Tu B'Shevat

February 8, 2012

When’s the last time you wished a tree Happy New Year? The 15th day of the Hebrew month of Shevat is a great opportunity. It’s known as Tu B’Shevat, the New Year for Trees.

What does it mean to be indispensable? For most of my life I’ve asked myself that question.

Some grow as wheat of the field, in a single season breaking through the ground and ripening.

Did I grow towards the sun, reaching up higher and higher towards that which I can never grasp, but which nurtures me all the same the more I strive towards it?

Trees don't talk, but they have a great deal to say. And one of the most amazing things a tree says is about survival

A brief guide to the four Jewish new years with focus on the New Year for Trees.

Once upon a time there lived a poor melamed, a Hebrew teacher, in a small village in Poland. He had his daily troubles with the hardheaded farmer boys who were his students. For they would rather roam the countryside than learn the alef-bet, the ...

“Is Man a Tree of the Field?” Tu BiShvat, “the New Year of the Trees,” Rosh HaShanah 1:1; Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chayim 131:6. has its own cus­toms, Magen Avraham 131:16; see also Pri Etz Hadar, which mentions several Kabbalistic customs associated with ...