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Question of the Week:
What famous tree reads at its base, "May the days of my peo-
ple be as the days of a tree"?
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pewniai pen!Ains oum uaippip Gyt `JDM ay Jaw - pio/cpnoo
euT u! Gall api Gyt paiuoid ()Lim ivalprio peuos!Jdw! Gyt of
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dwoo uollawapuop uot_woo Tpoisua!seiGLii JGWJOJ au' to eal v
LIIGAASILIV
•
Elizabeth Applebaum
AppleTree Editor
celebration.
Not mentioned in the written
Torah, Tu b'Shevat is known
etween the glow of
from its reference in the Talmud.
Chanuka at the end of
In the tractate of Rosh HaShana,
autumn and the exuber-
the rabbis discuss the business
ance of Purim at the beginning
of tithing. The Temple in ancient
of spring, the dark days of win-
Israel was supported by a sys-
ter don't offer much in the way
tem of mandatory contributions
of exceptional Jewish events.
from the then largely agrarian
Among the few bright days is
economy. Farmers were
the 15th of the month of Shevat,
required to tithe, or donate, a
known in Hebrew as Chamisha
certain percentage of their har-
Asar b'Shevat, or more com-
vest to the priests and Levites
monly, Tu b'Shevat ("Tu" is the
who maintained the workings o
the Temple and its daily ser-
vices.
Just as April 15 is the cutoff
date for taxes in modern Ameri-
ca, so, too, did ancient Israel
have its day of doom for tax-
payers. It was decided
that the tax year for
tree-borne fruit would
begin on the 15th of
Shevat. By then, the
rabbis reasoned, the
winter rains have
tapered off, the sap is
starting to rise in the
trees, and new fruit is beginning
acronym for 15 in Hebrew,
to form.
which traditionally uses letters as
In Parshat Kedoshim (Leviticus
numerals, thus forming words).
19:23-25), the Torah teaches
This year, Tu b'Shevat coincides
us that we may not harvest fruit
with Saturday, Jan. 22.
during the tree's first three years
In English, Tu b'Shevat often is
of production. How do we cal-
called the New Year of the
: culate these years? On Tu
Trees, or Jewish
b'Shevat,
Arbor Day. It's not
?.• IREMOZAVV
every tree is
a 2 a a al bl
really a holiday,
regarded as
as
but in the absence
another year
a la
of any other joyful
old — no mat-
event in the dead
Winter celebration
ter when in
of winter, many
plays off Jewish
the previous
people have
year it was
love of land.
turned it into a
planted. Thus,
B
Celebratin
Tu b'Shevat
Please see related story on the Jewish
National Fund, page 6
if a farmer planted a tree at any ;
time prior to the 15th of Shevat
— even on the 14th of Shevat
— come Tu b'Shevat, that tree
is called one more year old.
The tithing for fruit works like
this: If fruit was formed on a tree
any time between the previous Tu
b'Shevat and the present Tu
b'Shevat, that fruit is included in
the current year. If fruit is formed
between the current Tu b'Shevat
r.
and the next Tu b'Shevat, it is
assessed for the next year's tithing.
The laws of Tu b'Shevat apply
only in the Land of Israel, so Jew-
ish farmers in other parts of the
world need not set aside fruit.
There's nothing really earth-
shattering about Tu b'Shevat,
unless you're thrilled by basic
bookkeeping. Nonetheless, over
the generations, the rabbis have
attached spiritual significance to
the day, seeing new fruit as
symbolic of new hope, new
beginnings and new opportuni-
ties. Scholars of a kabbalistic
bent viewed Tu b'Shevat as a
day of great mystical signifi-
cance. They even devised a Tu
b'Shevat seder (a la Passover)
of multiple courses and foods.
In the early 1900s, the Jewish
National Fund, which at that
time was buying and develop-
ing land in Palestine for Jewish
settlement, seized upon Tu
b'Shevat for its marketing poten-
tial. Because the JNF improved
land by planting trees, it began
promoting Tu b'Shevat as the
ideal time to donate money for
the acquisition of land and the
planting of trees upon the rocky
soil of the ancient Jewish home-
land.
1/21
2000
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