Tu Bishvat

My first Jewish holiday in Israel was Tu Bishvat which is the New Year of the Trees. It is mentioned in the Mishanah as a mizva (good work/commandment) to plant a tree in Israel in the month of Shevat. This is also the time when the almonds blossom and is said to be the exact day the rain from winter gets to the roots of the trees. The exact date was needed so that people knew exactly how much to pay for taxes on the fruit of the trees to the Temple. The trees symbolize life because they need water and nutrients just like we do. So around late January or early February everyone plants a tree in Isreal and some groups have a seder meal.
We were very lucky because not only did we get to have a seder meal, but because a famous wise man in Israel lives on our kibbutz and he led our seder. I know he must be a very well renowned man because everyone who mentions him says only good things, and in a community of gossiping that says a lot. Even one of the new kibbutzniks in the army who answers everything with, “that guys an a__ hole” says this man is wise.
The seder (seder means order) meal is one of symbolism. We start with a cup of white wine symbolizing the abstract. The abstract is the thoughts in the mind and feelings of the heart before you must put them into words and something is lost. Once you drink the white wine you are ready to eat the wheat. After you have eaten the wheat a very small amount of red wine is put into your cup of white wine. The light and the dark. The abstract and the material. This prepares us to eat the fig. The fig is the most abstract fruit because when you eat it nothing is left of it in the material world, and so you have wholly redeemed it by bringing it inside yourself- making it abstract so that nothing is lost. The slightly mixed wine prepares you to eat the date, which cannot be completely redeemed since it has a shell in the middle. A little more red wine is poured in our white, slowly bringing us to the material world. Now we are half and half. We are then able to eat the almond and walnut, which is very dangerous. When cracking the shell of the nut, you don’t know for sure what will be inside: a nut, a worm, nasty stuff, or nothing. The danger is in taking the blessing that was said over it in vain. If you can’t eat it, the Lord’s name was used in vain. Finally our wine is entirely red and we can eat carob, which is mostly shell and difficult to get to any meat.
In four stages the meal has brought us from our abstract and purer thinking to the material where much is lost. We have practiced redeeming the world through the symbolic seder, and the idea is that if practiced enough times we will learn how to do so in our daily lives.