ELECTRONIC NEWSLETTER
American Friends of Neot Kedumim
Tu B'Shvat 5770
January 2010
The New Year of the Trees
Happy Tu B'Shvat!
The almond is the first fruit tree to come to life
The New Year of the Trees, the 15 th of the Hebrew month of Shvat, falls this year on January 30, 2010.
Why are we celebrating the tree holiday in the middle of the winter, which is still freezing in many parts of the world and even in Israel can be cold and rainy? Why don't we wait til spring, when the wildflowers dot the fields with yellow and red and purple and most fruit trees have awakened from their winter dormancy?
In order to answer that question, we have to look at the long and varied evolution of Tu B'Shvat, which has changed its form and customs over the millenia and vicissitudes of Jewish history.
Stage 1: Paying the Fruit Tithe
Tu B'Shvat began not as a holiday, but as the date marking the end and the beginning of the tax year for fruit. In the days of the Temple, the farmers in Israel were taxed to support the priests, the levites, and the poor. Since the fruit tithe was paid on each year's produce (like our annual income tax on each year's earnings), the farmers needed a cut-off date marking which fruit belonged to each year.
But why the 15 th of Shvat?
"The trees begin to drink and grow." (Rav Hai Gaon)
Shvat is still winter in Israel, but in the course of the month, a few weeks after the winter solstice, subtle changes start heralding the coming warm, dry season. The days are getting longer and the sun stronger. With the gradual warming of the earth and the water it has absorbed during the first months of the rainy season, the fruit trees start ingesting water and nutrients from the soil. The first tree to respond to this invisible process is the almond—like someone who can get along on four hours of sleep a night while others need eight. While most fruit trees are still "asleep," the almond bursts into bloom, seemingly overnight, around Tu B'Shvat, and its beautiful pink and white flowers cover the landscape. The Hebrew name for almond, shaked, means "quick, wakeful, alert."
The 15 th of Shvat became known as the date when the trees start "drinking" the water of the current year: "Until this day, the trees live off the past year's water; from this day on, they live off the this year's water" (Jerusalem Talmud, Rosh Hashana 1, 2). Thus fruit that formed before Tu B'Shvat was seen as using the previous year's rainwater and taxed with the previous year's produce; fruit that formed after Tu B'Shvat was seen as using the current year's rainwater and tithed with the current year's produce. (And since in Israel most fruit forms in the summer, there was little chance of confusion.)
Stage 2: Eating the Fruit of the Land
The next stage brings us to the scattering of the Jews throughout Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa after the Roman destruction of the Temple and conquest of Jerusalem in the first and second centuries CE.
Although few long to pay taxes, it was apparently longing for the absent physical connection to the land that gave rise to the Diaspora custom of eating Israel's fruits on Tu B'Shvat (usually the dried grapes, dates, and carobs of the previous year, since the current year's fruit has not yet formed).
The exact origin of Tu B'Shvat customs is unclear, but by the 16 th century the tradition of eating fruit from Israel was popular in Germany and Eastern Europe and later spread to Western Europe and North Africa.
Stage 3: Tu B'Shvat Seder
The Kabbalists in Safed developed Tu B'Shvat rituals reflecting the uncultivated landscapes that surrounded them in 16 th and 17 th century Israel. Israel's natural vegetation shows a clear color progression in the course of the year. The first wildflowers to appear are white or pale lavender or pink—the white squill at the end of the summer, followed by fall crocuses with the first rains, then cyclamen, narcissus, and white anemone. Red anemones follow, and various types of tulips. Toward Passover, red buttercups and poppies predominate. The fruit trees also progress from white to red: first the pale, bare branches of the dormant trees in early winter, then the white and pink almond blossoms around Tu B'Shvat. Bright red pomegranate flowers start blooming around Passover.
|
|
|
| White squill |
Crocus |
Cyclamen
|
 |
|
|
| Anemone |
Buttercup |
Poppy |
This transition from white to red coloration in the landscape, with Tu B'Shvat marking the mid-point, impressed itself deeply on the spirit of the Kabbalists, who saw closeness to nature as a way of apprehending the Creator and often prayed and meditated out in the fields. Their Tu B'Shvat seder included four cups of wine—the first white, the second white with a bit of red, the third half white and half red, and the fourth mostly red with a bit of white—reflecting the color cycle they saw in Israel's nature.
Stage 4: "Here every tree is precious."
The early 20th-century pioneers who came to the land of Israel brought with them the tradition of eating fruit on Tu B'Shvat, and the deep desire to translate the symbolic ceremony into planting trees with their own hands.
The tradition of planting on Tu B'Shvat, carried out annually by hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren and others throughout the country, became a firmly established custom.
The poet Shaul Tchernichovsky, who came to the land of Israel from Russia in 1931, in the last year of his life (1943) wrote a Tu B'Shvat letter to the children of Israel, excerpted here:
Dear children,
…You come from far-away countries, where there are lots of trees, and thick forests that have been standing forever…That is not the case in Eretz Israel, where there is more sun than shade. Here every tree is precious. How happy we are with every new tree we plant! With hard work and great patience, we wait for each tree to grow, and count each and every one.
You, children, are like those trees—very, very precious…We hope you will strike roots deep, deep in the soil of our homeland, and no wind in the world will move you from your place. Hold tightly to every clump of earth clinging to your roots—and you will never be uprooted!
|
Stage 5: Stewardship of the Land
The latest stage in the evolution of Tu B'Shvat is learning and practicing ideas on ecology in the Jewish tradition—the value of biodiversity, human responsibility for preserving the goodness of Creation, wise use of the land.
Neot Kedumim has created its own Seder Tu B'Shvat: A Celebration of Israel's Seasons and of Ecology in the Jewish Tradition. The seder is published in a colorful booklet designed to be used at the table, for small or large multi-generational groups. The seder revolves around "drinking" Israel's seasons with white and red wine, and human responsibility to protect the earth's bounteous ability to nurture all life.
ordering information |
