Celebrating Tu Bishvat

Tuesday, 22nd January 2008

Tu Bishvat at Immanuel College

This year, Immanuel pupils were introduced to an alternative way to learn about the meanings behind the festival of Tu Bishvat. The focus of the Pesach seder, the number four, was also the main theme of our sedarim, and pupils looked at the ways in which Tu Bishvat has had four incarnations over the centuries of Jewish History:

Beginning with the time of the Beit Hamikdash, Tu Bishvat was seen as a festival when the farmers could ascertain the beginning and end of their tax year, and use it as a point of reference for paying their taxes to the kohanim and the Beit Hamikdash (Temple). After the destruction of the temple, the festival was given very little status, until the 16th century, when the Kabbalists of Ts?fat gave it a face-lift, reviving it as a festival in which fruit was used to reflect human spirituality and symbolise human qualities. The third incarnation began at the end of the 19th century, when the early Zionist pioneers used the festival as a time that connected them to agriculture and to their yearning towards the land of Israel. It was during this era thatTu Bishvat became the time when people traditionally gave money to tree planting in Israel.

The fourth stage is today?s contemporary outlook on Tu Bishvat, as a day when we focus on the Jew?s obligations to look after the environment, by recycling and caring about our earth.

Pupils were delighted with the tray of unusual fruits that accompanied the seder during their lessons.