Tu Bishvat, or the "birthday" of all fruit trees,
is a minor festival seemingly tailor-made for today's Jewish environmentalists.
In fact, there is an ancient midrash (rabbinic teaching) that states,
"When God led Adam around the Garden of Eden, God said, 'Look at My works.
See how beautiful they are, how excellent! For your sake I created them all.
See to it that you do not spoil or destroy My world--for if you do, there will
be no one to repair it after you'" (Ecclesiastes Rabbah 7.13).
But it was not always this way. In ancient times, it was
merely a date on the calendar that helped Jewish farmers establish exactly when
they should bring their fourth-year produce of fruit from recently planted
trees to the Temple as first-fruit offerings. After this, all subsequent fruit
produced from these trees could be eaten or sold as desired.
Tu Bishvat could easily have fallen into desuetude after the
destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, since there was no longer a system
of fruit offerings or Temple priests to receive them. However, the kabbalists
(mystics) of Tzfat (the city of Safed) in the Land of Israel in the 16th
century created a new ritual to celebrate Tu Bishvat called the Feast of
Fruits.
Modeled on the Passover seder, participants would read
selections from the Hebrew Bible and Rabbinic literature, and eat fruits and
nuts traditionally associated with the land of Israel. According to Deuteronomy
8:8, there are five fruits and two grains associated with Israel as a
"land of wheat and barley, of vines, figs and pomegranates, a land of
olive trees, and [date] honey." The kabbalists also gave a prominent place
to almonds in the Tu Bishvat seder, since the almond trees were believed to be
the first of all trees in Israel to blossom. Carob, also known as bokser
or St. John's bread, became another popular fruit to eat on Tu Bishvat, since
it could survive the long trip from Israel to Jewish communities in Europe.
Participants in the kabbalistic seder would also drink four
cups of wine: white wine (to symbolize winter), white with some red (a
harbinger of the coming of spring); red with some white (early spring) and
finally all red (spring and summer).
Complete with biblical and rabbinic readings, these
kabbalists produced a Tu Bishvat Haggadah in 1753 called "Pri Etz Hadar"
or "Fruit of the Goodly Tree."
When Zionist pioneers began returning to the land of Israel
in the late 19th century, Tu Bishvat became an opportunity for these ardent
agrarians to celebrate the bounty of a restored ecology in Israel. In ancient
times, the land of Israel was once fertile and well forested. Over centuries of
repeated conquest, destructions, and desertification, Israel was denuded of
trees. The early Zionists seized upon Tu Bishvat as an opportunity to celebrate
their tree-planting efforts to restore the ecology of ancient Israel and as a
symbol of renewed growth and flowering of the Jewish people returning to their
ancestral homeland.
In modern times, Tu Bishvat continues to be an opportunity
for planting trees--in Israel and elsewhere, wherever Jews live. Many American
and European Jews observe Tu Bishvat by contributing money to the Jewish
National Fund, an organization devoted to reforesting Israel (the purchase of
trees in JNF forests is also customary to commemorate a celebration such as a
Bar or Bat-Mitzvah). Many parents donate to the JNF every year on Tu Bishvat in
honor of their children.
For environmentalists, Tu Bishvat is an ancient and
authentic Jewish connection to contemporary ecological issues. The holiday is
viewed as an appropriate occasion to educate Jews about their tradition's
advocacy of responsible stewardship of God's creation, manifested in ecological
activism. Tu Bishvat is an opportunity to raise awareness about and to care for
the environment through the teaching of Jewish sources celebrating nature. It
is also a day to focus on the environmental sensitivity of the Jewish tradition
by planting trees wherever Jews may live.
The Tu Bishvat seder has increased in popularity in recent
years. Celebrated as a congregational event, the modern Tu Bishvat seder is
multi-purpose. While retaining some kabbalistic elements--and still very much a
ritual that connects participant to the land of Israel--the seder today is
often imbued with an ecological message as well. One new custom often found at
such seders uses Tu Bishvat as a preparation for the Passover seder. In
climates where tree planting is not feasible, participants will plant parsley
seeds; the parsley will be used on the Passover seder plate.
