The Jewish New Year of the Trees, Tu B’Shevat starts on Wednesday, Feb. 12
Rabbi Wolf Zitomirer was an innkeeper in a village. A Jewish wagon driver entered and asked for a glass of wine. When he was about to drink it without saying a blessing, the rabbi stopped him and asked, “Do you realize all that God had to do so that the grapes would grow and people could make wine?” The man then said the blessing, and the rabbi answered, “Amen!” (Attributed to Meorot HaGedolim)
The thing is…what happens if we don’t notice nature all around us?
What if I hadn’t retrieved one nearly frozen caterpillar?
He would have become frozen food—a winter snack for a bird, squirrel, or mouse. Not a bad thing in the web of life.
What else resulted from noticing that one caterpillar?
He inspired many A-Ha! moments. Caring for “Spot” changed me on a different level. I internalized how similar we are in structures, functions, and communication, to all living creatures. All living beings are related. The miracle of life itself is our common connection.
How does this relate to Tu B’Shevat? Although most traditional cultures mark the end of winter, it was more than 2,000 years ago that our Jewish ancestors began to celebrate spring. Shevat marks the beginning of the agricultural season in Galilee. Centuries later, Hillel declared that the New Year of Trees would consistently happen on the 15th—the full moon—of the month of Shevat.
Hillel advised refraining from harvesting local fruits until their trees matured over three years. “Donate the fourth year’s fruits for charity and taxes. After that, you may have their fruit.”
I read that young Hillel was a woodchopper. I suspect he was hired to cut trees for a variety of reasons: to remove those diseased or dead, cut for firewood or clear land for building. He probably noticed their differences.
Hillel might have discerned that some trees, like spring’s earliest flowering almond trees, have bitter fruit. We open the hard seed and eat the almond nut inside. Other fruits have soft, edible parts covering a hard, inedible pit, like olives and dates. The third kind of fruits are soft so we can eat the whole fruit—like the figs abundant here in Tidewater. Hillel must have looked closely to notice and appreciate similarities and differences among all the trees. We can, too.
Shortly after the founding of Earth Day in 1970, Jewish people realized, hey, we do that! We began to infuse Tu B’Shevat with environmental awareness by including these different kinds of fruits and the grains prevalent in Eretz Yisroel. Kind of a “Back to the Future” thing.
Tu B’Shevat is now considered a festival of nature, full of wonder, joy, and thankfulness for creation in anticipation of the renewal of the natural world. During this festival, Jews recall the sacred obligation to care for the world, and the responsibility to share the fruits of the earth with all.
–ReformJudaism.org
Tu B’Shevat is a time to stop, look, and appreciate the natural world around us. Even in our back yards. While in Israel the rainy season is winding down, here it’s still winter. We may have snow, rain, or sunshine—sometimes all in the same day.
But things are happening. Rain soaks the ground and initiates a shift in the internal pressure in tree roots, creating sap, which for trees is like our blood. Each day gets a little longer. Longer days and the warmth of sunshine on trees starts the sap rising. Once it reaches limbs and twigs, buds start to grow. Even a brief thaw begins to swell them.
If we look carefully, we can see the swelling buds. On Tu B’Shevat, we say the tree’s life cycle begins again. The leaves will soon give off oxygen and absorb carbon dioxide from the air. That’s something to celebrate!
There are other signs that spring is coming. The bare trees helped me notice the returning bluebirds. What I would miss if I didn’t see them! What if none of us noticed the bits of nature before us every day? Would it all disappear? What if we stopped noticing Nature at all?
To a large degree, we have. Political changes threaten the safety of the air and water we need to live. A widespread willingness to desecrate natural places, like the unspoiled arctic wilderness and oxygen-giving Amazon depresses me. Tu B’Shevat has become associated with the more widely experienced Earth Day, which will have its 55th anniversary this April 22. Recognizing both brings me some hope that this could still change. We must turn back to honoring the lessons of our ancestors and all those today who recognize the gifts of God and nature that sustain us and all life.
We protect what we love. We love what we come to know, like I got to know the tiny caterpillar that became a beautiful butterfly.
Even in these cold months, look for all the small signs of life. Bundle up and go outdoors. Take a walk in one of our beautiful parks and natural areas. Notice the trees in your neighborhood. Are they budding? Listen to the birds. Download an app like Cornell’s Merlin to identify their songs. Put out some peanuts, suet, bird seed, and fresh water. Notice the different shapes of the beaks of birds that come. Darwin realized they evolved to handle different foods so birds share nature’s resources. They will find tiny insect eggs, flower seeds, and last summer’s detritus for their nests if we just give them a chance. On a warm day, you might notice a butterfly. We just have to look, and celebrate what’s all around us. Let’s start with the trees.
Dr. Abbey Pachter is the author of “A Monarch in Winter: Biography of a Butterfly”. A member of Ohef Sholom Temple, Pachter lives in Virginia Beach where she is working on her next book.
