Birthday of the trees Tu BiShvat

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Tonight and tomorrow we celebrate the minor Jewish holiday Tu BiShvat.
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The Talmud calls it the New Year for the Trees, and this refers to tithes collected for fruit-bearing trees after they reached a certain age.

Some 400 years ago the mystics of Safed (Tsfat) created a Tu BiShvat seder, modeled on the Passover seder, that celebrated the Tree of Life (the Kabbalistic map of the Sephirot).
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Last Tu BiShvat I attended such a seder and posted about it.
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That traditional seder ends with the hope:
"May all the sparks scattered by our hands, or by the hands of our ancestors, or by the sin of the first human against the fruit of the tree, be returned and included in the majestic might of the Tree of Life."
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The miniature of Adam and Eve was made by Sasha Borisov.
Enlarge the photo and see it sparkle!
It is displayed here in a glass case in front of the courtyard of the Jerusalem House of Quality, where craftsmen create, display, and sell their creations.
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Look what Rabbi Geoff Dennis writes today in his eye-opening blog:
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"In various traditions, we learn that trees are sentient and offer praise to God continuously (Gen. Rabbah 13:2; Perek Shirah). The cosmic trees in the center of Eden, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil (all things, which stands for the universal order we we know, the unredeemed world) and the Tree of Life (understood by Judaism to be the Torah and the source of immortality and the ideal divine order God wants us to restore to creation) are not the only trees of power. All trees in Eden have the power to heal and give off a scent that comforts and soothes the soul . . . "
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As we eat this day from the many fruits and nuts and olives of the lovely and loved trees of our Land, I share this post with Rob and Mandy's "Thursday Food for Thoughts."
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Happy Tu BiShvat to all the trees and to their friends!
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