Zoom b’Shvat: Tu b’Shvat in 2021/5781

December 14, 2020

Tu b’Sh-What?

Tu B’Shvat is also known as “the New Year for the Trees.” It marks the season in which the earliest-blooming trees in Israel start their fruit-bearing cycles. “Tu B’Shvat” literally means “the 15th day of Shevat”—the date it takes place, so it’s easy to remember. This year, Tu B’Shvat begins at sundown on January 27th and ends at sundown on January 28th.

Why Celebrate Tu B’Shvat?

This special day offers an opportunity to appreciate the visible beauty and the deep mystery of trees, their fruits, and the rest of the natural world. It also invites us to remember and celebrate that we are a part of nature, rather than separate from it, and the opportunities and responsibilities that accompany that privilege.

How Do You Celebrate Tu B’Shvat?

Moishe House Berlin celebrating Tu b’Shvat in 2020

There’s no one way to Tu b’Shvat, but whatever you do should connect to nature—whether you are hosting your event virtually, outdoors, or indoors! Virtual Tu b’Shvat seders, outdoor mindful yoga, learning about and advocating for pressing environmental justice issues, and reflecting on Jewish wisdom about nature are just a few examples of the program ideas and outlines to help you have a meaningful and communal Tu b’Shvat experience this year.

Program Ideas

+ - Outdoor Hike & Learn

Moishe House Boston – Brookline on a hike in summer 2020

Hikes are a great in-person and socially distant way to appreciate nature’s beauty and each other, as well as get a breath of fresh air, which many of us could use right now. To add some Tu b’Shvat spice to your event, invite a knowledgeable flora- and tree-loving community member to join the hike and share some wisdom about the various plants and trees on the hike. You can also teach your community about the underground social life of trees and how they support even the fallen among them.

+ - Meditation in the Park

You can meditate anywhere, but two forms of meditation can be particularly powerful when done in nature. No meditation experience necessary!

One that involves movement is a walking meditation, and it’s just what it sounds like: slowing down, turning off auto-pilot, and noticing ourselves and our environment. If you’ve never facilitated a meditation and want to try it out, you can find some basic instructions and scripts here and here.

There’s also the 18th-century Chasidic unscripted spontaneous speaking meditation called Hitbodedut (“self-solitude” or making time and space for oneself). In this Chasidic tradition encouraged by Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, you find a space where you can be alone for some time and speak continuously and without pause—to God, to nature, or to yourself. Hey Alma and MyJewishLearning have some great introductions and framing for you to use with your community or in your own spiritual life. Here’s how author Sarah Hurwitz suggests doing it in her memoir, Here All Along:

1. Go somewhere secluded outdoors where no one else can hear you.
2. Speak out loud to God—not in your head, but in an audible voice—for an allotted period of time… If you don’t believe in God, that’s fine, just do it anyway, along the lines of ‘Hi, God, I don’t believe in you, so I’m basically talking to empty air…’
3. Speak without pauses. If you run out of things to say, you can say ‘I’ve run out of things to say’ over and over again. But whatever you do, keep talking.

+ - Letter-Writing to US Congress

Tu b’Shvat is also about protecting the long-term health of the planet. The Jewish Earth Alliance urges members of Congress to respond to the moral challenge of climate change through hand-written letter campaigns. They have an online briefing on the third Tuesday evening of every month, as well as a new action alert and sample letter each month. Learn more about the organization and invite your community to join the briefing and letter-writing campaign together!

+ - Israeli Dancing: Earth and Sky!

As Tu b’Shvat has evolved over time, it has become a holiday that celebrates an increasingly global environmentalism. At its roots, however, it is a celebration of the beginning of Israel’s harvest season! This year, gather safely to learn the beautiful (and contactless) Israeli dance, Adamah V’Shamayim (Earth and Sky)!

Here are some tutorials and videos of the dance in action:

1. Solo Dancer
2. Multiple Dancers

+ - Nature Poetry and Jewish Text

In the Mishna, we learn that Judaism has four New Years: the New Year for kings, the New Year for tithing, the New Year for years, and the New Year for trees (Tu B’Shvat!). Take a look at Aharon Mirsky’s poem: “On Tu B’Shvat it is Written,” a poem in which Mirsky parallels the popular high holiday piyyut (liturgical poem) U’Netanah Tokef: “On Rosh Hashanah it is written, and on Yom Kippur it is sealed…” Just as we contemplate our fates for the coming year on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, so too does nature brace herself for a year of unknowns on Tu B’Shvat. Gather virtually to study Mirsky’s poem, and write some nature poetry of your own!

Possible Prompts:

1. Write about the changing seasons or your favorite season.
2. Write about the lives of plants – what do they say? How do they feel?
3. Write about what inspires you in nature.
4. Write about experiences of the Divine in nature.
5. Write about a particular memory you have in nature.

On Tu B’Shvat it is Written

By Aharon Mirsky

Translated by Alex Rosenbaum

On Tu B’Shvat it is written,

Every blossom, every tree,

On Tu B’Shvat it is sealed,

All the flowers in the garden.

Every hawk, every branch, today will be judged

If they will live, if they will wither.

Who else will come to flower here,

And whose trunk will shrivel.

Who is the garden, to which Adam will come

Plant his seedlings.

Who will be devoured by a storm’s twisting winds

In the coming of autumn.

Who is the tree, whose fruit

Will sing with a sigh,

And which fruits will merit

A blessing from us.

On Tu B’Shvat it is written

Every blossom, every bud.

On Tu B’Shvat it is sealed,

All the trees in the garden.

בְּט”וּ בִּשְׁבָט יִכָּתֵבוּן

כָּל צִיץ וְכָל אִילָן.

בְּט”וּ בִּשְׁבָט יֵחָתֵמוּן

כָּל הַפְּרָחִים בַּגַּן.

כָּל נֵץ, כָּל בַּד, הַיּוֹם יוּדַן

אִם יֶחִי, אִם יִבֹּל.

מִי עוֹד יוֹסִיף לִפְרֹחַ כָּאן,

וּמִי – גִּזְעוֹ יִקְמֹל.

מִי גַּן, שֶׁבּוֹ יָבוֹא לשְׁׁתֹּל

אָדָם אֶת נְטָעָיו.

מִי יִטָּרֵף בִּידֵי עַלְעוֹל,

בְּבוֹא יְמֵי הַסְּתָו.

מִי הָעֵץ, שֶׁפֵּרוֹתָיו

יִשְּׁרוּ בַאֲנָחָה.

וְאֵיזֶה פְּּרִי יִזְכֶּה – עָלָיו

אִישׁ יְבָרֵךְ בְּרָכָה.

בְּט”וּ בִּשְׁבָט יִכָּתֵבוּן

כָּל צִיץ וְכָל נִצָּן.

בְּט”וּ בִּשְׁבָט יֵחָתֵמוּן

כָּל הָעֵצִים בַּגַּן.

For one interpretation of this poem, check out what The Talmud Blog has to say on Tu B’Shvat as Judgment Day.

+ - Tu b’Shabbat Dinner and Seders

Tu b’Shvat Seder from Moishe House Cambridge in 2020

There are so many ways to bring Tu b’Shvat to your Shabbat table! If you’re hosting, try including each of the seven species in your recipes or use some of Hazon’s resources to explore the radical concept of Sh’mita – the Shabbat for the Land. And who could forget the Kabbalah-inspired Tu b’Shvat Seder? Just a few we recommend trying or tinkering with are Ellen Bernstein’s poetry-filled seder, the Jewish Disabilities Awareness and Inclusion Month seder (February), a seder of Shevat fragrances from Rabbi Jill Hammer.

+ - Fruit for Thought: Texts on Our Relationships with Food, Nature, and Each Other

At the bottom of this Moishe House Tu b’Shvat resource guide from last year, you can find four short Jewish texts and accompanying discussion questions to keep in your back pocket or drop into your program. You can use them as supplements, conversation starters, intentions to frame a ritual, or introductions or closings to your program—whatever you feel is best for your program, community, and the moment! Here’s an example of one of them:

Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Taanit, 7a

Rav Nachman, the son of Yitzchak, said: Why was the Torah compared to a tree, as it says “for it is a tree of life for those who hold fast to it” (Proverbs 3:18)? To teach you that just as a small tree may set a larger tree on fire (literally “lights up”), so too is it with scholars, where the small sharpen the large. After all, Rabbi Chanania said “I have learnt much from my teachers, and more from my friends, but from my students more than anyone.”

1. 1. What are the different physical parts of a tree? How might each part teach us something about our spiritual lives?
  2. In what other ways are we like trees? How can these similarities influence how we interact with one another?