Tu BiSh’vat

Hold a Tu BiSh’vat seder; map Israel’s seasons vs. Minnesota’s.

Children wonder and discover; you facilitate more than you lecture.

• Why do we have multiple Jewish ‘new years’?
• How does this holiday connect us to time, place, and the world?

Judaism has several ‘new years.’ Tu BiSh’vat is the New Year of the Trees, when sap rises in Israel. It ties us to the land and to caring for creation.

• Tu BiSh’vat — 15th of Sh’vat
• Eretz Yisrael — land of Israel

“How can there be more than one new year?”

Like a school year and a calendar year — different ‘years’ mark different things.

• Children know the different Jewish new years.
• Children connect Tu BiSh’vat to the earth, even in winter.

Connect earth-care to each child’s real life and local environment.

Folktale. Honi Plants a Carob Tree (Talmudic) — we plant for those who come after us.

Changemaker. Simcha Blass — invented drip irrigation after noticing a single tree thriving beside a leaking pipe. It is the reason there are orchards in the Negev, and it started with somebody looking properly at one tree.

How is the trees’ new year the same and different from Rosh Hashanah?

“We celebrated the trees’ new year. Try at home: eat a fruit from a tree and talk about caring for the earth.”