Tu B’Shevat — Tree-Hugging, Jewish Style

In the 1990s, when I was a Long Island, New York, facilitator for Al Galgalim (Training Wheels), the Hadassah family education program designed to engage young children in Jewish life, I unexpectedly got to see the program’s benefits through three lenses.

I facilitated the Training Wheels program for 2- to 4-year-olds as well as “Wheeling On” for 5- to 8-year-olds in my basement. I worked with regional and national leaders, educators and one heroic member, a parent who, out of necessity for her child, was motivated to build an adaptation of “Training Wheels” for children with special needs.

It was from this vantage point that I learned more about Jewish holidays and traditions I was familiar with like Hanukkah and Passover and, more importantly, ones I had never known about before – specifically Tu B’Shevat.

As an elementary school student, I remember our school commemorating the very first Earth Day on April 22, 1970 — the first day in the US dedicated to thinking about the environment, our world and our place in protecting it. Remarkably, something the Jewish people had been doing for generations.

I don’t remember much about Earth Day, except that our class was tasked to pick up trash in the school yard, and I distinctively recall my classmate telling me how she was warned by her mother not to pick up any used tissues. To a third grader, this was sage advice.

But the trees – it seems as if I never really thought about the importance of trees until I learned about Tu B’Shevat.

In all three Hadassah programs, we examined the cycle of nature and the miraculous riches that plants and trees bring forth from the earth. However, I believed it was the older (early-readers) group in “Wheeling On” that could most benefit from following the supplied, written script that would guide us through the steps and stages of our Tu B’Shevat seder.

To this day, I still love the idea of the white and purple (red) grape juice’s leading role in this seder, representing the changing seasons.

I value the fruit and nut supporting cast: foods with/without shells or with/without pits. I remember the table, crowded with snacks, established once I had shopped for the event, having filled my shopping cart with kid-friendly symbols of the holiday: carob chips, Fig Newtons, probably some apples and wheat crackers too.

We also recognized the joy of planting by putting soil and seeds in egg cartons (or was it paper cups?) and hoping nature would come through with parsley for Passover.

I am a delighted cliché when it comes to Tu B’Shevat: not a teacher, but an ever-learning student. (In fact, for purposes of this essay, I reached once again for the binders of the Al Galgalim program, refreshed by its stories, crafts and the environment’s connections to Judaism.)

My children aren’t children witnessing this seder any longer but that’s okay. At this time of year, I pine for the flowers that are planted in our miniscule front yard on Mother’s Day while I squirrel away some trail mix for a winter’s snack, waiting for spring.