Tu BiShvat(ט״ו בשבט), or Tu B’Shevat, is a Jewish holiday, celebrated on the 15th day of the Hebrew month of Shevat each year. The name, Tu BiShvat, literally means the 15th of Shevat, like saying the 4th of July in the United States. The “Tu” in Tu BiShvat, or Tu B’Shevat, is a derivative representing the Hebrew letters of Tet and Vav, which together have a numerical value of nine and six - 15. The representation of 15 with the alphabetic letters for ten and five, Yud and Hey respectively, would appear to be the more obvious choice, but together they form the abbreviation for the name of the Lord, which is taboo to do when representing numbers with letters under rabbinical law. However, it is also sometimes more appropriately called Rosh HaShanah La'Ilanot(ראש השנה לאילנות) in Hebrew, which translates to New Year of the Trees. It is a special day in which we honor and give thanks for plants- particularly trees that yield fruits, which sustain our lives and environments and brighten our world with color and natural beauty.
In modern times, the day is typically commemorated as an ecological awareness day, similar to what one might expect for Earth Day or Arbor Day. Often times community organizations and families will go out and plant a trees or sow seeds for a new garden. However in days of old, the date was used to mark the cutoff date in the yearly growth cycle of fruit-bearing trees. It would take about four months from Sukkot(the 15th of Tishrei) for the waters of the rainy season to saturate the land enough for the crop trees to bear fruit. Jews would celebrate with a feast of several different types of fruits found in the Holy Land, Israel. These included ones such as pomegranates, dates, figs, and grapes, as well as olives, wheat and barley. In the 16th century, these particular items(known as the Seven Spices), became part of a seder ritual in which each would be given a symbolic meaning and eaten in a specific order as the ceremony proceeded. Should it be the first time someone was eating any of these fruits for the “new year”, the blessing of Shehecheyanu(A prayer for joyous occasions thanking the Lord for "sustaining us and enabling us to reach this season.") would be recited before the regular “ha-etz” prayer. All of these traditions indeed still continue today with Jewish families across the world.
There are lots of ways one can go about honoring the holiday. Paying respect to the green in some way puts one in a situation where they cannot ignore the life sustaining relationship be tween us and plants. Not only can one's actions in support of a plant life be beneficial for ecological systems, but also for one's own moral wellbeing.
Go Hike
Spend some time outdoors. Get back to your "roots", so to speak, and explore the wonders of nature in all its glory. Lose yourself under a canopy of green as you take in the majesty all around you. No matter where you live, there’s most likely a park or woods ripe with paths not too far off, just waiting to be explored. Just be sure to bring some bug spray.
Plant a Tree
Plant a tree of your choosing. Nurture it. Tend to it. In time, all that effort you've put in will be rewarded as you see the life that you nourished and helped grow come to fruition. Perhaps it will take the form of a sweet aroma or maybe a delicious fruit.
Relax in the Shade
Even if you are just leisurely enjoying the shade of an overhanging branch, crack open a good book, sit down for a picnic, or just settle in for a nice nap, take a moment and appreciate the joy and ease the trees and other plants bring to our lives.
These, among many, many others, are just several organizations that offer avenues down which one can become involved furthering ecological conservation efforts from the back yard to the world over.
The life cycle of organisms of the kingdom Plantae, better known just as plants, is both an intricate and a simple process. It can generally be broken down into three distinct stages. Each one is characterized by a specific job the plant is focusing on.
Seed
Within the seed resides all of its genetic makeup and most of the kick-starter ingredients needed to being the growing process. Like an egg needs incubation, or a fetus is nourished in the womb, a seed needs water and the nutrients found in soil for it to sprout, bursting forth from its tiny pod. Seeds come in many shapes and sizes. Some are round little marbles, some are oblong tiny footballs, and others still are flat with paper thin wings that enable to glide several kilometers when they fall to the ground.
Root, Stalk, and Leaf Growth
Once sprouted, the seed will spread its first leaves and begin taking in energy from the sun through a process known as photosynthesis. With the added energy taken in through the leaves from the sun and carbon dioxide from the air, the seed is able to spread roots out and downward, taking in even more nutrients from the soil which in turn allows for the plant’s stalk, or in the case of trees the trunk, to develop which will sprout more leaves taking in more light and air and so on. With trees particularly, the trunk grows in yearly cycles that can be seen in ring pattern they create within. These rings can be used to determine their age – the oldest living tree recorded to date is a Great Basin bristlecone pine tree believed to be over 5,000 years old.
Flowers and Fruit
Once a plant has fully matured, it will begin to produce flowers. Unlike animals, plants carry both sets of reproductive organs in their flowers, and when they become fertilized, or pollinated, they miraculously transform or bud into a seed delivery machine. With some “weedy” grasses, like dandelions, the seeds form from the center of the flower and eventually fall or are stripped away. With trees that bear fruit, which does technically include vegetables like squash and green beans as well as trees that with nuts, from out of the flower will grow a fleshy casing or hard shell that might house hundreds of seeds or maybe just one. The fruit eventually falls and rots or is eaten, and the seeds are left to begin another generation to grow alongside its ancestors.
In the Babylonian Talmud, a collection of rabbinical texts expounding upon the teachings found in the Torah, resides a lovely little tale, which perfectly encapsulates the themes and ideas of Tu BiShvat.
This notion of tending to the garden of life – engaging in the cycle of life by working in harmony with plants and trees to cultivate the land in order to sustain yourself and the future generations to come – is what’s at the core of this short story as well as Tu BiShvat.