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Joe Afterschool Club

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Tu B'Shevat s --Istory

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There have been three great periods of Tu B'Shevat:
• The Second Temple period, when the date was concerned with an
agrarian people's earth-connection through tithing of fruit
• The long history of rabbinic Judaism, during which the Jewish peo-
ple was disconnected from any deep relationship with any land, and
Tu B'Shevat survived in its own wintry underground, barely observed or

celebrated
• From the 16th century on, during which there have been three dif-
ferent waves of reconnection of the Jewish people with the earth and
with an earthy spirituality: the settlement of Kabbalists in the town of
Safed, reconnecting with the Tree of Life as a metaphor for God;
through the Zionist movement of the last 100 years, reconnecting with
trees and agriculture in the Land of Israel; and through realization in
this country of a growing environmental crisis, a new Jewish connection

with the earthy aspects of our entire planet.

—Rabbi Arthur Waskow

The four cups of wine that conclud-
ed each course may have been
modeled on the Four Cups of the
Passover seder, but their form and
meaning were quite different. For Tu
B'Shevat, the first cup was white; the
second, white with a drop of red;
the third, half white, half red; and
the last, red with a drop of white.
According to one interpretation,
white represents the earth and its
powers in quiescence; red, the
earth in bloom. Thus, the cups may
have represented the shift in the
yearly seasons, from the paleness of
winter through the awakening spring
into blossoming summer and then
the riotous color and fruitful fullness
of fall, with a seed of white still hid-
den in it as the seed goes under-
ground to sleep through winter.
The new form of celebration
made its way into the broader Jew-
ish world, first by oral tradition and
then by its inclusion in a compendi-
um of practices for holy days,
"Hemdat Yamim," published in the

17th century.
Early on, this handbook got the
reputation of having been written
by adherents of the Messianic
claimant Shabbetai Zevi, and so it
was shunned by many mainstream
Jewish thinkers. But several of the
specific chapters so useful that they

The JCC Afterschool Club is already into its third year!
We offer your child a kaleidoscope of creative, fun, men-
tally and physically challenging activities that provide both
recreational and educational enjoyment along with enhanc-
ing personal relationships skills.

Our incredible campus is over 130 acres, allowing us to
offer many activities that are unavailable in other school
programs.

were published separately. Among
them was the passage on the seder
of the fifteenth of Shevat.

Exciting activities include: Swimming, Kidrobics, Arts &
Crafts, Cooking, Rollerblading, visiting My Own Jewish
Discovery Museum and supervised homework assistance.

The Tree Connection

For more infromation or a brochure, please call Amy or
Randy at (248) 661-7687 or (248) 661-7656.

Social and political realities of the
late 19th and then 20th century
gave Tu B'Shevat even more stand-
ing in the eyes of the Jewish world.
By the 19th century, The crisis of
modernity was forcing European
Jews to face another burst of nation-
alist energy, often directed, like the
Spanish Expulsion, toward national
cultural unity — and therefore hos-
tile to the Jews.
Some responded with modern
Zionist nationalism. Others focused
on the alienation of the Jewish peo-
ple•from land and labor as a sick-
ness to be cured by a cultural and
practical Zionism, filled with spirit.
These practical cultural Zionists"
focused not on achieving political
statehood but on renewing the rela-
tionship between individual Jews,
the Jewish people, and the very
earth itself of the Land of Israel.
Alongside these concerns, the
growing Jewish settlements in Pales-
tine were discovering that planting
trees was a practical act that had
both political and biological-agricul-
tural import. Tree planting, they
said, restored the land.

Gorback Photography — Metro Detroit's Longest

Standing Family-owned Photo Studio.

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Unique custom designs • wedding invitations • party invitations
bar/bat mitzvah invitations • full service: accessories, gifts & skull caps
calligraphy & hebrew calligraphy

We carry Crone Invitations and Stationer)/

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ANNOUNCEMENTS • ENVELOPE ADDRESSING

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LA MIRAGE CENTER • 29555 Northwestern Hwy. • Southfield, MI

248-356-2454

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VISA

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In Crosswinds Plaza
Corner of Orchard Lake Road
And Lone Pine Road

248.539.1181

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