Happy New Year. It is a time of new beginnings, starts, dreams and hopes. It is also a time that we celebrate the New Year of the Trees – Tu B’Shvat. This holiday is full of symbolism. A tree is strong and mighty and puts down firm roots that spread. A tree also bends and twists with the elements of time, it branches off, it reaches new heights and a tree drops its seed so that trees will continue to flourish.

We humans can also celebrate along with the trees. After all, the Torah says, "Man is a tree of the field." We are nurtured by deep roots, as far back as Abraham and Sarah; we reach upwards to the heavens while standing firmly on the ground; and when we do all this right, we produce fruits that benefit the world—namely our good deeds.

B’nai Harim is a tree. Strong roots, blossoming and growing. We are like the fruits we eat on at our Tu B’Shvat Seder. Some of us have strong protective shells and in opening them we discover delicious fruits. Others seem very open on the outside and deep inside is the seed that they protect and nourish so that they might grow. There are those who are fully open – their fruit is there for the picking.

So how do we continue to grow? We evaluate our structure and roots as we have with the strategic planning committee. We need your responses to make sure we branch in the ways you want. Please return these to the Strategic Planning Committee as soon as possible. We have yet to hear from some of our younger branches.

Our seeds are the children who study our traditions and grow, they are your ideas scattered and dispersed, in various wonderful ways, so that enough of them should survive to continue and perpetuate their kind. I had the privilege of watching Rabbi and Barbara Kapitansky work with the prospective B’nai Mitzvah families. The group met together and then apart. The parents and children each wrote letters to each other that expressed their expectations. To discover that together and apart the children and parents have the same goals – to protect and honor our heritage and to keep our faith blossoming, was wonderful.

The Prophet Hosea said, "Sow (Zir'u) to yourselves in Tzedoko (righteousness), reap in Chesed (kindness)." (Hosea 10:12). By this the Prophet meant that a person should scatter charity and good deeds all around, like seed, and these are sure to produce a good crop of kindness also for the person doing it, since G-d rewards in kind, and, in deed, many times over, just as a seed that is planted produces a plant bearing many fruits and seeds.

Whatever type of seed you are, I encourage you to scatter your seeds. Encourage our children, delight in watching them grow. Bring forth new ideas. Participate fully in acts of lovingkindness. Give of yourself so that you and B’nai Harim continue to grow.

Honi Grasing