Tu B’Shvat Reception in New York State’s Capital

Albany’s Shliach Rabbi Yisroel Rubin co-sponsored, with Speaker of the House Sheldon Silver, a Tu B’shvat Reception by the New York State Legislative Chamber, with fruit displays arranged by Albany’s Maimonides-Bnos Chaya Girls High School. This year Senator Kristen Gillibrand from Washington also attended.

Rabbi Rubin was then invited to deliver the invocation opening the Assembly, in which he noted the tree-like formation of the New York State Thruway.

“A tree is poetic, beautifully dressed green in spring & summer. But what does a Tree’s bare skeleton show in the cold of winter? The Tree’s skeleton resembles a familiar Road Map, a trunk branching out, into big and then smaller branches, its offshoots dividing into big, then smaller twigs.

Our 87 Thruway comes up from NYC as the trunk, dividing at Albany into its tall Northway branch, and the horizontal I-90 as its longest branch, later branching off into highways, parkways and country roads, into city streets, lanes and driveways all across our state.

A-lmighty G-d, may this distinguished Assembly enact laws to revive, nourish, grow and bear fruit, reaching out to all on the highways and byways of this Great State”

Assemblyman David Weprin spoke about going to Shabbos House, at Chabad at University of Albany: