Tu B'Shvat Seder | Imamother

JessicaA622

Sun, Jan 24 2010, 9:46 am

I've never had a Tu B'Shvat seder... actually, until a few weeks ago had never even heard of one. Have any of you ever been to one (or hosted one)? We're going to my parents for shabbas next week (which also happens to be Tu B'Shvat) so we won't be having a seder, but I was thinking about for next year. I never learned anything about Tu B'Shvat in school (I went to a BY-ish type place) other than you eat nasty, old buksar, but I'd like my kids (currently just one kid, but you know what I mean) to have some sort of understanding of all the holidays-- even the smaller ones. So, what does a Tu B'Shvat seder consist of?

JewishMother18

Sun, Jan 24 2010, 11:46 am

I suggest you look at the Aish HaTorah website - they have some great articles and talk you through the whole seder.

It's great fun - we've made one almost every year for the last 10 years and in fact my daughter's batmitzvah fell on Tu B'Shvat Friday night a few years ago and I made that her batmitzvah celebration - it was fabulous.

We design our evening's menu around the order of the seder and this year we're making "seder" with the two families we are closest to - we'll be a total of 20 if the boys all come home from the army and yeshiva.

Have fun!

Sun, Jan 24 2010, 12:11 pm

We have been making Tu B'Shevat seders for about ten years or so. We use this seder book from KarBen. We also have another book (now out of print) called "Seder Tu Bishevat: The Festival of Trees" with textual sources for many aspects of the holiday, which we combine with the KarBen book.

There are four cups of wine/grape juice, ranging from white to red, representing renewal of the seasons. There are three plates of fruit - with an inedible shell, with an inedible pit and completely edible - representing different Kabbalistic aspects of creation. Of course we make an effort to include fruits of Israel. You can be as creative/lengthy/brief/kid-friendly or sophisticated as you like with songs, readings, activities, etc. It's a nice way for those of us in the diaspora to stay connected to the seasons of Israel, as well as reinforce intellectual study of tithing and so on.

Hope that helps!

Sun, Jan 24 2010, 12:43 pm

JessicaA622 wrote:

I checked Amazon for that book that you said was out of print and they have it in stock. Yay! Might get that one.

Wow, I didn't know it was back in print (obviously)! Disclaimer time (before you buy anything): We like to use the little snippets of quotes from different sources interspersed into our seder, but I don't want to misrepresent it as a scholarly book, which it definitely is not. It is published by the Reform rabbinate, which may be a problem for some imamothers (but I have not found any inappropriate content). For a seder "service" to follow, I don't recommend this one at all - Karben is much more coherent.

I'm looking forward to perusing the seder on the Aish site!

JessicaA622

Sun, Jan 24 2010, 12:53 pm

cm wrote:

JessicaA622 wrote:

I checked Amazon for that book that you said was out of print and they have it in stock. Yay! Might get that one.

As long as it's not saying things that are outright wrong (for example, saying that ham is an essential part of the seder, lol), I'm cool with it. I was hoping that our library would have a copy so I could check it out there before investing, but they don't seem to have a copy. Blah...

downsyndrome

Sun, Jan 24 2010, 1:13 pm

Wow! This is the first time I've heard it referred to as a seder. By us, it's more of a Tu B'shvat party. We buy all different types of fruits and set them up beautifully, on trays. We all make the first bracha together, loud and clear, on the choshuv'est fruit of the shivas haminim and we work our way through after that, tasting and enjoying Hashem's yummy creations. We make sure to have some good chocolate, which we refer to as the '16th min' and we have a jolly good time. Oh, we also have esrog compot, prepared way back and vacuum packed, made out of genuine Succos esrogim.
We make sure to discuss various dvar Torahs on the significance of this day and how it relates to us human beings.
One year I cried on Tu B'shvat. It also fell on Shabbos, and my father a'h, was eating the meal with my family. The kids had brought home beautiful arts 'n crafts from cheder and school, which I had hung on the dining room walls. The wall directly across my father's chair featured an adorable poster, adorned with a fruit-bearing tree, beautiful grass, etc. with the words, 'Ilun, ilun bameh avorechecha...' Now, my father a'h, a holocaust survivor never used to go into details about his suffering during the war; he would just wrap it up and call it gehinnom. On that Shabbos, as he looked at that childlike picture on the wall, his eyes filled with tears as he told us that when he and his 'landsleit' were led away by the Germans ym'ch'sh from their hometown to Auschwitz, they all turned back, stared one last time at the beautiful orchards they were leaving behind, and softly sang 'Ilun, ilun bameh avorechecha'...
Crying

JessicaA622

Sun, Jan 24 2010, 3:17 pm

downsyndrome wrote:

Whoa... that is a moving story.

As for the first part of your post, I love that "16th min" part. I want our "seder" or "party" (whatever, lol) to be very kid-friendly so we might steal that idea from you Tongue Out

Also, I like that you connected the holidays... care to share the esrog compot recipe? Pretty please? Very Happy

downsyndrome

Sun, Jan 24 2010, 4:25 pm

I will admit to never having made esrog compot myself (yet) embarrassed

. My mother a'h used to prepare it for us and my sibs and some other 'special' people on her list, every year, but since her petirah Sad

, my sisters prepare it and send me a jar. I know it needs to be done very soon after Succos, when the esrog is still in its natural state. Esrog is very bitter by nature. It needs to be cooked about half a dozen times, with the water being spilled off after cooking, and then new water added. This happens approximately 5 - 8 times until most of the bitterness is gone. Then, it gets cooked like compot, with quincies/kiten, lots of sugar, some cloves, and maybe some other stuff that I am not aware of. After it's cooked, it gets poured into glass jars, which are immediately sealed very tightly and left that way until Tu B'shvat, when it's eaten.