How do we celebrate the 15th of Shebat today?
The custom in our community is to eat tonight from the seven fruits or species for which the Land of Israel is praised: "...a land of wheat and barley and grape and fig and pomegranate, a land of olives and honey (=dates)" (Deut. 8:8).
It is a special Zekhut to eat fruits which actually come from the Land of Israel and say Berakha for them.
In Iran our community used to say one berakha for each one of the seven fruits, uncovering one at a time. Mr Nassim Bassalian told me that here the standard custom is to say just one berakha for the fruits of the tree (haetz) and the correspondent berakha for whatever is eaten made of wheat and barley (normally, mezonot).
For more information about Tu-biShbat click here:
http://www.ou.org/holidays/article_index/tu_bshevat
Rabbi Yosef Bitton. YMJC | 130 Steamboat Rd. | Great Neck | NY | 11024
No comments:
Post a Comment