Hugging a tree is one thing. Truly honoring and appreciating trees for all they give us runs much deeper.
Considering the nearly 1.9 million acres of forests destroyed by forest fires in California last year — an area more than half the size of Connecticut — the notion of celebrating trees not may be as strange an idea as it might appear at first blush.
After all, Tu B’Shvat, the Jewish “new year of trees,” dates back to thousands of years as a celebration of trees on the 15th of the month of the Sh’vat in the Hebrew calendar, to mark the time when sap begins running in the trees in Israel.
A minor holiday that begins Sunday night into Monday, it’s packed with added aignificance for many as we confront today’s existential environmental crisis. Rather than an ancient holiday long forgotten, Tu B’Shvat is being celebrated with renewed sense of relevance — at a time when trees are seen as vital for cleaning our air and water, for slowing the ravages of climate change, hunger and the loss of soil and living species.
A holiday that’s not mentioned in the Bible, it shows up in the code of laws dating back to the year 200 and defining for Israelites the age of trees for the purpose of tithing one-tenth of their fruits from that year. The holiday marked the time when Israel’s trees begin awakening from their winter slumber, in preparation for bearing fruit.
The seder to mark the holiday — the word “seder” refers to the order of the ritual meal — wasn’t created until the mystical Kabbalists in the 16th and 17th Centuries. Modeled after the Passover seder, it celebrated God’s presence in the natural world and was eventually published in 1753 as the “Pri Etz Hadar,” or “Fruit of the Godly Tree.”
Modeled on the Passover seder, which focuses on human liberation, the Tu B’Shvat seder draws on the Kabbalist’s concept of the “four worlds” in nature and their counterparts within us, with four cups of wine and symbolic fruits eaten representing three of the worlds. The fruits, like our selves are categorized as having a tough protective outer shell and soft interior, those with soft exteriors and hard cores, and those that are soft throughout.
The seder, with blessings over each fruit and each cup of wine — beginning with white and gradually growing redder — was seen by the Kabbalists as symbolically contrubuting toward “Tikkun Olom,” repair of the world that was shattered by Adam’s original sin in Eden.
Ellen Bernstein, Hampshire College spiritual life adviser, began leading Tu B’Shvat seders at public settings in 1988 in Philadelphia.
Reflecting the timeliness as well as the timelessness of the holiday, the program, which she revised over time and and is making available free at www.ellenbernstein.org for the first time this year, draws on religious texts but also contemporary readings, as well as music, poetry and giant puppets representing the four worlds.
“I believe the timelessness is as important if not more. It’s always meaningful,” says Bernstein, who first began focusing on the environment and her religion as a student at Northfield Mount Hermon School. “To me, that’s the contribution of religion that a lot of secular people don’t see. It speaks to every generation. And the timeliness? Oh my God!”
Bernstein, who led a Tu B’Shvat seder in 1990 at Boston’s Park Plaza Hotel for Earth Day organizers, moved back to Western Massachusetts more than a dozen years ago and began working in 2012 at Hampshire, where she’s led seders for students as well as the public. (This year’s seder will be held Jan. 27. RSVP to ebSA@hampshire.edu)
“So many people hear all the bad news, and they throw their hands over their face: ‘What can I do? I want to forget about the whole thing because it’s so overwhelming.’ Just having something that’s calm and uplifting, that’s nourishing and hopeful. I feel there’s all kind of possibility out there for healing, but we’ve got to get engaged with nature,” she says, reflecting on how our focus on digital “reality” has further distanced people from the sense of wonder about the natural world in which spiritual practice is centered. “We’ve got to excite young people about working for the future.”
Many of those who attend the seders aren’t necessarily Jewish, Bernstein says. “It’s about being grateful for what we have now and a way to celebrate in a formal, ritualized way,” using timeless passages that speak to the threats we’re facing in the moment.
In her 30-year attempt to ppopularize the seders, Bernstein’s confronted people’s dismissal of religion and the Bible as having anything to say about how we treat the environment, and also battling the portrayal of Tu B’Shvat as holiday for only children.
Temple Israel, too, is planning a TuB’Shv’at seder, Sunday at 5 p.m., that’s open to the public, with a potluck vegetarian dinner to follow (RSVP by Friday to justin@windymeadow.org . There’s also a children’s celebration Sunday beginning at 11 a.m. RSVP to office@templeisraelgreenfield.org )
“Our ancestors knew and noted the life the cycle of all creatures around them, including the aging of trees when the sap starts to run and a new ring is formed,” said Andrea Cohen-Kiener, the Greenfield synagogue’s rabbi. “They they were living in an agrarian system and were tuned into the natural order — all their rituals, all their economy. It’s such germaine holiday for our time, because that wisdom is really needed.”
Mark Benjamin, a Buckland farmer who will co-host a Tu B’Shvat seder Saturday beginning at 5 p.m. (RSVP by calling 625-6528) says, “I think by celebrating trees, and by extension all the other species with whom we share this land, we recognize the agency of all living beings, that they aren’t simply objects for our use, but have value in their own right. We celebrate their gifts to us, from food to shelter to teaching, their innate beauty and wonder. We return to a relational sense of living, to ask what we can give in return, to reorient ourselves to “the good of all. I think without cultivating this recognition we can not fully rise to the challenge of our day: this incredible surge of species extinction, and climate destruction.”
Environmental educatot David Arfa of Shelburne Falls, who’s also led many seders to celebrate the new year of trees, noted that as part of a cycle of seasonal Jewish rituals connecting us with natural world, Tu B’Shvat runs much deeper, as a way replenish our spirtual energy. “When we eat fruit from the tree with a blessing, we become a vital part in the spiritual circle of life, feeding and nourishing and healing, helping to repair of the cosmos. It’s all a reminder of the wonder of the natural world. How do we remember to open our eyes?”
On the Web: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKlkvnegBos