PLANT ISRAEL AT HOME™
While Israel's size may be compact, the land boasts a uniquely rich array of flowers for a stunning year-round bloom. Join The Israel Forever Foundation in celebrating this continual blossoming as a symbol of our connection to the land of Israel!
Activities to Grow Your Israel Connection at Home
Planting Israel at Home provides a meaningful and exciting way to engage with Israel through an exploration of our roots and our connections to the Land.
Personal Connection: Stories and Experiences
Standing amidst the wondrous, natural beauty envelops the State of Israel, we are able to feel in that moment, an instantaneous connection to the land. Luckily we live in an era where we can share this wonder with the people we care about most through video, pictures and stories and help them understand why this connection with Israel is so special.
Celebrating the Land Together: A Tu B'Shevat Seder
Our ancestors lived in the natural world every day, and it was an integral part of their lives. The many types of trees were not only important to them, but they were also very personally intertwined in their lives. In many instances, their livelihood depended on these trees, as the trees depended on them for the care they needed to thrive
Nearly 400 years ago, Rabbi Yitzchak Luria and other Kabbalists in Tzfat began honoring the New Year of Trees with a seder, an ordered meal, in which the fruits and trees of the Land of Israel were given symbolic meaning to help connect Jews throughout the Diaspora with our ancestral homeland, a tradition that persists through the present day.
For those unfamiliar, Tu B’Shevat is celebrated on the 15th (TU = ט”ו) day of the Jewish month of Shevat שבט. This is one of the four 'New Years' mentioned in the Mishnah. Known in Israel as “Chag Ha'Ilanot” (Ilan אילן= tree), we honor this day when budding fruit enters a new year of life and the first bulbs of spring begin to bloom.
Hosting Plant Israel At Home's Tu B'Shevat Seder is an excellent way to connect to this celebration of the trees and bring a touch of Israel into your home, office, school, congregation, or community!
Cultivating Your Israel Connection
It isn't always easy to find room for Israel in our busy lives. As we seek ways to connect to a homeland, so far away, so foreign, so surrounded by conflict, we learn it is the little things that count - those small reminders of the beauty and potential that Israel possesses and what it means to be affected by her.
While the sage Choni was walking along a road, he saw a man planting a carob tree. Choni asked him: "How long will it take for this tree to bear fruit?" "Seventy years," replied the man. Choni then asked: "Are you so healthy a man that you expect to live that length of time and eat its fruit?" The man answered: "I found a fruitful world because my ancestors planted it for me. Likewise, I am planting for my children."
Every seed planted here and abroad facilitates the prospering of Ahavat Yisrael. With Plant Israel At Home's Wildflower seeds you too can be an integral part of planting the seeds for future generation - seeds of connection to our one and only Eretz Israel.
In adding a touch of Israel to your life, you join in a long tradition of planting trees and flowers in honor of our Land of Israel!.
