The website, CCAR Responsa, gives an index of questions that have been formally answered by Reform Rabbis and it is an "a to z" list from Abortion to Zodiac! If you ever find yourself curious about what constitutes "proper reform behavior" on a variety of subjects, you might find it interesting to browse the index.
The first Jewish settlers in the Americas actually went to Surinam. They were Orthodox and they found themselves very troubled, because Surinam is in the Southern Hemisphere. There, Passover corresponded to fall harvest, Sukkot to spring planting and Shavuot occurs in the dead of winter. They wanted to know if they should adjust their Jewish calendar so that the holidays occurred "in their season" as the Torah states.
The response they received from Europe, hundreds of years before the rebirth of the State of Israel was that seasonal holidays reflected the climate and the realities of Jerusalem and not the local weather. One sidebar to the responsum is another of many restatements of how Judaism and Zionism are intimately intertwined.
And that brings us to Tu Be-She-vat. Jewish arbor day in New England occurs in the middle of winter where planting a tree outdoors would optimistically require a flame thrower to break open the ground! But in Israel, this is truly a time for planting trees.
This year, Tu Be-She-vat will be celebrated at Betenu on Friday, February 10. The "Seder"associated with Tu Be-Sha-vat has become a very popular event at the temple and it is a great o pportunity to get out in the dead of winter and to "think spring." While the Seder focuses on kabbalistic ways of looking at the varieties of fruit, it also focuses very strongly on the umbilical chord between spiritual Israel (as manifested in the physical entity called "the country of Israel") and we Jews of the diaspora.
Please join us. Plant a tree in Israel, or better yet, maybe this is the year when you will plant a tree in person rather than through the Jewish National Fund (JNF).
Joshua L. Segal
Back to the Betenu Home Page