Tu B’Shevat—What Trees Teach Us
Trees teach important lessons – modern and ancient. In modern Israel a forest of trees teaches us about God’s faithfulness to His promises.
Visitors to Yad Vashem (Israel’s Holocaust Museum) emerge from the museum’s intentionally confining galleries into a gradually widening hall opening to a light-filled panorama of the lush Jerusalem Forest, transporting young and old alike from the Holocaust’s ashes to the miracle of a living, breathing Israel.
This was the breath of fresh air I needed as I completed my first tour of Yad Vashem. The Grand Canyon and Rocky Mountains are more majestic in grandeur and beauty, but not in impact. The power of this place is not the view, but its ability to wash away the despair over humanity’s corruption that the museum creates. Humanity brings forth death, God gives life.
The minor Jewish holiday Tu B’Shevat reinforces the connection between trees and their Creator.
The holiday’s name derives from its celebration date, the 15th day of the Hebrew month Shevat. However, it’s other name, Rosh HaShanah L’ilanot, identifies what it celebrates: the “New Year of the Trees.”
Why a birthday for trees?
The biblical roots of the holiday are in Leviticus 19:23. “When you enter the land and plant all kinds of trees for food, then you shall count their fruit as forbidden. Three years it shall be forbidden to you; it shall not be eaten.”
Determining when a fruit tree’s produce was fit for food and tithing to the Lord requires knowing the tree’s age. To simplify the matter, the rabbis set Tu B’Shevat as the birthday of all trees. If fruit ripened before this date it belonged to the previous year; if on or after, to the current year.
But Tu B’Shevat helps us transcend the pragmatism of counting years and transforms our thinking about trees and tithes.
Growing fruit-bearing trees is time and labor intensive especially in ancient Israel – preparing the soil, planting seedlings, pruning and then, at just the right time, harvesting. It is easy to imagine a hard-working farmer thinking of the fruit grown as “mine” and the tithe paid as a tax on his property. The timing of Tu B’Shevat lays an axe to this poisonous attitude.
Tu B’Shevat falls during Israel’s rainy season (November through March) because rain is the one essential ingredient over which the farmer has no control. Too little of it, the fruit withers, and too much of it, the trees rot. The holiday’s timing reminds the farmer of his total dependence upon God for a successful harvest and that the land, trees, and fruit are God’s. The farmer is a steward not an owner. And, as a steward, that which is given to God is not a tax of one’s property, but a tithe, a portion returned in gratitude to its rightful owner.
This year Tu B’Shevat is celebrated from sundown January 17 through sundown January 18. In Israel the day is seen as Arbor Day, with a focus on ecology and caring for our planet. These are valid concerns but do not touch the root of our world’s problems. The poisonous root of ownership and taxes bears only greed and ingratitude.
The “Birthday of the Trees” can bring us back to reality. Why not set some time apart to ponder the deeper message of the holiday, and encourage others to do the same?
God owns it all. We are stewards.
And tithes offered in thanksgiving reflect His worthiness.
“I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5)
Written by Dan, Board Chair
1. What does Tu B’Shevat mean to you?
2. What material possessions do you need to change your view from ownership to stewardship?
3. What practical step can you take toward gratitude?