Happy New Year (for the trees, that is)

Christmas and Arbor Day are not the only holidays to celebrate the tree. Tomorrow  millions will celebrate Tu B’Shevat, a Jewish holiday that marks a new year for trees. This year it falls on February 7, beginning at nightfall and continuing for 24 hours. It is roughly this time of year that the earliest-blooming trees in Israel emerge from their winter sleep and begin a new fruit-bearing cycle. 

When’s the last time you wished a tree Happy New Year? The 15th day of the Hebrew month of Shevat is a great opportunity. It’s known as Tu B’Shevat, the New Year for Trees. Why do trees celebrate their New Year so much later than ours? It has to do with the rainy season in Israel, which commences with the festival of Sukkot. It takes four months for the rains to saturate the soil, nurture the trees and coax them into producing fruit. 

Legally, the “New Year for Trees” relates to the various tithes that are separated from produce grown in the Holy Land. This is important to know if you are planning to give your tithes of fruits, as is done in the Land of Israel, because the required tithes vary from year to year. In the seven-year shemittah cycle; the point at which a budding fruit is considered to belong to the next year of the cycle is the 15th of Shevat.  It’s also important if you are a tree and looking for something to celebrate.

We humans can also celebrate along with the treesWe humans can also celebrate along with the trees. Observant Jews mark the day of Tu B’Shevat by eating fruit, particularly from the kinds that are singled out by the Torah in its praise of the bounty of the Holy Land: grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives and dates. On this day they remember that “man is a tree of the field” (Deuteronomy 20:19) and reflect on the lessons to be derived from the botanical analogue: 
 We are nurtured by deep roots; we reach upwards to the heavens while standing firmly on the ground; and when we do all this right, we produce fruits that benefit the world—namely, our good deeds.

Traditional Observances:

The blessing on fruit:
Ba-ruch atah Ado-nai, Elo-hei-nu me-lech ha-olam, borei pri ha-etz.
[Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, who creates the fruit of the tree.]


More spiritual information can be found here: http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/3264/jewish/Tu-BShevat.htm