RABBI TSIPORA GABAI

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Tu-Bishvat

Ki ha’adam etz Hasadeh— Every Human is a tree of the field

The holiday of Tu-Bishvat is known as the “Birthday of the Trees.” Our spiritual life unfolds not only in books, learning and the products of mind, but also powerfully in the majesty of nature.

Trees are a metaphor for the bustling, branching life of the spirit and the mind. The Torah is an etz chaim, a tree of life.

There is no Jewish holiday as rooted in the land of Israel as is Tu–Bishvat. This holiday established boundaries between winter and spring; it heralds the awakening of nature and its return of life anew.

In the period of the mishna and Talmud, that period in which this holiday is first mentioned, our ancestors lived a life ruled by agriculture. They lived according to the vagaries and changes of nature. They experienced the changes that occur in the month of Sh’vat in a tangible way. From that time until the period of the crusades this holiday had a religious significance. It was celebrated as a religious festival, and associated with it were unique prayers and piyutim (religious poems) especially the prayer for a blessed year.

In the 16th century, with the arrival in Israel of the Kabbalists who were driven from Spain and Portugal in the wake of the expulsion following the Spanish Inquisition, Tu-Bishvat underwent a conversion of sorts in the calendar of our religious institutions. From the center of Kabbalists, in Tzfat the New Year for Trees was renewed and reestablished.

Rabbi Isaac Luria proclaimed Tu-Bishvat as a day of eating fruit as a symbol of our participation in the joy of trees. From that time the custom was established to come together as a community in festival attire to eat fruit, sing songs, and plant trees.

The modern era brought with it a new development: earmarking the holiday as an appropriate date on which to plant trees. This custom of tree-planting dates from the early 1900s. Its founders were the educators of Israel, and those who fell in love with the land and its beautiful scenery. They sought to renew it as in the days of old, to make the wilderness bloom, by establishing tree-planting ceremonies, planting many hundreds trees on Tu-Bishvat.

Tu-Bishvat is a day that expresses man (Adam) connection to the earth, Adam, the primal man, takes his name from Adamah, meaning earth, a primal substance.

Let us renew the tradition of the Tu-B’shvat seder, let us sit together in groups and in communities, from different religious strains, let us rejoice together in the joy of the trees. Let us follow the lead of Rabbi Isaac Luria, and cultivate our cultural landscape – plant trees anew. Let us care for the environment of our physical and spiritual homes.