A Day for Environmentalist Judaism

A Day for Environmentalist Judaism
Steve Mellon/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette via AP

Monday is Tu B'Shvat, the 15th day of the Hebrew month of Shvat and a minor Jewish holiday. Its significance originally had to do with agricultural taxes: You calculated your annual tithe on fruit according to whether a given fruit began developing before or after that date.

The Jewish mystics of the 17th century seized on Tu B'Shvat to institute a seder dedicated to the proposition that eating 10 specific fruits and drinking four cups of wine in a specific order while reciting the right prayers would bring human beings, and the world, closer to spiritual perfection.

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