New York Speaker of the House Sheldon Silver and Chabad-Lubavitch of the Capital District director Rabbi Yisroel Rubin hosted a reception in honor of Tu B’Shevat, the Jewish New Year of Trees.

The 15th day of the Hebrew month of Shevat marks the season in which the earliest-blooming trees in the Holy Land begin a new fruit-bearing cycle. It’s celebrated throughout the world with meals drawn from the seven types of fruits and grains named in the Torah as Israel’s defining produce.

In Albany, the party in the New York State Legislative Chamber included fruit displays arranged by the Maimonides-B’nos Chaya Girls High School and drew the attendance of U.S. Sen. Kristen Gillibrand.

Afterwards, Rubin delivered the invocation at the Legislative Assembly’s session, noting the tree-like formation of the New York State Thruway.

“A tree is poetic, beautifully dressed green in spring and 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,” said Rubin. “Almighty 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.”