Jewish Month of Shevat

Shevat is a winter month—coinciding with January-February on the secular calendar—but it brings with it an unmistakable whiff of spring. The high point of the month is the holiday of Tu B’Shevat (the 15th of Shevat), known as the “New Year for Trees.” This is the day when the sap begins to rise in the fruit trees in Israel—the start of a new growing season.

Tu B’Shevat holds legal significance regarding the tithing of fruit in Israel, but it’s also celebrated with joy, as we look forward to the sweet bounty of the coming year. We observe Tu B’Shevat by eating the fruits for which Israel is famous—olives, dates, grapes, figs and pomegranates—and by meditating on the verse, “For man is a tree of the field” (Deut. 20:19).

Shevat contains two important dates on the Chabad chassidic calendar. The 10th of Shevat (Yud Shevat in Hebrew) marks the anniversary of the passing, in 1950, of the sixth Lubavitcher rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn of righteous memory. On the same date, exactly one year later, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson assumed the mantle of leadership and became the seventh Lubavitcher rebbe.

The 22nd of Shevat is the anniversary of the passing, in 1988, of Chaya Mushka Schneerson, daughter of Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak and wife of Rabbi Menachem Mendel. In her honor, the international conference of Chabad shluchot (female emissaries) takes place every year on this date.

Learn more about the month of Shevat in the links below: