Celebrate Tu B’Shevat with Lifespan, Rabbi Drorah Setel and Rachel Kest

A Tu B’Shevat seder is a festive ceremony,  modeled after the Passover seder, and traditionally includes eating a variety of fruits and nuts and drinking four cups of wine of various colors. 

Tu B’Shevat, the New Year of the Trees or Jewish Earth Day, is a minor holiday which started in ancient times as a date for farmers to record the age of their trees. The name of this festival is actually its date: “Tu” is a pronunciation of the Hebrew letters for the number 15, and it falls in the Hebrew month of Shevat. This coincides with the winter months of January and February, which is the rainy season in Israel and when the trees begin to bloom. The holiday of Tu B’Shevat provides a mechanism to connect traditional Jewish values of taking care of the earth with modern environmental values. Today, many people mark this holiday by planting saplings, working in a garden, eating special fruit, or doing something else to show some love for trees and the earth.