We had a wonderful Tu B’Shvat with an outdoor Tu B'Shvat seder in the back lawn organized by our director of education, Patricia S.; our shlicha, Ofir R.; and myself, with lots of help.

Many of the students participated in the seder, which was devoted to the new year for trees. The mystics developed four prisms for viewing the spiritual as well as the ecological dimensions of the holiday and we ate different kinds of fruits and tasted and smelled different types of tastes and smells to emphasize these four mystical realms. The first was those fruits or nuts that had hard outsides but soft and tasty insides, such as walnuts. The second was those that had hard pits inside but soft fruit outside, such as apricots. The third were fruit that are soft and tasty both on the outside and the inside. The fourth were spices that are not normally edible but have a wonderful fragrance, such as a cinnamon stick.

Following the seder, Larry organized a tree planting activity in which everyone was able to get involved and get their hands dirty--literally as well as figuratively.

We hope to make the world a more ecologically balanced place and as a society and civilization, we’re very far from that goal. Nevertheless, we can at least take pride in the fact that we are emphasizing this important aspirations to our students and that they are embracing it wholeheartedly.