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A Time For
Almond Blossoms

GYMNASTICS

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Celebrate Tu b’Shevat, the new year of trees.

ELIEZER FINKELMAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

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hile people in Michigan
have snow on the ground
and sub-freezing tem-
peratures in the air, in Israel, people
can already detect the first hints of
spring. The iconic first hint: when
pretty white flowers appear on
almond trees. That early-blooming
almond tree generally coincides
with the 15th of Shevat in the
Hebrew calendar, give or take a few
days
Fifteen, using the numerical
value of the Hebrew letters, comes
to tet-vav, pronounced “tu,” hence
“Tu b’Shevat.” This year, the holiday
begins the evening of Wednesday,
Jan. 31.
The day of the first visible sign
of progress toward a new tree
crop seemed appropriate to begin
counting the year for orchardists,
according to the rabbis of Beit Hillel
as recorded in the Mishnah (Rosh
Hashanah 1:1). Their ruling means
that, for tax purposes, the arbor-
ists’ year has closed. Farmers have
harvested the last crops of the previ-
ous year, the olives and dates. They
must use the required percentage of
the harvested fruit for their pilgrim-
age to Jerusalem and to support the
Kohen, the Levite and the poor. As
the arborists’ year opens, almond
trees, destined to produce the fruits
much later in high summer, are just
showing signs of renewal.
The Hebrew name for the almond
(sha-KED) and for the tree (Eitz
haSha-KED or shkaydiYAH) coinci-
dentally has the same root letters as
a verb meaning “to be eager, alert,

awake, diligent, ready to act.”
The Bible makes a pun on that
coincidence. After a frightening
vision of destruction, the prophet
Jeremiah then sees an almond
branch, which he understands to
mean that the destruction will come
soon (1:12-13). If he spoke English,
he would never have understood the
message; he spoke Hebrew, so he
recognized that the almond signifies
“eagerness.” Perhaps the name of the
almond tree is not a coincidence,
and it is “so called for its early wak-
ing out of winter’s sleep” (Rabbi
David Kimhi).
The almond tree needs plenty
of water, about a gallon for each
single almond. It needs cool winters
and hot, dry summers, like Israel’s
climate. In the Bible, when Jacob
needs to send a valuable pres-
ent to a powerful ruler in Egypt,
he includes a few almonds in the
gift (Genesis 43:11). The wealthy
Egyptian would appreciate the
imported delicacy.
The past five winters Israel has
experienced elevated temperatures
and unusually light rainfall, prob-
ably symptoms of global climate
change. Hebrew periodicals describe
the effect as making almond trees
“crazy” or “fooling them” into
blooming prematurely — sometimes
as early as October — and then pos-
sibly not blooming at all around Tu
b’Shevat.
Jews around the world celebrate
the holiday by eating fruit, especial-
ly fruit that grows in Israel. In Israel,
schoolchildren plant trees. •