Tuesday, February 14, 2006

We missed a great holiday yesterday!

Tu B'Shvat, of course!

In the Midwest U.S.A. where I grew up, Tu B'Shvat was an anomaly. It always came in the wrong season, in the midst of winter, often with freezing sleet and icy snow. It was a long-distance holiday whose purpose was to remind us that we were on the wrong continent, in the wrong country; that far away in the Land of Israel, spring was on its way; the sap was rising in the trees; and G-d was blessing the produce of His Land for the next agricultural year. Tu B'Shvat reminded us that our calendar, our laws, our lives were intrinsically bound up with His Land, not with the place where we happened to live.


I find this interesting, in that Christians are always supposed to think about the fact that they're also on the wrong continent, and in the wrong country, since their abode is the Kindgom of Heaven, e.g.

Qui vitam sine termino, Nobis donet in patria.

source

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

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