Tu b’Shevat: horticulture, minhag and halachah

Tu b’Shevat higiah, chag ha’ilanot – Tu b’Shevat has arrived, the festival of the trees.” (A popular Hebrew folk song dating back to the pre-State of Israel era.)

Those who received their earliest Jewish education in Australia in the late 1940s and the 1950s might well recall the many Israeli (or should one say Palestinian, for such was their nationality on their passports) Hebrew-speaking kindergarten teachers whose Zionist background led them to treat Tu b’Shevat (Shevat 15) as one of the most significant of our holidays.
We all received a good grounding regarding kibbutz (and mo-shav) life and the agricultural elements of the fledgling Israeli economy – especially oranges. We learnt and sang songs such as the one whose words appear above. And on Tu b’Shevat together with those teachers or the then madrichim of the Zionist youth movements, some visited the hachsharah farm in outer suburban Melbourne and of course we planted trees in school and shule grounds (few of which, sadly, survived). In fact it would be some years before Yom Ha’atzmaut overtook Tu b’Shevat as the date for celebrating Israel.

But of course Tu b’Shevat, as per the above cited Mishnah is essentially for halachic purposes the new year for trees. Given that it falls in the midst of the northern winter when deciduous fruit bearing trees are bare, it serves as an appropriate date for the division of seasons for halachic purposes particularly those relating to tithing and the law of orlah, the prohibition of eating the produce of a fruit tree during the first three years of its growth.
In that context, in the Diaspora where such laws (other than orlah) hardly applied and as for so many life and livelihoods generally ceased to be horticulturally based, as is so often the case regarding halachah where a hiatus leaves space, in this instance too minhag came to supplant halachah.

Thus custom seeking preservation of the date’s significance adopted the eating of fruit, especially fruits of Israel, as a key practice. Emphasis was placed on figs, grapes, pomegranates, olives and dates – as well as the etrog which was not discarded after Succot, but made into preserves eaten on Tu b’Shevat. And where fresh fruit were not available dried figs, dates and raisins filled the gap. That is the origin of the custom widely adopted even today to consume dried fruits even as fresh fruits are now available.
However, more recently the significance of Tu b’Shevat has expanded beyond its halachic implications and ceremonies associated with eating fruit to making it the festival of nature lovers and environmentalists – whose philosophies also have a place in our religious thought and practice.

Interestingly even the sages of the Talmud saw a connection between Tu b’Shevat and the annual rainfall cycle; there is reference in the Talmud to Tu b’Shevat being set at the time when “rov gishmei hashanah – most of the rainfall of the year” (that in Israel falls only in winter) has actually occurred.
I suggest however that there is another aspect to consider relevant to celebration of trees and farming. As indicated above, its origins relate to the agricultural halachot which make up one sixth of the Mishnah – the Order of “Zeraim”. Today we tend to forget the extent of the relationship between agriculture, the agricultural cycle and halachah. But perhaps the following might awaken realisation of its significance.

When it comes to the Shalosh Regalim, the biblical pilgrimage festivals, we emphasise historical aspects. But in fact the Torah sees them very much as agricultural. Pesach is at the time of the barley harvest (hence the Omer ceremony), Shavuot the time of the wheat harvest (hence the ceremony of the Shtei Halechem – two loaves) and Succot, Chag Ha’asif is the festival of ingathering, at summer’s end.

In fact our whole calendar – the basis of the Jewish life cycle – is agriculturally based. Today a leap year is part of the fixed calendric cycle but originally it was up to the Sanhedrin to declare if a year was to be a leap year. And if such was the case, Pesach was delayed by a month. Think about it! Pesach is the strictest festival in our calendar with severe sanctions for consumption of chametz such that even today those not so particular about kashrut elements year round are very particular come Pesach. And yet when does this Pesach occur? It is at the mercy of the Sanhedrin – if they saw that as a result of the lunar/solar year discrepancy it was falling too close to winter and the barley would not be ripe in time for offering the omer, they delayed Pesach by a month! And all the other festivals that follow a specific timetable based on months beginning with that in which Pesach falls – even Yom Kippur with all its strictness – would then be similarly delayed. Indeed agriculture is a key to our calendar and so much law and custom.

And I might add another point as well. Reference to the mishnah cited above tells us that the actual date of the new year for trees is the subject of debate between Hillel and Shammai. In this case – as in the case of the order of lighting Chanukah lights with which we were so recently concerned – the halachah follows the ruling of Beit Hillel. The lesson that halachah almost always follows rulings of Beit Hillel has widespread ramification – again in some ways an outcome of practise of Tu b’Shevat that goes far beyond not reciting tachanun and eating fruit.

Nevertheless despite the earlier significance of agriculture to Jewish life that led to the first of the six sections of the Mishnah expounding agricultural law, in the most recent millennium of Jewish life, when even if Jews were farmers, they lived mainly outside Israel so that the majority of those laws had no bearing on their lives. Hence later Codes including the Tur (c.1300) and Shulchan Aruch (c.1550) did not pay much attention to those laws. (Even the fourth/fifth century Babylonian Talmud compiled outside our land lacks gemarah for almost all of that section of Mishnah.)

However, even in post Beit Hamikdash times many halachot do apply to produce grown in Eretz Yisrael. Hence study of those laws, relevant research and writing, and in many cases implementation have however had a renaissance since the return of Jews to our land and the re-establishment of Jewish agriculture across our homeland. In that context Tu b’Shevat gained new meaning. That aside, Sephardic, Kabbalistic and more recently Chassidic circles have developed elaborate ceremonies to accompany the consumption of fruits – especially those referred to in the Torah as the blessing of our land –– all of which are designed to emphasise the significance of our biblical homeland and its produce.

Here in Australia we are in the midst of the summer. Searing heat and bushfires characterise our days rather than the rain and cold snaps prevalent in Israel at this time And for us it is the season of stone fruits galore as well as so many others. That aside, modern preserving technology and ease of transport across the globe, let alone across different climatic regions within Australia, means that seasonal differences in the availability of fruit are nowhere near as pronounced as they once were. Hence we are particularly fortunate regarding the variety of fresh fruit we can acquire to celebrate this date.

But even in Australia more than 70 years ago, long before many of the varieties with which we are now familiar had even been thought of, availability of fruit at this time facilitated celebration of Tu b’Shevat with a variety of fresh fruits.

Years ago, I heard from a group of post-Holocaust refugees who happened to arrive here on Tu b’Shevat in the immediate post-war era, how absolutely amazed they were to be greeted with an offering of a platter of so many varieties of fresh fruit of which they could not even have dreamed in Europe where so many varieties were unknown and shortages and rationing were still widespread even after the war was over.

Shabbat shalom,

Yossi