The Month of Shevat

by Rabbi Shmuel Cohen

The only holiday during January- February is Tu B’Shevat, the new year for the trees, one of the four new years in the Jewish calendar year.

Why do we need such a holiday? Tu B’Shevat (literally the 15th day of the month of Shevat) is the New Year for Trees. Farmers in Israel have to set aside tithes of their crops for holy purposes. The new crop for trees each year starts on Tu B’Shevat. In Israel, It is a very popular day for people to plant trees. In the Torah, the Land of Israel is praised for seven special crops: wheat, barley, grapes, figs, olives, dates, pomegranates. We have a custom to eat these foods on Tu B’Shevat to remember the Land of Israel. One should also try to eat a new fruit one has not tasted in a long time, so one can recite a special blessing on it.

Our Sages have designated the 15th of Shevat as the boundary, for trees, between one year and another, since most of the rains of the previous year, in the land of Israel, have already fallen. A certain percentage of the fruit has reached the stage of "begun to ripen." This is defined as from the time of blossoming until the fruit has reached one third of its full growth. Fruit which have reached this stage on the 15th of Shevat are attributed to the previous year. Any new blossoming of fruit after this day is a result of the blessings of the new year.  The earliest-ripening fruit is the "shekadiah," the "almond". Normally on Tu B’Shevat one can see that most of the trees are leafless and like dead, except for the Almond tree that is full with thousands of white/pink flowers that announce the new year is here.

Although the 15th of Shevat is called Rosh Hashanah, the designation applies only to the matter of tithes that are due from fruit of the trees. Work is not prohibited, and there are no required festive meals, and no special prayers added to the regular prayer services. Tachanun is not said. Eulogies are not delivered for the dead.

The reason for the festive mood of the Rosh Hashanah of trees is that as the 15th of Shevat recalls the praise of the Land of Israel, we strengthen the bond between us and our land .The Torah praises the Land of Israel: "A land of wheat and barley and vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey" (Devarim 8).

Another reason for the special observance of the 15th of Shevat is that the time of Rosh Hashanah for the trees is also a time of prayer and judgment concerning the trees. Whenever any of His creatures begins to grow, G-d surveys its entire future. So it is proper, at such a time, to pray that the new creature or being might prosper. We also acknowledge the impact the trees have on our life because the Torah has compared Man to a tree of the field. Among the traditions of this day is to eat seven sorts of fruit. The Kabalistic tradition is to eat 30 sorts of fruits divided into three categories: ten sorts where one eats the whole fruit (for example, apples pears figs) another sort of ten fruits that one eats the outside (eg: apricots plums) and the third sort is one where you eat the inside (like nuts pomegranates etc).

While one eats the fruits and recites the blessings one tells stories about Eretz Israel  and about fruit trees and through these actions it penetrates to our hearts and minds  how much we have to do to fulfil our duty towards mother earth “ Leauvdah Uleshomrah “ to work it, enjoy it, but also to preserve it .

Some stories from the Talmud.

Once a man walking in the desert was tired, hungry and thirsty. He found a tree with sweet fruits, bountiful shade, and a stream of water flowing by it. The man ate the tree’s fruit, drank from its stream and relaxed in its shade. When he was refreshed and ready to leave, he said, "Tree, tree, how can I bless you? If I were to bless you that your fruits should be sweet, they are already sweet. If I should bless you with plenty of shade, you already have shade. A stream already flows by you, so I can’t bless you with water either. I can only bless you that all the trees planted from your seeds should be just like you."

One of the famous Sages from the Talmud was named Choni Hamagel. Once, he was walking on the way, and he saw a man planting a carob tree. Choni asked him "How long will it take for the tree to bear fruit?". The man answered "Seventy years". Choni then asked him, "And are you sure that you will live seventy more years and eat the fruit?" The man responded, "I found this world planted with carob trees. Just as my fathers planted those trees for me, so too, I must do the same for my children after me."

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Sabbatical and Jubilee Years – Shmita and yovel

There is a seven-year cycle and a related fifty-year cycle in the Jewish Calendar. The Shemitah Year, the Sabbatical Year, is each seventh year, as it is this year . The Yovel, the Jubilee Year, is each fiftieth year. The Shemitah Year is analogous to the seventh day, the Shabbat, in that it is a "year of rest" for the Land. No planting or harvesting may be done that year; the population has to rely on the produce of the sixth year for three years, including the eighth, because no planting is permitted in the seventh, which the L-rd promises to supply with abundance (Leviticus 25, 20-21).

In Leviticus (25, 20), we find "And if you ask, 'What will we eat in the seventh year; we haven't planted or harvested our grain?' " Hashem answers (Lev. 25,21) "I will command my blessing for you in the sixth year, and the Land will produce (sufficiently for) three years!" It is a Sabbatical Year for the human to accomplish oneself while not working on the fields to sit in the tent of Torah and enrich oneself as one has to do on Shabbat 

The Yovel is the fiftieth year; it occurs the year after seven cycles of seven years. Thus, the forty-eighth year must support, first of all, its own needs, plus those of the 49th, the 50th and the 51st years - a total of four years!

The Jubilee Year has some special laws:

1. All people were to be set free in the Yovel Year. A Biblical inscription to this effect was inscribed by the founding fathers of the United States of America on the Liberty Bell, which is now displayed in Philadelphia. The text reads, "And thou shalt proclaim liberty in the Land for all its inhabitants." (Lev. 25,10) (Incidentally, many of the Founding Fathers were quite familiar with the Hebrew Bible and, according to one account, actually considered adopting Hebrew as the National Language. It is difficult to imagine the profound impact that such a decision would most probably have had on the national character!)

2. All sales of land were returned to the original owner in the 50th year. Thus, there were only leases of property for periods up to 49 years; there were no sales "in perpetuity" of parcels of land in the Land of Israel. "For the Land is Mine; you are only temporary residents and settlers together with me. (Lev. 25,23)"

The Jewish Calendar

A few years ago, I was in a synagogue, and I overheard one man ask another, "When is Chanukah this year?" The other man smiled slyly and replied, "Same as always: the 25th of Kislev."

This humorous comment makes an important point: the date of Jewish holidays does not change from year to year. Holidays are celebrated on the same day of the Jewish calendar every year, but the Jewish year is not the same length as a solar year on the Gregorian calendar used by most of the western world.

The Jewish calendar is based on three astronomical phenomena: the rotation of the Earth about its axis (a day); the revolution of the moon about the Earth (a m onth); and the revolution of the Earth about the sun (a year). These three phenomena are independent of each other, so there is no direct correlation between them. On average, the moon revolves around the Earth in about 29½ days. The Earth revolves around the sun in about 365¼ days, that is, about 12.4 lunar months.

The Gregorian calendar used by most of the world has abandoned any correlation between the moon cycles and the month, arbitrarily setting the length of months to 28, 30 or 31 days. The Muslim calendar neglects the solar year   The Jewish calendar, however, coordinates all three of these astronomical phenomena. Months are either 29 or 30 days, corresponding to the 29½-day lunar cycle. Years are either 12 or 13 months, corresponding to the 12.4 month solar cycle.

The lunar month on the Jewish calendar begins when the first sliver of moon becomes visible after the dark of the moon. In ancient times, the new months used to be determined by observation. When people observed the new moon, they would notify the Sanhedrin. When the Sanhedrin heard testimony from two independent, reliable eyewitnesses that the new moon occurred on a certain date, they would declare the first of the month and send out messengers to tell people when the month began.

We have a special mitzvah to make sure the month of Nissan is in the spring. To make sure this occurs we add a month to the Jewish year on Adar of   the third, sixth, eighth, eleventh, fourteenth, seventeenth and the nineteenth year. By these additions we adjust the lunar year to the solar year. The years with two Adars (like this one) are leap years or shanah Me’uberet (Pregnant year). Note that Adar II is the "real" Adar, the one in which Purim is celebrated, the one in which yahrzeits for Adar are observed, the one in which a 13-year-old born in Adar becomes a Bar Mitzvah. Adar I is the "extra" Adar.

In the fourth century, Hillel II established a fixed calendar based on mathematical and astronomical calculations. This calendar, still in use, standardized the length of months and the addition of months over the course of a 19 year cycle.

Shmuel 

	Rosh Hashana
	Yom Kippur
	Sukkot
	Shmini Azeret

Click here for a calendar of the month of Shevat at Cremorne Synagogue