The Adams Street Shul

 
Tu B'Shvat, 5766:

Tu B'Shvat Seder with Rabbi David Maayan

Handout
(A "haggadah" for Tu B'Shvat ---
print this for reference while listening.)

The audio file of the class has been broken into sections,
and the sections are described below for convenient reference. 
However, the sections other than Erev Shel Shoshanim
should be heard in sequence for coherence.

introductory remarks
(2 minutes; MP3 audio file: 0.5 MB)

Evening of roses
Let us go out to the grove
Myrr, fragrant spices and incense
Are a threshold for your feet

Night falls slowly
And the wind of roses is blowing
Let me whisper you a song, secretly
A song of love

Dawn, a dove is cooing
Your head is filled with dew
Your mouth is a rose unto the morning
I will pick it for myself

Night falls slowly
And the wind of roses is blowing
Let me whisper you a song, secretly
A song of love

We begin our seder with a melody:

Erev Shel Shoshanim (sung wordlessly)
(3 minutes; MP3 audio file: 1 MB)

Erev Shel Shoshanim is an Israeli song written by Josef Hadar (music) and Moshe Dor (lyrics).  Many people in the United States came to know and love it from recordings by Harry Belafonte and Miriam Makeba in the 1960s, or from a version sung by the Oranim Zabar Israeli folksong group on an Elektra recording made in the late 1950's. 

Erev Shel Shoshanim is Copyright 1956, by Moshe Dor and Josef Hadar, Tel-Aviv, Israel; yet the song has become so familiar that in many cases it is performed with credits that erroneously read "Israeli folksong" or "traditional" or even "public domain".  In this respect it is similar to Israel Goldfarb's setting of "Shalom Aleichem". 

On the left is an English translation of the Hebrew lyrics.