The holiday of Tu B’Shevat—known as the “New Year for Trees”—marks the very beginning of each year’s new season of agricultural growth. This year, it was heralded by celebrations and activities that demonstrate personal growth and bridge-building in communities around the world.
In Accra, Ghana, where Alti Majesky recently arrived with her husband, Rabbi Yisroel Majesky, and their children to run the west African nation’s first Chabad center, dozens of Jewish children teamed up with disadvantaged children to plant trees together.
Across the world, in San Diego, some 50 children with special needs, along with teen volunteers and families, spent time in a nursery, where they hiked among the orchards, picked fruit, crafted, planted saplings and even picnicked next to a scenic duck pond.
Tu B’Shevat, the 15th day of the Hebrew month of Shevat, is one of the four heads of the year recorded in the Mishnah. It serves to demarcate between the fruit of one year and the next. While its practical relevance is limited to tithes, orlah (forbidden fruit from the first three years of a tree’s growth), and other laws relevant almost exclusively to orchardists, the lessons of the holiday are universal.
In Ghana, Alti Majesky took the opportunity to teach her students, who are mostly children of Israeli expatriates, of the Torah’s comparison between man and a tree in a field.
The lesson was strikingly similar to one in San Diego, where Elisheva Green of the San Diego Friendship Circle noted that “a tree needs sturdy roots. When we offer inclusion and a strong foundation in the community, these kids get a chance to flourish.”
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