The Yesh Atid party got off to an early start by holding a Tu B’Shevat celebration (seder) on Wednesday, five days before the holiday itself. The celebration included parliamentary advisers, members of Knesset, and people involved in the political faction.
Yesh Atid has since its inception held an annual Tu B’Shevat celebration in what has become a party tradition. The celebration is led each year by MK Aliza Lavie.
Party leader Yair Lapid opened the celebration with holiday themed remarks. “There is a passage in Isaiah (65:22): ‘for as the days of a tree are the days of my people.’ Tu B’Shevat is a holiday about patience. It isn’t just about planting and growing trees. For what is planting and growing trees, if not a lesson in patience. This holiday is a lesson for all of us to have patience. A person knows that they plant a small seed one day and little by little it grows. You stand around it, are there for it, nurture it and it grows.”
Applying that lesson to the faction, Lapid said, “we too are still a sapling. Yesh Atid began just four years ago, and has grown very nicely. It is a nice holiday. No one killed anyone else on this holiday, it is about patience.”
Lapid said that the holiday is a lesson against the culture of instant gratification. “Instead of understanding that there are movements and trends which take time, and that to create a country and a homeland and a proper Israeli society is a complex process which takes nurturing, planting and growing, everyone wants to get the headline that proves that they know how to build the country in two minutes. You can’t do it two minutes.”
“It takes responsibility and understanding that we are all here together, working together. It is like growing a tree. Therefore, as the days of a tree so are the days of my people.”
Lapid closed his statement by wishing everyone a happy holiday.
MK Aliza Lavie picked up where the head of the faction left off. “Tu B’Shevat is an Israeli holiday. A holiday that symbolizes renewal and sprouting. It is no surprise, therefore, that this has become a tradition for Yesh Atid. This is the third year that we are having a seder. In times such as these, it is of the utmost importance that we all celebrate our Israeli identity together.”
