This is a re-post, Beautiful People. Today is Tu b’Shvat, the New Year of the Trees in the Hebrew Calendar, and I thought this post was worth repeating.

We are celebrating yet another New Year – the New Year of the Trees. In the old times, in ancient Israel, this day, 15th of the monthShevat, orTu b’Shvatin Hebrew, was celebrated as the earliest day when trees started bearing fruit. Later on, during the Middle Ages, the great Kabbalist Rabbi Issac Luria, known as the Arizal, invoked the biblical phrase “man is a tree of the field” (Deuteronomy 20:19) and instituted a symbolic and intensely spiritual celebration. On this day, we eat fruit, especially the kinds of fruit originated from the Holy Land, and reflect on the meaning of Tree of Life.

Our Tree,by a renown sculptor Jacques Lipchitz, presents our forefathers: Abraham as the…