The New Year of the Trees

By Tzippe Barrow

CBN News- Jerusalem Bureau

February 2, 2007

CBNNews.com - JERUSALEM - It's almost Tu B'Shvat, the fifteenth of the Hebrew month of Shvat, when Israelis celebrate the New Year of the trees.

Tu is the number 15 in Hebrew, so the name means the fifteenth of Shvat, like calling Independence Day the fourth of July.

On Tu B'Shvat, Israelis of all ages plant trees in their gardens, parks, forests, and nature reserves.

This week kids have trekked cross country on field trips, cradling a fragile sapling in their hands, searching for the right spot where their tree can take root and grow.

But what's a Jewish holiday without special food? On Tu B'Shvat, it's traditional to eat the fruit of trees, especially apricots, figs, oranges, bananas, berries and persimmons and a variety of nuts.

The seven species-wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives, and dates, which speak of God's bountiful provision in this land, are also very much a part of the Tu B'Shvat celebration.

Though the Bible doesn't specifically mention Tu B'Shvat, the holiday springs from verses in the Torah pertaining to planting trees and tithing and harvesting their fruit.

Leviticus 19:23-25 reads, "When you come into the land, and have planted all kinds of trees for food, then you shall count their fruit as uncircumcised. Three years it shall be as uncircumcised to you. It shall not be eaten. But in the fourth year all its fruit shall be holy, a praise to the Lord. And in the fifth year you may eat its fruit, that it may yield to you its increase: I am the Lord your God."

In the early part of the twentieth century, when Jews began returning to the land, they found little outside of wilderness and swamps, a result of forests being leveled during the latter part of the reign of the Ottoman Turks.

The earliest pioneers set about reforesting the land. They planted Eucalyptus trees to drain the swamps, though nearly half of the population died of malaria in the process.

But those who survived continued reclaiming the land. Slowly and steadily, they planted orchards, re-established groves of date palms and olive trees, and replanted the forests.

Fast forward to last summer when hundreds of Hezbollah's Katytusha rockets rained down on northern Israel, setting off some 800 forest fires that leveled 3,000 acres of established forest land.

Following the war, foresters wasted no time clearing dead trees and debris and covering the charred land with mulch to prevent erosion and retain moisture. Scores of volunteers from all over the country and every walk of life arrived daily to help them.

Though it will take years to fully reestablish these forests, their rehabilitation is well underway. And the project has added something special to this year's Tu B'Shvat celebration.

It's brought a renewed determination to work together for the future, to show that when the going gets tough, Israelis forget their differences and work shoulder-to-shoulder to rebuild what's been destroyed.

It's one of saying, "We're planted in this land, and we're here to stay."

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