Happy New Year, everyone! We’ve passed one New Year’s Day and are heading toward the next as we inch closer to Tu B’Shevat, the New Year for the Trees. This holiday originated as an agricultural festival to mark the start of spring. Today, it’s also celebrated as an environmental holiday to raise awareness of the need to care for the natural world. It’s essentially Earth Day for Jews, a time to be mindful of the environment.
Here in the Midwestern United States, it is definitely still winter, and these days means temperatures swinging wildly between five and 50 degrees. It’s dark, gloomy, and cold, but I promise you, the days really are getting longer. When Tu B’Shevat arrives in February, spring won’t be far away, no matter if that darn groundhog sees his shadow or not. In the Northern Hemisphere, the trees will soon bud again. Thinking of nature bursting back to life makes me look forward to the sense of rejuvenation spring brings. In a few weeks, when it is Tu B’Shevat, we’ll be that much closer to sunshine, warmth, and flowering trees. In Israel, this holiday marks the beginning of the season when the almond trees will be the first to bloom.
If you’re planning a menu for Tu B’Shevat, the idea is to have as great a variety of nuts and fruits (and don’t forget the wine) as possible. Your holiday dinner table can also be the perfect place to enjoy a little tree-themed humor: What school subject is the fruitiest? History, because it’s full of dates! While you’re enjoying any holiday meal, remember that a little laughter (even when the jokes are bad) can be as nourishing as the food.
The symbolic foods of the holiday are separated into seasons that span the entire year, and, of course, there is some variation in these depending on your tradition. In advance of the holiday, here are recipes for different courses, each featuring one particular item from each of the seasons:
Winter – Fruits and nuts with hard shells or thick skin: pomegranate
Spring – Fruits with a soft outside but a hard pit inside: olives
Summer – Fruits that are fully edible: figs
Autumn – The grains of the harvest season: barley
The New Year for the Trees makes me mindful of this planet we live on and our obligation to care for it. As Tu B’Shevat approaches, I encourage you to take a few minutes to think about things you can do to help heal our planet so that the “Trees of Life,” literal and figurative, may continue to thrive. Simple things like avoiding single-use items or saying “no thank you” to the plastic cutlery with your take-out order can help reduce waste. We rely on the trees and plants, their nutrients being essential and their air-cleaning properties even more important as we think about reducing our carbon footprints. We owe it to them and to ourselves to be mindful of our impact on the environment. Honor the trees and all they give us, as Honi learns in this short version of a story from the Talmud:
Honi the Righteous Man was walking along the road when he saw a man planting a carob tree. Honi asked the man, “How long do you think it will take for the tree to bear fruit?” The man replied, “Seventy years!” Honi asked the man “Do you think you will live that long?” “No, but I’m not planting this tree for me. I’m planting it for the next generation and the one after that. I found carob trees in the world because my ancestors planted them for me.”
Happy new year to you and the trees — from my kitchen to yours!
