By Rabbi Rachel Esserman
Hanukkah is over, and Purim and Passover are still months away. What’s a Jewish girl to do if she wants some special holiday food? Well, there is one holiday coming up: Tu B’Shevat, the New Year of the Trees, begins the evening of Wednesday, February 12, this year, but, when I was growing up, there wasn’t any real celebration of the day. Sure, we were encouraged to purchase trees in Israel and, once in awhile, given tooth-breaking carob pods to chew on, not that those were anyone’s idea of a holiday food.
My first real introduction to Tu B’Shevat seders was in rabbinical school. During a class my first year there, a professor gave us four different seders to read. He liked to begin the class by asking for questions, whose answers he would then very cleverly weave into a lecture. My question had to do with whether these seders were still being developed because, while most had participants move from white wine to red wine, one went in the opposite direction. I’m going to pat myself on the back here because I was the only one in the class who noticed that. But the point is that, unlike the Passover haggadah, there is no traditional, age-old version of the Tu B’Shevat seder.
I am a big fan of fruit. (My mother and I could polish off a dozen oranges in a day and I’ve been known to overindulge on cherries when they are available.) However, the traditional foods for Tu B’Shevat – pomegranate, grapes, dates, figs, olives, wheat and barley – are not among my favorites, well except for pomegranates. However, I still connect that fruit to Rosh Hashanah. I do love olives – especially all the exotic kinds you can now find in olive bars in stores – but I wouldn’t want to make a complete meal of them.
Of course, if you look up Jewish food online, you’ll find recipes for main courses containing these traditional foods. (Hey, if you have a website, you have to find new things to publish or people won’t visit you anymore.) But even these are limited. However, gathering with friends and family to celebrate holidays is not just about the food – even if it sometimes seems to play a major role. I’m always happy to attend a Tu B’Shevat seder at my synagogue, whether it’s for the religious school or adults. While not a major holiday in the grand scheme of things, do treat yourself to one of the traditional foods for Tu B’Shevat, and take a moment to be thankful and grateful for all that trees offer us.