Program 2 - Tu B'Shvat Seder
Introduction:
An old-new custom of celebrating the New Year for Trees, our Seder has been adapted from various versions commonly used today.

Educational Goals:
(a) To familiarize students with an ancient Jewish tradition, relatively little celebrated in the Diaspora
(b) To encourage students to contemplate Jewish approaches to a number of related subjects including:
the role of nature in Jewish life the significance of the Land of Israel as an entity; the extent to which (ancient) Jewish life revolved around the land and nature; the significance of the tree and its fruit in Jewish life; the relationship between symbols, metaphors and reality in Jewish expression; the concept of Tikkun Olam (correcting the world) through Man's transcendental journey to "higher spheres"

(c) To encourage students to celebrate Tu B'Shvat, especially through the re-enactment of the Seder.

Annotated Items in the Seder
From the Seder Home Page, you can click to access a page on Background of the Seder, How to Get Started, the Four Questions and a Response, and Four Cups of Wine and their corresponding fruits.

The Seder itself is conducted in 5 stages.
Stage 1: The seder opens with 4 questions which ask:
"Why do we have a seder in the winter?"
"Why do we eat 4 different kinds of fruits?"
"Why do we drink 4 cups of wine of different shades from white to red?"
"Why do we tell stories about trees?"

The responses introduce the concepts of:
The role of trees
Appreciation of Nature
Trees and their symbols
Association with Biblical events
Appreciation of bounty of trees
Trees, fruit and social welfare
Tu B'Shvat and changing seasons
The source of the Seder

Stages 2-5: Clicking on the different colored cups on the screen takes you through the seder, as follows:

White Wine, The Walnut	Blush Wine, The Date	Rose Wine, The Fig	Red Wine, The Etrog

With each cup and its fruit, blesssings and explanations are read by the participants.

The blessings vary for each step of the seder.

The explanations describe:
1.(a) the meaning of the wine color;
2.(b) the significance of the fruit's inner and outer texture in metaphysical terms;
3.(c) an existential message

The Seder can be embellished by the singing of Tu B'Shvat songs (see above, and Resources and Bibliography), distributing 15 types of fruit eaten in Israel, and by the contribution of individual participants (poems, readings, songs and skits), and other elements according to your choice.