Jewish Optimism and the Holiday of the Trees
Here is a Dry Bones cartoon about Tu B'Shvat, the holiday of the Trees, from 1997. It falls on February 2nd this year.
I am going to post the whole blog post that Yaakov made about it from January 2014, but I am updating the date of the holiday. There is alink at the bottom to Amazon, where you can look at the book, and his other books, and perhaps buy. It comes in both a kindle and a paperback edition.
Also, many have been asking after my health. So here is a bit of an update about that and the situation in Israel. I am thankful everyday that I didn't break anything when I fell, and for all of my blessings. It still hurts to move because of my rib injury, but it is much much better. The real aftereffect at the moment is that it feels like it knocked a lot of the "life force" and enthusiasm and energy out of me. But that also is getting much better. My doctor says it is normal with a hard hit at my age and that it just takes a long time.
Tu B'Shvat is the Jewish "New Year" of the trees. On Tu B'Shvat we plant trees For future generations. Tu is the number 15 in the biblical numbering system (which uses the letters of the Hebrew Alphabet). B' is Hebrew for "in". Shvat is the current month in the Hebrew calendar. So Tu B'Shvat simply means the "15th of Shvat".
This year Tu B'Shvat falls on February 2, this coming Monday.
I chose this "golden oldie" because it illustrates what I believe is a basic Jewish attitude. The blending of short-term pessimism and long-term optimism . . . packaged with a Judaic compulsion to heal the planet.
You can go to my Amazon author's page to see Trees, the Green Testament.
There you can "Look Inside" and if you like it (And why wouldn't you?) you can buy it and/or any of a book-shelf of other Dry Bones books at amazon.com/author/kirschen
In the UK it's www.bit.ly/drybonesbooks
Labels: holiday. Gaza, Optimism, Trees, Tu B'Shevat
Question: Are you an optimist like Mr. Shuldig or a pessimist like his dog Doobie?
If you think that the dimwit in today's cartoon is Alfred E. Newman from Mad Magazine, you'd be wrong. Harvey Kurtzman, a cartoonist, and the original editor and creator of Mad first spotted the image on a postcard pinned to the office bulletin board of the editor of Ballantine Books . The image had, for years been used on comic postcards. In 1965 Mad was sued for copyright infringement by the widow of cartoonist Harry Spencer Stuff. She claimed it was a copy of Stuff’s caricature “The Original Optimist,” also known as “Me-worry?”, which he had copyrighted in 1914.
"Self-Criticism" . . . 10 years ago this month! 
According to the LSW (Long Suffering Wife) I am wildly and irrationally optimistic about the future, I on the other hand, am constantly trying to pry her out of what she sees as "realism".After a "philosophical discussion" between the two of us in which I futilely tried to get her to see the current situation with a "positive attitude", I decided to draw this two-guys-talking cartoon. I hope that she, and others like her, will find this cartoon amusing, if not funny.
