Thinking towards Tu B'Sh'vat

Tu B'Shevat, the 15th day of the Jewish month of Shevat/Sh'vat, is a holiday also known as the New Year for Trees. The word "Tu" is not really a word; it is the number 15 in Hebrew, as if you were to call the Fourth of July "Iv July" (IV being 4 in Roman numerals).

One of the most fun tricks I would pull on my Hebrew School students, every year, was to begin the class closest to Tu B'Shevat with a riddle (said verbally of course): When does tu (sounding of course like two) equal fifteen? Their creative answers were highly amusing, but none of them ever got it correct.

Just as we have a calendar year (Jan-Dec), a school year (Sept-May/June), and many businesses run on their own fiscal years, Judaism has several different "new years."

Tu B'Sh'vat is the new year for calculating the age of trees, for the purposes of fulfilling the laws of tithing and respect for living, growing organisms. I would be remiss if I did not also mention that, as with many of our holidays, Tu B’Shvat has pagan origins and dates back to worship of Asherah, the goddess of fertility, whose spirit resided in trees. There was a special festival in honor of Asherah halfway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox, which usually occurred during the month of Shevat.

Tu B'Sh'vat is celebrated with songs and sometimes a seder, and trees are often planted to honor or memorialize loved ones. Tu b'Shevat has also become a day of commitment to protecting the environment. In years past, Shari and I would adopt an olive tree in Italy for Tu B'Sh'vat. I might do that again this year in addition to the Friday eve special seder and spending Shabbat in meditation, perhaps knit a cabled tree something, since Tu B'Sh'vat falls not just on Shabbat this year, but also on the yahrtzeit of someone very dear to someone very dear to me.

There are many small customs associated with this day. One custom is to eat a new fruit on this day, or to eat from the Seven Species (shivat haminim) described in the Bible as being abundant. The Shivat Haminim are: wheat, barley, grapes (vines), figs, pomegranates, olives and dates (honey) (Deut. 8:8).

It is a great day to eat vegetarian...a nice vegetarian pilaf from the shivat haminim, and a dessert of stuffed dates!

In the 16th century, masters of Kabbalah (the receiving) developed a seder ritual conceptually similar to the more well-known one, the Passover seder, discussing the spiritual significance of fruits and of the shivat haminim. This custom spread primarily in Sephardic communities, and since I follow Sephardic customs more than Ashkenaz, I mark this day with a fun evening seder.

Seder, by the way, only means "order." In the classroom, when I asked if students had understood what I had said and it was "ordered" in their minds, I would say, "B'seder?"

The intention of the Tu B’Shvat seder is also to make an idea concrete. The idea is that G!d is the source of all life, so every tiny piece of creation – a raisin, a walnut, a peach – is infinitely valuable. Since nature is a grand web in which everything is connected to everything else, every small action that humans do reverberates all over the universe.

The most fun part of the Tu B'Sh'vat seder is that it is a word play.  The Jewish view of the tree as a symbol and metaphor of Torah (the Tree of Life) and G!d (the Tree of the S'phirot) is what stirred the Kabbalists of Tzfat to involve themselves with Tu B'Shvat. There are so many metaphors and mystical meanings we can extract from Tu B’Sh’vat!! It’s quite deep and awesome, and occurs in what is considered to many to be deep winter. The trees are at their most dormant. Sap has not yet begun to flow. Much of vegetation is comatose.

If we look at a calligraphic version of a tree in the cycle of its life using the Yud as a tiny seed; the Heh, a flowing, curving expanse of roots; the Vav, a tall trunk; and the Heh, a flowing, curving expanse of branches, and from the branches and their fruit comes the new seed, the new Yud, we see that the tree, like the Yud Heh Vav Heh, always begins anew.

And this graphically presents what G!d said to Moses at the burning bush (tree): “Not only is my Name Yud Heh Vav Heh; it is also, I am also, Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh. I Am Becoming What I Am Becoming."

More than any other Jewish festival, Tu B’Shvat is the celebration of Becoming. There is no halakha, no legal structure, to define it. It springs wholly from the spiritual depth and growth of one’s soul in relation with The One, Who always beckons us to growth, and to be mindful of our relationship with the earth.

Of all the holidays, truly, I love Tu B'Sh'vat the most. It goes way beyond a "Jewish Earth Day" or Arbor Day. I can really get deep into the "roots" of Tu B'Sh'vat and get lost in the mystical meanderings....

This year, it begins sundown February 10th and ends at sundown Feb 11th, which is also a shabbat, so a double joy! A double simcha!

We are each a tree of life. We, like G!d, are always becoming what we are becoming, with the intention that our becomings are more G!d-like.

May it be so.