 A few weeks ago, I made myself a new tallit, the latest in the series of vibrant Indian shawls I've transformed. The turquoise silk stamped with gold feels protective, as blue often is, and reminded me of the tiny, vivid kingfishers (above) that we often spot.on our backwater boat rides in Cochin. My sister Flora helped me to attach, wind, and knot the tzitzit--the fringes--to each of the four corners of the tallit. As we worked, we talked about the differences in Ashkenazi and Sephardi methods of tying and their numerological interpretations. The number of knots and windings add up either to the letters of God's name (Yod Hay Vav Hay: Sephardi) or Adonai Ehad (Yod Hay Vav Hay, plus Ehad, God is One: Ashkenazi). Every letter of the Hebrew alphabet has a numerical value. The rabbis and mystics interpreted those values in complex ways (gematria). They explored the numerical value of the word tzitzit, (600), and added it to the number of threads (8) and double knots (5) in each corner. The total comes to--tada!--613, the number of positive mitzvot in the Torah.  Did I lose you? What does all this have to do with Tu B'Shevat, an ancient seasonal, fiscal new year for the trees? Today, Tu B'Shevat has become a contemporary Jewish Earth Day. Gematria extended its interpretive reach to Tu B'Shevat as well. The simple meaning of Tu is 15 (Tet is 9 and Vav is 6), so on the simple level it's just a date, the fifteenth of the month of Shevat. But when you attach the first Bet of B'Shevat to Tu, you get the word Tov, which means good. In India we called the holiday Tov Shevat, or Tob Shebat (there is no "v" sound in Arabic, which influenced our Hebrew pronunciation, so we pronounced Vet as Bet). On Tu B'Shevat, we celebrate nature around us as well as our innate natures. It is an opportunity to magnify the goodness in ourselves, to uplift the goodness in others, and to amplify goodness in the world. Happy Tov Shevat!  Above: A tiger butterfly drinks in the beauty of a Scarlet Jungleflame bush in Calcutta. Experience the wonders of India for yourself on one of our upcoming tours.
November 2026 February 2027 Learn more here
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