earthly trees, but the greater tree, the Tree of Life—Etz Chayim.  And never have we needed this spiritual technology more than now, as we face such an overwhelming climate crisis on every level—physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. …

JYCM New York Tu BiShvat Climate Justice Seder Sunday, February 5 | 2:00pm – 4:00pm Calling all New York area teens! Join us for a Climate Justice Seder, full of…

Friends, We find ourselves immersed in another dark pandemic winter, a reality we could not have fathomed two years ago. And as the pandemic drags on, our social fabric continues to…

Dear Hakhel Communities, This week’s Torah portion, Beshalach, is the scene of many incredible miracles that have captured the imagination of countless generations: the splitting of the Red Sea to…

Thursday, January 28, 2021 | Tu B’Shvat 5781 Dear All, One of the questions underpinning the entire Jewish environmental movement is the question: to what end? If we want to…

Tuesday, January 12, 2021 | 28th Tevet 5781 Dear All, Tomorrow night it’s Rosh Chodesh Shvat. The beginning of the beginnings. Next week a new president, a new government. The week after…

By Rabbi Isaiah Rothstein Hazon Rabbi-in-Residence What is Tu B’Shvat? What is a Tu B’Shvat Seder? Not one, but four times over the course of the year we are called upon to mark…

By Nigel Savage Tuesday, January 28, 2020 | 2nd Shvat 5780 Dear All, What does Tu B’Shvat mean in 2020? It’s a deeper question than it may at first seem….

Last year Tu B’Shvat fell on a Tuesday evening. We’d arrived that morning in Johannesburg, and just a few days before I’d Googled and found a Tu B’Shvat seder. It…

Dear Friends, At sunset this Sunday, January 20th, we will usher  in Tu B’Shvat, one of the four new years on the Jewish calendar. Just like our secular calendar has…

My first Tu B’Shvat seder was with Bonna and Shmuel Haberman Browns, in London, in 1986. Bonna z”l was an amazing woman, who died too young. (This was my tribute to…

by Nigel Savage Introduction to the new Hazon Tu B’Shvat Haggadah You can trace the recent history of  Tu B’Shvat seders like branches on a tree. The first one I…

by Jared Kaminsky, Shoresh Parshat Shoftim The parsha of the week is Shoftim, which means Judges. As Moses nears the end of his life, he wants to ensure there is…

Tu b’Shvat is “the new year for trees.” But, above and beyond the history – the tax year in temple times; the kabbalists in Safed; the JNF; the contemporary Jewish environmental movement – the deeper question is, what can, could, or should Tu b’Shvat mean to me today?…

by Hannah Slipakoff, Jewish Farm School, Philadelphia, PA Parashat Balak In this week’s Parasha, Balak (Numbers 22:2- 25:9), we read a tale about the ways in which kindness and gratitude contribute…

From Nigel Savage Dear All, Tu b’Shvat, the Jewish celebration of trees, is observed this Friday night (February 10th) and Saturday (February 11th). This holiday offers us a midwinter moment…