This is the eve of Tu B'Shvat - the birthday of the trees. Tovah has been sick so we celebrated at home with just the immediate family. Tovah participated with interest throughout the special Seder Meal for the celebration.
Earlier in the day, Naomi and I went to a presentation by Ellen Bernstein at the Jewish Community Center in Amherst. She wrote the first American Tu B'Shvat Seder Haggadah for the holiday back in the 1987. Click on her name to go to her web site. Her presentation focused on the first translation into English of the first known written Tu B'Shvat Seder Haggadah in any language. This Seder was done by the Kabbalists of Safed in Israel in the early 1700s. The purpose of the Seder was to heal the enmity caused by the sin of Adam. Basically to repair the alienation between humans and the earth - expulsion from Garden of Eden and the command of G-d that the earth produce thorns and thistles and the requirement that food would only be grown for humans by sweat of the brow - which was ordered by G-d as a result of Adam's sin. The multiple blessings of fruit of trees was to manifest the intent of the participants to heal this rift. It was a very thought provoking teaching and allowed us to approach the Tu B'Shvat seder with a different spiritual awareness of it's purpose than previously. What more can you ask of going to a lecture?
The videos are of Tovah's participation. In the second one she is directing all of us to breath as an experience of the spiritual dimension of life and the spiritual healing that must take place to restore the alienation of humans from the world. You can picture her as a Rabbi directing a seder sometime in the future.
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