Clapping in time to guitar music and munching on fruits and nuts symbolic of the harvest, more than 200 people gathered in San Francisco Monday for a joyful seder celebrating Tu B’Shevat, the New Year of the Trees.
“Tu B’Shevat is an optimistic holiday,” noted Israeli Consul General Daniel Shek. “It is not connected with any tragedy, which is unusual in Jewish holidays, and it is important today as it is connected to environmental concerns.”
Celebration permeated a room at the Jewish Community of San Francisco as casually clad guests, mostly young adults, filled neatly set tables. They sang, shmoozed, ate traditional Tu B’Shevat foods, drank wine and read from a Haggadah called “The Trees are Davening.” The shofar was blown.
This year’s event attracted more than twice the number of participants as last.
“Last year we had 75 people, so to see 220 this year shows there is interest in the community,” said Yossi Offenberg, Jewish program manager for the JCC. “There’s a new thirst among young people of an intellectually and academically high caliber.”
Added Shannon Frank of the Jewish National Fund, one of the event’s co-sponsors: “There’s never been a seder this big at the JCC, as far as I know.”
Among those in attendance was Daniel Schainholz, a physician and medical director of the Rose Resnick Lighthouse in San Francisco. “I have been to things like this before in the past,” he said, “and I wanted to see this version. It is a fun event.”
Avkady Glazman, a member of B’nai B’rith Youth Organization, agreed, calling the seder “interesting and exciting, interactive and beautiful.”
The primary message of the gathering and the holiday is that Jews have a God-given responsibility to preserve the earth and its bounty. Guests were asked to send cards to Gov. Gray Davis advising him that Jews are interested in preserving the environment and hope he shares that view.
Shek focused on environmental concerns in the Middle East, mentioning water shortages as possibly the first and best opportunity for cooperation between Israel and its neighbors.
Since the problem is regional, Shek said, the solution must be too. As a crucial issue in the peace process, water, the consul general said, connects Tu B’Shevat to modern Mideast politics.
Some proceeds from the seder will go to sponsor a “group tree planting in Israel in honor of this event,” said Frank of the JNF.
The sponsoring coalition included the Bay Area Chapter of Coalition on Environment and Jewish Life, B’nai B’rith International, Hillel of San Francisco, the Israel Center of the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation and the Jewish Community Relations Council.
“The Trees are Davening” was developed by Dr. Barak Gale of Congregation Sha’ar Zahav and Dr. Ami Goodman, Congregation Beth Sholom, both of San Francisco.
According to the Haggadah, the medieval mystical kabbalists believed that if done with the proper intention, the ritual consumption of fruits and nuts would cause the “sparks of holy light hidden in the fruit to be liberated from their shells and rise up the heavenly ladder to return to their divine source, thereby contributing to the renewal of life for the coming year.”
The sparks certainly flew at this Tu B’Shevat seder.