Prague Journal

Monday, January 24, 2005

Today is Tu Bishvat, the “birthday of the trees.” Tu Bishvat is the fifteenth day in the Jewish month of Shvat. It was once merely the last date of the tax year for the produce of the tree. Any fruit ripening after Tu Bishvat was to be assessed for tithing only for the following tax season. After the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.C.E. this holiday was a way for Jews to symbolically bind themselves to their former homeland by eating foods that could be found in Israel. In the sixteenth and seventeenth century Kabbalists created a ritual for Tu Bishvat similar to the Passover seder. Today Tu Bishvat is celebrated with a symbolic eating of fruits and with active redemption of barren land by planting trees. People express their ecological concerns and their desire to reconnect themselves to nature. Tu Bishvat has become a tree planting festival in Israel, in which both Israelis and Jews around the world plant trees in honor or in memory of a loved one or friend.
The Jewish community here celebrates Tu Bishvat with a seder, a semi-ceremonial dinner in the restaurant on the main floor of the Jewish Town Hall, which is across a narrow street from the Altnai Shul (“old-new” [German] or “conditional” [Hebrew] orthodox synagogue). We had gone to our first Tu Bishvat seder here seven years ago, a lovely tribute to the seasons and its fruits, so we were eager to go again this year. This year, Coleman Raeboi (the young cantor visiting this week from Tarpon Springs, whom we met on Friday) led the service with Rabbi Kalchhaimem. The meal was modest, but the spread of fruits was delightful, as was the camaraderie – people from all congregations were together. We could only chat with a few people because of our limited Czech skills, but we were seated with some gracious bilingual Czechs.
After the seder, we took Coleman to U Kapra for dessert (this restaurant is just a block away from the Jewish Town Hall) and saw several folks from the seder (as I said, the meal was quite modest!). Peter Gyori (Bejt Praha's head guy) then joined us, so we four had a nice time talking about Prague and the Jewish community here. Coleman and his Russian-born wife have a 3-month old son, so the conversation also turned to children.

posted by JWinn @ 11:57 PM