Kabbalistic Tu Bishvat customs
Kabbalistic Tu Bishvat customs originated in the 1500’s when a group of Kabbalist believers, living in the town of Tzfat (Safed) in the Galilee area of Israel, instituted a new ceremony for the celebration of the New Year, Tu B’shvat (day 15 of the month Shvat). This ceremonial ritual is focused on the Tree of Life and renewing the connection to the earthly plane.
The cosmology of the Kabbalist segment of the Jewish community stresses the importance of nature and its connection to the divine. Using the “Four Worlds” imagery, root, trunk, branches and leaves, the theme of purifying and restoring the cosmic energy to its natural balance, increasing the fertility of the Tree and strengthening the connection to the earthly realm are extolled as a means of gaining similar effects of purification and fertility in a material way.
There are four layers of meaning in the text of the Torah, according to the Kabbalist tradition, and the customs used to celebrate the Tu B’shvat seder (ritual instructions) exhibit this layered meaning. The actual rituals are handed down from the book, “Peri Eitz Hadar”(The Fruit of the Beautiful Tree), written by Nathan of Gaza and promoted to accepted religious practice by Ytzahk Luria (1534-1572) and his disciples in Tzfat (Safed).
Ritually consuming ten particular fruits in a specific order, blending white and red wine in each of four cups and reciting verses from the Torah, old Rabbinical essays and Kabbalist texts (Zoharic literature) are the practices still popular today. The words focus the mind on the inner meaning of the edible symbols of the Four Worlds. Beside representing the fruit of the earth, the ten fruit symbolize the ten Sephirot in the graphic presentation of the ten emanations through which god may manifest on the material and metaphysical reality.
Eating the fruit in a certain order makes the connection with the Tree as well as expressing the journey from one of the Four Worlds to another, always from the earthly towards the more spiritual. Each layer is more difficult than the last for the limitations of humans to be overcome and the expression of the nature of god to be observable but in nature it is laid out in a way that we can perceive and understand.
The Hebrew language is one of the few that represent numbers with the same symbols they use for letters. The Kabbalist beliefs have created a methodology called Gematria for deciphering the inner secrets of sacred texts by making use of the letter/number combinations inherent in the language. These complexities have their place in the ceremonies of the Tu B’shvat seder as well.
The complex numerology aside, the Kabbalist believe that the Torah is paralleled by nature and all the information available in one is also there in the other. The Kabbalistic customs of the Tu Bishvat seder are to enhance and purify the connection between the Tree of Life and the material realm where an increase in the fertility of the cosmic Tree will be reflected in the orchards and nurseries on earth.
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