New Year for Trees

(also known as Tu bi-Shevat or Ḥamishah Asar bi-Shevat, i.e., 15 Shevat, its Hebrew date, or Rosh ha-Shanah la-Ilanot, the New Year for Trees). Arbor Day, a minor festival in the Jewish calendar. The festival is not mentioned in the Bible and is first referred to in the late Second Temple period. This special day arose as a fixed cut-off date for assessing the Tithe levied on the produce of fruit trees. Fruit grown before the New Year for Trees would be included in the grower's calculations for the old year, while all produced after that date would be taxed for the following year. The Mishnah (RH 1:1) records a debate between the schools of Hillel and Shammai concerning the date for the festival. Both schools agree on the month of Shevat as the time when the winter's departure is signaled by the first tentative signs of rewakened growth in nature; but while the school of Shammai proclaimed 1 Shevat as the correct date, Hillel's disciples maintained that it should be 15 Shevat. This argument may reflect the difference in economic status between the two schools: the Hillelites, being the poorer, would have had experience with land which was slower in its recovery from the winter. In any event, in confirming the 15th of the month as the New Year for Trees, the rabbis brought this minor holiday in line with two other agricultural festivals---Passover and Sukkot---which are also celebrated in the middle of the month. With the destruction of the Second Temple, the laws of tithing were no longer relevant, since they did not apply outside the Holy Land. Yet this minor festival lived on, having acquired a somewhat different meaning. Wherever Jews lived, it helped to preserve their connection with Erets Israel. Even when they were surrounded by the winter snows of exile, Tu bi-Shevat reminded them of the sunnier climate in their ancient homeland. It was retained in the calendar as a day on which Fasting was prohibited and the penitential Taḥanun prayers were omitted as inappropriate to such an occasion. During the 15th century, new ceremonies and rituals marking the New Year for Trees were instituted by the mystics of Safed. Under the influence of Isaac Luria, it became customary to celebrate the festival with gatherings at which prescribed fruits were eaten and specially written hymns and Scriptural passages were recited in praise of the Holy Land and its produce. The ceremony included drinking four cups of wine, as at the Passover Seder. This liturgy became popular among Sephardi communities in Europe and Muslim lands, and appropriate readings were published in a work entitled Peri Ets Hadar ("Goodly Fruit"), first printed in 1753.Among the various fruits traditionally eaten on Tu bi-Shevat, pride of place was given to that of the carob tree, which grew extensively throughout ancient Erets Israel. Also of special significance to the festival was the almond tree, the first to blossom in Israel after the winter; by the middle of Shevat, it is usually in full bloom, heralding the arrival of spring. In modern Israel, hundreds of thousands of new saplings are planted on Tu bi-Shevat, when schoolchildren are encouraged to participate in this activity.

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