Tu B’shevat, ט״ו בשבט is a minor Jewish holiday. It is also called “Rosh HaShanah La’Ilanot” ( ראש השנה לאילנות), “New Year of the Trees.”
It is observed on the 15th day of the month of Shevat, which can fall in January or February on the secular calendar.
This is one of four different “new years” noted in the Mishnah, specifically the day that Jewish farmers brought fruit tithes. While not a holiday as such, this date was observed with agricultural related customs since the Mishnaic era until today.
In the late 1700’s the day evolved with the development of a Kabbalistic (mystical) seder, which rapidly became observed by many Ashkenazi and Sephardic communities. While the origin of this seder sparked controversy (see section below) the themes of the holiday took hold in all sectors of the Jewish community.
Tu Bishevat was reinvigorated by the efforts of Zionists through the Jewish National Fund (קֶרֶן קַיֶּימֶת לְיִשְׂרָאֵל, Keren Kayemet LeYisrael.)
Today its observance is common across the Jewish world, among all denominations and backgrounds.
Etymology
The name is actually the Hebrew date of the holiday, the 15th day of Shevat. “Tu” stands for the Hebrew letters Tet, ט and Vav, ו, which together have the numerical value of 9 and 6, adding up to 15.
The day was originally called “Ḥamisha Asar BiShvat” (חמשה-עשר בשבט), which also means “Fifteenth of Shevat.”
Is this really a holiday?
There are some people who say that we should not observe this day as any kind of holiday. The first argument is that the Torah, and Mishnah, don’t set this up as a holiday.
That is true. But we all agree that Chanukah is a holiday, and it is barely mentioned in the Mishnah, almost in passing, and in that time was clearly a day that not many people observed with an understanding of its origin. Also, there are other minor Jewish holidays that grew over time: –
• Lag BaOmer – clearly treated as a holiday by many Orthodox, some non-Orthodox, and Zionist groups.
• Leil Selichot – a communal pre Rosh HasShanah event with organized liturgy and minhagim. (Dates for this vary between Ashkenazi and Sephardi communities.)
• Yom HaAtzma’ut, Yom HaZikaron, Yom HaShoah
The communal observance of Tu Bishvat as a minor holiday is at least as justifiable as any of these: The Torah and Tanakh are filled with and rely upon agricultural tithes; all these by definition require a communal set day for when one agricultural year ends and the new year begins. More so, the Tanakh is filled with references to the trees and produce of Eretz Yisrael; it already assumed in the Tanakh itself that agriculture is an integral part of many of our rituals.
When the second Holy Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed, Jews were prevented from bringing tithes and qorbanot to Jerusalem, so how did we respond? Our avodah became tefilla (canonized in our siddur;) and our recognition of the agriculture of Israel became developed in the Mishnah (e.g. Rosh Hashana 1:1,) the two Talmuds, and the responsa literature, esp on this day of Tu Bishevat.
Others dismiss the idea of Tu B’shevat as a holiday because of the outsized emphasis on a seder that had been attributed to R Yitzhak Luria. Today we know that this seder wasn’t printed until 1728 CE. And it came from an anonymous book of dubious authorship. Few Jews ever actually used that text. So why observe Tu B’sheva, they ask, if the seder idea is more of an urban myth?
You may see, Why I *Really* Oppose Tu BeShvat Seders , by Josh Waxman. Also see Dan Rabinowitz, Is Tu Beshevat A Sabbatian Holiday?.
Our position is that there is no Jewish holiday based around that seder, but that’s not what the holiday always had been, nor how most Jewish people see it today. The day stands on its own.
By the 16th century many Jews had traditions for Tu Bishvat observance:
We don’t say tachanun in morning prayers. Shulchan Aruch (OC 131:6)
Ashkenazi Jews would eat many fruits. It was preferable to eat produce that grew in the land of Israel: grapes, figs, dates, olives, and pomegranates. Some especially make a point to eat carob.
We do not make this a fast day.
Farmers in Israel noted this date for the purposes of tithe offerings, terumat ha-maaser.
Rabbi Jousep Schammes in Minhagim de Kehilah Kedosha Vermaysa, offers one such minhag:
On Purim and the 15 of Av and Shevat these were vacation days for the Rabbis… On these days the students did not go to school nor did the teachers go in. The teachers were required to distribute to the students… whiskey and sweet cake from the teachers’ own pocket… “It is a vacation day for the students and the teachers… The custom is for the teachers to distribute whiskey to the students and make merry with them.”
Excerpt from Is Tu-beshevat a Sabbatian holiday? The Seforim Blog
The mystical seder
It was commonly believed that Rabbi Yitzhak Luria (1534-1572) created a Tu Bishvat seder while living in Tsefat, צְפַת , Eretz Israel (at this time in the Ottoman province of Sidon.) While widely believed, there are not any historical sources showing such a seder by him!
The source is actually from 1728, the “Pri Ets Hadar Seder,” “The Fruit of the Majestic Tree,” written by an unknown author. Publishers popularized this seder by saying that it was from R. Luria, but this seems to be pseudepigraphical claim. This seder was then included in a collection called Sefer Ḥemdat Yamim.
Rabbi Yaakov Emden holds that this was written by Nathan of Gaza, Natan Binyamin Ghazzati (1643-1680,) or someone in his circle. Nathan was was Shabbatai Zvi’s disciple.
Others hold that it was written by R’ Yisrael Yakov Ben Yom Tov Algazi (1680-1756)
Modern observances
The modern custom of planting trees to celebrate Tu B’Shvat originated with the early Zionist pioneers. The first ceremony was held in 1884 at the agricultural community of Yesod HaMaaleh. Educator and historian Rabbi Ze’ev (Wolf) Yavetz is credited with holding the first school tree-planting ceremony in 1890 at the Zichron Yaakov agricultural school.
…the holiday of Arbor Day, founded in 1872… inspired the Zionist movement to transform Tu B’Shvat into the tree-planting holiday.
In 1901, the Fifth Zionist Congress established Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael, the Jewish National Fund (hence KKL-JNF.) By 1905, KKL-JNF had planted its first forest in Ben Shemen, a grove named in memory of Zionist movement founder Theodor Herzl. For many years, KKL-JNF, with its ubiquitous blue coin-boxes, was synonymous with tree-planting in Israel.
from Israel 21C, Tu B’Shvat: Where the Knesset’s roots got planted, Rachel Neiman
Mishnah study
This famous mishnah gives four new years and explains the significance of each of each of them. Let’s dig into the Mishnah here!
Rosh Hashanah, Mishnah, Conservative Yeshivah in Jerusalem
How Green is our Judaism?
Rabbi Daniel Goldfarb writes about this in Tu BiShvat – How Green is our Judaism?
References
Ari Elon et al,. Trees, Earth and Torah: A Tu B’Shvat Anthology (JPS, 1999)
Idit Pintel-Ginsberg, “Narrating the Past: “new Year of the Trees’ Celebrations in Modern Israel,” Israel Studies 11:1 (2006): 174-93.
“From the town – and from the village? The Creation of Planting Ceremonies on Tu Bishvat“, Dr. Hizky Shoham, Israel 22 (2014): 21–44 (Hebrew)
Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought, 17: The Sabbatian Movement and Its Aftermath: Messianism, Sabbatianism and Frankism. Volume Two (2001): 365-422, at 385-386
Boaz Huss, “Rosh hashana la-ilan, halo hu shabtay tzvi” [New year of the trees—meaning Shabtai Zevi], Ha’aretz, literature supplement, January 26, 2005 [Hebrew]
External resources from the Rabbinical Assembly
Footnotes
(1) When representing the number using letters, Jewish custom forbids using the letter-numerals that represent 10 (י Yud) and 5 (ה Hei) together because they form an abbreviation of the name of God. Therefore, the number 15 is represented by the letters ט (Tet) and ו (Vav), or 9 and 6 = 15.
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