#he recommended a new jewish (chasidic!) band to me and i listened to some of it on my way home!!!!

[shalom-iamcominghome]

I had a really nice discussion (almost two hours long in my car that was hot!) with my rabbi. As some background, he's kind of a naturalist/hippie kind of character. He started out our meeting with deep breathing and meditation, to illustrate this.

So, the interesting thing he said was about Rosh Hashanah and Tu BeShvat. It went something like...

"When the leaves fall, we celebrate the new year. Our own leaves fall as we shed our old habits and the things we choose to leave behind, and we enter the hibernation of winter to reflect. It's the new year for ourselves. Once the leaves bud again with leaves, we celebrate the new year with trees just as we ourselves wake up and rejuvenate to dedicate ourselves to growth. We are connected with everything in nature, with the trees around us as we continue to live"

I don't know, there's something about connecting ourselves with nature that I really love about judaism. We are not an island - we cannot survive alone. We need each other, we need nature, we need g-d, we need to live. And that's what I love so much.