Tu B’Shvat, the “holiday for the trees” is the day marked by chazal as the beginning of the New Year for trees. The halachic significance of this is that we use this date to count years for tithing on the produce of trees. It is the time when the Winter begins to ebb (especially here in the Holy Land…I don’t know if this trend has hit the East Cost of the US yet), sap begins to rise and trees begin to blossom. The first tree to blossom is the almond tree (the only song that I know for Tu B’Shvat starts off: “haShekeidiya porachat…” – “the almond tree is blooming”).
Well, yesterday was Tu B’Shvat and sure enough, the almond trees located about two feet from our front door have started to bloom (pictures taken by Adina).
On Tu BiShvat this year, I had much more of a feeling of the day then ever before. It used to be that TuBiShvat meant giving $10 to JNF to plant a tree. Did you ever wonder where that money went? Well, yesterday we went out to the Ma’achaz of our yishuv (Shirat Tzion) to plant trees. (The Ma’achaz is a pair of old caravans that were brought to the land just outside of our yishuv. It is being tended to daily by teenagers who live on the yishuv, improving it and the area around it. God willing someday it will become a permanent expansion of our yishuv.) When we got there, there was over 100 kids planting trees along the hillside. New trees (as well as some larger trees planted in previous years) dotted the landscape. In the midst of destruction, there is still growth, thriving on land that up until now had nothing on it.
Check out the pictures.
February 8th, 2007 at 18:32
[...] One year ago I was able to make a similar post, showing our neighbors Almond trees that are budding and blossoming within 1 week of Tu b’Shvat. Although temperature-wise, it is definitely more moderate here than in the States, we still feel the difference when Winter comes around. The new almond trees are the first sign of the impending spring, and are a welcome respite from the cold and rain (not that we don’t like the rain, of course). This photo was taken from my porch an hour ago: [...]