... Tu B'Shevat ...

... Recommend this holiday to a friend.

No pretense was ever made in early Jewish religious writings that Chamishah Asar B'Shevat was anything but an agricultural or "nature" festival ... there is not even one mention of it in the Bible ... It could be a survival of a very ancient festival of prehistoric times, when the Israelites were not yet monotheists but were animists or nature-worshipers ... In the Jewish calendar of the holy days, this holiday was accorded by the sages a very modest position as a semi-festival.

The first mention of Chamishah Asar B'Shevat, the day on which the Judean farmer used to figure the mandatory tithes (taxes) of his produce for the Temple ... was made in the Mishnah without attributing to it any historic or religious significance. Here it was clearly indicated as a festival of an agricultural character; it occurred at the time of first stirrings of new life in the earth that presaged the coming of Spring in Eretz Yisrael (the land of Israel). The Mishnah Fathers referred to it as Rosh Hashanah Lallanot… the New Year of the Trees.

But perhaps the real significance of Chamishah Asar B'Shevat ... is the manner in which it has been transformed ... (a particular talent of the Israelies) ... from an agricultural festival of the ancient inhabitants of Israel to a national tree-planting by the present-day inhabitants of Israel. It is now called Tu B'Shevat, with the phonic sound turepresenting in Hebrew the letters tetand vav, whose combined numerical value is fifteen; in Hebrew, chamishah asarmeans fifteen.

Since the final Dispersion of the Jews in 70 C.E. (after the Temple was destroyed), it became the custom of the "exiles" to taste all available fruits and nuts coming from Palestine; figs, dates, almonds, oranges, lemons, the fruit of the carob tree (St. John's bread, called boksherin Yiddish), etc ... And by eating of these fruits, the "exiles" could associate themselves in a physical sense with the land of their forefathers, they could, so to speak, taste the land.

A rather elaborate ritual for the celebration of this holiday was introduced by the Cabalists of Palestine in the seventeenth century ... On the eve that preceded the festival, during the rite of fruit- and nut-tasting (among the Cabalists, everything they did was ritualistic) ... they would read "between courses" excerpts from a "fruit-and-tree" anthology that was culled from the Bible, the Zohar, and other writings.

Symbolically, they tasted exactly fifteen fruit courses. Today in Israel, the same number of fruits and nuts ... figs, grapes, raisins, lemons, oranges, apples, bananas, almonds, cactus pears, etc ... are eaten, although mostly without benefit from the reading of the sacred texts. Today, many of the descendants of the old Cabalists celebrate the festival exactly the same way their forefathers did many centuries ago. How? On the eve preceding the holiday, they assemble in festive mood in their synagogues and yeshivas (yeshivot in modern Hebrew, talmudic academies) to sing, dance, and pray, and they do not disperse until the break of dawn.

Now on Tu B'Shevat, all the schoolchildren of Israel: in city, town, village, kibbutz, and moshav ... engage in a vast tree-planting operation. Despite the many millions of trees already planted in Israel, there is still in that country, which was denuded of cover ... and made arid by many centuries of ignorant neglect ... a desperate need for reforestation. Tu B'Shevat in modern Israel is therefore considered a national holiday with patriotic and social implications. By physically and emotionally involving all the children in the tree-planting operation, the Israelies use it as an educational instrument to make the children conscious of their nation's needs, and of their own responsibilities as future citizens, (and to future generations) in fulfillment of the Torah verse in Leviticus 19:23:

Leviticus 19:23-25 contains the following laws concerning fruit trees; You may not eat any fruit of a tree for the first three years of its growth. Then, in the fourth year, you must give all of the fruit to the priests. In the fifth year, you may eat the fruit yourself.

The fifteenth of the month of Shvat, Tu Bi'Shvat, is the New Year of Trees. Any tree planted during the year before Tu BiShvat became a year old on Tu Bi'Shvat, even if it was planted the day before. Equally important, despite some Talmudic disagreement, TuBi'Shvat was the first day for tax collectors to count buds on a tree to determine what the tithe for an orchard would be. Every year, one tenth of the crop went to the Temple. In ancient Israel, the days before Tu BiShvat were the busiest time of the year for planting trees. Farmers tried to beat the Tu BiShvat tax deadline, just as some people give to more charities in December, trying to beat the New Year tax deadline.

When Jews were exiled from the Land of Israel, they celebrated Tu Bi'Shvat by eating fruit grown in the Land of Israel. In the sixteenth century, Jewish mystics created a special Tu Bi'Shvat meal with the fruits taking on mystical meanings.

Many congregations now collect a wide variety of fruits and nuts, and everyone tastes them as part of a special meal.

We divide the fruit and nuts into four categories: fruit whose skin is edible, but have a pit in the middle; like some people, (sweet people on the outside, but a little nasty/mean/ill-tempered inside); fruit whose skin is inedible, but, once you get it off, the fruit inside is sweet and good (shy, maybe-damaged, but fundamentally good people); fruit that you can totally consume (wonderful people); fruit that has an inedible skin AND has pits inside (but you can still find some sweetness there if you look and are gentle...).

The rest of the article goes on to discuss the Jewish National Fund, and its contribution in building the modern state of Israel.

Here's an interesting interpretation of the fifteenth day of Shevat offered by Rabbi Abraham Twerski (also a medical doctor). He points out that this holiday "is designated in the Talmud as the "new year" for trees. On seeing trees burst into blossom, we are required to recite a prayer of gratitude to remind us that the beauty in the world is a Divine gift. It is something which must be not only appreciated, but used with reverence, reminiscent of its Giver.

"The beauty of the blossom should call forth the realization that G-d did not withhold anything in His world. The original world was the Garden of Eden, where man and all creatures could have lived in physical and spiritual delight.

"In our own limited way, we can partake of a 'perfect' world, even as it is now with all its apparent imperfections, which are the result of man deviating from the will of G-d. If we have full faith in G-d, and come closer to Him in spirituality, we become less vulnerable to the effects of the present world's defects."

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