Tu B'Shevat
Level: Basic |
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When you come to the land and you plant any tree, you
shall treat its fruit as forbidden; for three years it will be forbidden
and not eaten. In the fourth year, all of its fruit shall be sanctified to
praise the L-RD. In the fifth year, you may eat its fruit. -Leviticus
19:23-25
There are four new years... the first of Shevat is the
new year for trees according to the ruling of Beit Shammai; Beit Hillel,
however, places it on the fifteenth of that month.
-Mishnah Rosh Hashanah 1:1
Tu B'Shevat, the 15th day of the Jewish month of
Shevat, is a holiday also known as the New
Year for Trees. The word "Tu" is not really a word; it is the number 15 in
Hebrew, as if you were to call the Fourth of July "Iv July" (IV being 4 in
Roman numerals). See Hebrew Alphabet
for more information about using letters as numbers and why the number 15
is written this way.
As I mentioned in Rosh Hashanah, Judaism has
several different "new years." This is not as strange a concept as it sounds
at first blush; in America, we have the calendar year (January-December),
the school year (September-June), and many businesses have fiscal years.
It's basically the same idea with the various Jewish new years.
Tu B'Shevat is the new year for the purpose of calculating the age of trees
for tithing. See Lev. 19:23-25, which states that fruit from trees may not
be eaten during the first three years; the fourth year's fruit is for
G-d, and after that, you can eat the fruit. Each
tree is considered to have aged one year as of Tu B'Shevat, so if you planted
a tree on Shevat 14, it begins its second year the next day, but if you plant
a tree two days later, on Shevat 16, it does not reach its second year until
the next Tu B'Shevat.
Tu B'Shevat is not mentioned in the Torah. I
have found only one reference to it in the
Mishnah, and the only thing said there is
that it is the new year for trees, and there is a dispute as to the proper
date for the holiday (Beit Shammai said the proper day was the first of Shevat;
Beit Hillel said the proper day was the 15th of Shevat. As usual, we follow
Beit Hillel. For more on Hillel and Shammai, see
Sages and Scholars).
There are few customs or observances related to this holiday. One custom
is to eat a new fruit on this day. Some people plant trees on this day. A
lot of Jewish children go around collecting money for trees for
Israel at this time of year. That's about all
there is to it.
Tu B'Shevat will occur on the following days of the Gregorian calendar:
-
Jewish Year 5768: sunset January 21, 2008 - nightfall January 22, 2008
-
Jewish Year 5769: sunset February 8, 2009 - nightfall February 9, 2009
-
Jewish Year 5770: sunset January 29, 2010 - nightfall January 30, 2010
-
Jewish Year 5771: sunset January 19, 2011 - nightfall January 20, 2011
-
Jewish Year 5772: sunset February 7, 2012 - nightfall February 8, 2012
For additional holiday dates, see
Links to Jewish Calendars.
© Copyright 5756-5767 (1995-2007), Tracey
R Rich
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