Led by Rabbi Chavah Carp, Cantor Beth Cohen, Chuck Buxbaum and the Cheder Religious School Students

Bring potluck fruit related foods and objects to add to our altars that represent ways that you increase the light in your daily life.

On TuBishvat we were taught by the Mystics that the trees and the fruits that they bare contains worlds that are healing for the world. In the 1600's mystics from all around the Mediterranean Sea immigrated to Palestine and settled in the northern town of Safed. These Jews were kabbalists- mystics- who believed theat ever since Creation, hidden sparks of holiness had been trapped in the physical world. Vessels were created that could carry the Divine Presence into the physical world. At first, all was fine. But as the flow of holiness increased the vessels burst. The sacred was trapped in all the broken pieces of the vessels. Our task, according to the mystics, is to release those holy sparks and let them reunite with their Source. How do we release these holy sparks? We eat the three fruit groups, and in this way we perform a mitzvah, and we attend to the hidden sparks in nature and release the holiness.Seder for Tu B'Shevat