•

Israel" after we left Egypt
(Passover), received the Torah
(Shavuot), and wandered in
the desert (Sukkot). Accord-
ingly, it highlights not only
the importance of building
the land, but the duty to
"preserve, protect, and
respect God's world" — all
that is now conveyed by the
word "ecology."
Wolf also sees tzedakah
(just obligations to the poor)
as implicated in Tu B'Shevat,
because gratitude toward the
Source of our land and its
fruits should impel us to
share our bounty — and
because the laws of tzedakah,
in fact, derive from agri-
cultural laws. Thus Wolf col-
lects tzedakah donations from
seder participants, to assist
needy Jews and non-Jews and
to support the work of Israeli
and American environmental
organizations.
•
Claire Sherman, a Jewish
ceramic artist in Berkeley,
was first exposed to a Tu
B'Shevat seder at Hebrew
Union College in Israel,
whose annual observance
revolves around a well-known
tikkun compiled by Rabbi
Hank Skirball and others.
She has now produced her
own tikkun based on Skir-
ball's and other compilations.
Sherman relishes the chal-
lenges of fruit acquisition in
the Bay Area. Pomegranates
from the fall are saved until
the holiday; etrog marmalade
is made right after the previ-
ous Sukkot (an Eastern
European custom) for eating
at the seder.
Sherman invites members
of area havurot, students of
Jewish Mysticism, and other
artists to her seders which
she considers essentially a
spiritual gathering, con-
ducted according to what she
calls "chasidic time, which is
even slower than Jewish
time." Indeed, the kabbalists
believed that thoroughly
chewing the fruit and multi-
plying the blessings said over
them would increase the
"sparks" of divine energy
released by the seder.
•

Rabbi Debra Cantor, a
graduate of the Jewish Theo-
logical Seminary, was first in-
troduced to the Tu B'Shevat
seder in the early 1970s when
she was responsible for Con-
servative youth group pro-
gramming.
As a rabbinical student,
Cantor was twice approached
by Orthodox families whose
daughters' bat mitzvahs near-

ly coincided with Tu
B'Shevat. Both girls chose, as
a study project, to produce
under her guidance elaborate
illustrated tikkunim. With
her assistance, they then con-
ducted seders to mark their
bat mitzvahs.
For Cantor, the appeal of
the Tu Bishvat seder lies in
its unique combination of the
familiar — the seder formula
of eating, studying, singing,
and good company — with the
exotic and mystical. It is a
"meditational meal," she
finds, "a reflective, mellow
sort of experience," and it re-
quires that kind of mood in
the participants.
•
The seder mood is set not
only by the liturgy chosen —
many include stories, poetry
and folk songs — but by the
resonant symbolism of the
wine and fruit.
The four cups of wine —
each of which is filled prior to
eating a course of fruit and
drunk, with a blessing, after-
wards — proceed from a white
wine through pink, rose, and
deep red shades. This reflects
the changing seasonal colors
of Israel's fields.
In many traditional seders,
the first course comprises the
seven species that the Bible
associates with Israel: wheat
and barley, sometimes in the
form of cake, crackers or chal-
lah, followed by olives, dates,
grapes, figs and pomegran-
ates.
The succeeding three
courses are composed of fruits
with inedible shells, like most
nuts (walnuts and almonds,
being mentioned in the Bible,
are especially desirable);
those with an inedible pit,
like peaches and cherries;
and those that are wholly edi-
ble (except perhaps for a few
small seeds), such as apples,
pears, carobs and quinces.
The Torah itself is, of course,
likened in Proverbs 3:18 to "a
tree of life." "For us," says a
tikkun produced by the
Jewish Women's Resource
Center of the National Coun-
cil of Jewish Women, "Juda-
ism is the tree planted by .. .
our mothers and fathers."
The imperative of their
seder, as well as other seders,
would seem to be the commit-
ment called for in the Skir-
ball seder: "to replant and
rebuild and renew the people
of Israel in the land of Israel."
For kabbalists, and for some
"New Age" celebrants, the
point of the seder seems to be
nothing less than to renew
the flow of life itself,

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THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

61