[Jewish] Tu B'Shevat

[Maia Anna Mary Patricia Campbell]

***SUNDAY MERRILL LIVING ROOM @ 7pm*** Come paint plant pots and plant herbs for
the Kosher Kitchen while eating fruit and watching FernGully.

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Here's some information about Tu B'Shevat from chabad.org

Tu B'Shevat
The New Year for Trees

Tu B'Shevat, the 15th of Shevat on the Jewish calendar -- celebrated this year
on Monday, February 9, 2009 -- is the day that marks the beginning of a "New
Year for Trees." This is the season in which the earliest-blooming trees in the
Land of Israel emerge from their winter sleep and begin a new fruit-bearing
cycle.

Legally, the "New Year for Trees" relates to the various tithes that must be
separated from produce grown in the Holy Land. These tithes differ from year to
year in the seven-year Shemittah cycle; the point at which a budding fruit is
considered to belong to the next year of the cycle is the 15th of Shevat.

We mark the day of Tu B'Shevat by eating fruit, particularly from the kinds that
are singled out by the Torah in its praise of the bounty of the Holy Land:
grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives and dates. On this day we remember that "Man
is a tree of the field" (Deuteronomy 20:19) and reflect on the lessons we can
derive from our botanical analogue.