Shabbat Music Service

Tu B’shevat – the ‘New Year for Trees’ – celebrating with Wine, Fruit, Poetry and Song!

Tu B’shevat on 25 January is the day in the Jewish calendar that marks the beginning of a new year for trees!  This is the time when the earliest-blooming trees in the Land of Israel emerge from their winter sleep – when the sap starts to rise – beginning a new fruit-bearing cycle.  It is also a day when we remember that “[man] is a tree in the field” (Deuteronomy 20:19), and so we reflect on our relationship with nature.  It’s tradition to mark the day of Tu B’Shevat by eating fruit, mentioned by the Torah in its praise of the bounty of the Holy Land: grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives and dates.  Seventeenth-century Jews would gather in their homes for a fifteen course meal, each course being one of the foods associated with the Holy Land.  Today in Israel, it is customary to take children on tree-planting outings.

We can’t promise a fifteen course meal at KLS but please join us for a special Friday night service to celebrate trees, the end of winter and all nature.  Please feel free to bring a piece of music or poetry.