DRIED FRUIT AT MAHANE YEHUDA MARKET
All the fruits, dried or fresh must be kosher.
see how:
Showing posts with label fruits. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fruits. Show all posts
2/5/12
Meet the new year for the trees
The Meaning of Tu B’Shevat
-Notecard.jpg) |
| art by April Stewart Klausner |
Laws and customs from Chabad
The 15th day of the Jewish month of Shevat is the official “birthday” for trees in Israel. Calculating the years of a tree is necessary for several mitzvot of the Torah: maaserot—tithing [of each year’s fruit]; orlah—forbidden fruit of a tree’s first three years; reva’i—[redemption of] the fruit of a tree’s fourth year; and shemittah—the
Sabbatical year. Tu B’Shevat is considered the beginning of the year
for trees because it is the midpoint of winter: the strength of the cold
becomes less, the majority of the year’s rains (in Israel) have fallen,
and the sap of the trees starts to rise. As a result, fruit begins to
form. (Fruit that was already ripe is known to have been nurtured by the
previous year’s rain.)
The Tu B’Shevat Celebration
The Code of Jewish Law
states that on Tu B’Shevat fasting and eulogies are forbidden, and all
penitential prayers are omitted. One of the most important authorities,
the Magen Avraham, adds (131:16): “It is the custom to eat many different kinds of fruit.” The almond tree is always the first to bloom . . .
The Kabbalistic celebration of Tu B’Shevat that originated in Safed involves eating particular fruits in a specific order [or seder, in Hebrew] and reading mystical passages appropriate to each of them. It was first recorded in Pri Etz Hadar, a 50-page pamphlet arranged by an anonymous student of Rabbi Yitzchak Luria, the Ari
(1534–1572), the greatest Kabbalist of Safed. Set out below are the
first 12 fruits recommended for the Seder, corresponding to the 12
possible permutations of G‑d’s four-letter name, along with related verses and themes to focus on while eating, which we have substituted for the lengthy Zohar passages of the original.
read more for Guidelines and Seder
1/17/12
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