Interfaith Voices: Tu Bishvat, the Jewish New Year of the Trees | CPT PPP Coverage

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You may know that the Jewish New Year, Rosh HaShanah, is observed in the fall, but did you know that there are four different new years in Judaism?

And one of them was just observed, on Feb. 6.

• Rosh HaShanah (“Head of the Year”), marking the birthday of the creation of man, is the day that one calendar year advances to the next (the current year is 5783). Yet it falls on the first day of the seventh, not the first, month of the Jewish calendar.

• Passover falls during what we call the first month of the year — but on the 15th day — and marks our birth as a people.

• Tu Bishvat (“15th of Shvat”) is the New Year of the Trees and was used in ancient Israel to calculate the age of fruit trees for the purposes of tithing.

• Finally, the first of the sixth month of the Jewish year marked the beginning of the tax year for animal tithes.

Confused yet?

These last two “new years” could be considered roughly equivalent to a tax or fiscal year. For comparison, while Jan. 1 is the start of the Gregorian calendar year, April 15 delineates the United States tax year; Oct. 1 is the start of our federal government’s fiscal year.

Back to the New Year of the Trees. At this time of year in Israel, almond trees start to bloom; on Tu Bishvat, fruit trees enter a new year of life. Why does that matter? In ancient Israel, fruits could not be eaten for the first three years of the tree’s life. Other laws to do with a fruit tree’s age can now be honored only in modified form, if at all.

For instance, fourth-year fruit was to be used only in temple ceremonies, and fruits from five years and up were tithed for the temple priests and the needy of the community. Thus was the land respected and the poor provided for.

In modern Israel, some still eat fruit from trees only three years or over, and some religious Jewish symbolically remove a small piece of fruit to symbolize tithing.

Over time, after the destruction of the temple, Tu Bishvat observance evolved. In modern Israel, Tu Bishvat has become a national Arbor Day, when children leave school to plant trees. Israel is one of the only nations in the world to have entered the 21st century with more trees than it had 100 years ago. And the country plans to plant 450,000 trees in its cities to combat climate change.

Many communities, including the Jewish community of Beit Am in Corvallis, plant trees on Tu Bishvat. Many also have a ritual meal at which various fruits, particularly those grown in Israel, are eaten in symbolic order:

• Fruits and nuts with inedible exteriors and edible interiors (oranges, bananas, pistachios).
• Fruits and nuts with soft exteriors but an inedible pit inside (dates, apricots, olives).
• Completely edible fruits (figs, berries).

There are various mystical interpretations of this progression:

• Going from the most external, manifest dimension of reality to the most inner and whole dimension.
• Going from concealment and protection to being completely vulnerable and able to take in the world around us, unafraid to reveal our deepest selves.

In countries other than ours, Jewish have different customs pertaining to Tu Bishvat, these having evolved differently during our long diaspora. In India, for example, frankincense is burned beside a pile of fruit, and the name of Elijah the prophet chanted in Hebrew.

But the ancient Israeli holiday is still observed, albeit in varying ways. We all came from one place, and we have not forgotten.

Rachel Peck, a congregant at Beit Am in Corvallis, is a transplant from the other Washington (D.C). She lived in Salem from 1958 to 1961, and happy memories from that time brought her back to Oregon. She persuaded her husband to check out this part of the world, and they moved to Corvallis in 2005. She likes to read, hike and try her hand at baking bread, with mixed results.