Deeply Rooted

Israel is chosen from among all the nations…. And the Land of Israel is chosen among all the lands. Let the chosen ones come and inherit the chosen inheritance.
-Eliyahu Kitov - The Book of Our Heritage

For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths, springing forth in valleys and hills; A land of wheat, barley, grapes, figs and pomegranates; a land of olive trees and honey
-Deuteronomy 8:7-8

Tu b'Shvat (the 15th of the Jewish month of Shvat) is arguably my favorite holiday. It is quintessentially Israeli, the weather is cool (sometimes even cold! which is not my favorite), and no cooking is involved.  Instead of needing days off work to prepare for the holiday, my place of employment supplies me with the essentials needed to celebrate: Belgian prunes, and Californian raisins.  No sorry, I got it wrong; my place of employment and every supermarket in the country makes the same annual mistake and supplies us, instead, with the filling for hamentashen. 

Historically, in the times of our Holy Temple, one celebrated Tu b'Shvat by paying taxes (in fruit form). Fortunately, this is no longer the case as that would render the day my least favorite holiday. Instead, Tu b'Shvat has evolved into remembering tax days of yore by eating the fruits of the Land of Israel.  

(So why Belgian prunes and Californian raisins? Well, funny story that. Before the State of Israel came into being, the majority of World Jewry lived in Europe, and the Jewish communities there would mark tax day and remember the Holy Temple and the Land from which they were exiled by eating of its fruits—dates, figs, and grapes. These fruits were first dried and then shipped because fresh fruit would have spoiled long before reaching the shores of the shtetl. Today, in memory of the Jews of Europe who ate dried fruits of the Land, the Jews of Israel eat dried European and American fruit. Sometimes Thai. [That does sound nice, doesn't it? Unfortunately, it's not actually true. Supermarkets are full of dried fruits because, well, money.] But I digress.)  

Additionally, here in the Land, Tu b'Shvat is celebrated by planting trees. This custom took hold only about 120 years ago, with the advent of modern Zionism. In an attempt to reclaim the Land from centuries of dereliction and neglect, the Jewish National Fund (Keren Kayemet L'Israel) was set up to raise money to buy land, drain swamps, and plant trees throughout the Land. Those JNF trees are still here, making it possible to boast that Israel is one of the only countries in the world to enter the 21st century with more trees than it had at the beginning of the 20th. It's worth repeating. 

Planting trees is a particularly apt custom. 

In Jewish literature, humans are often compared to trees (Man is like a tree in the field -Deuteronomy 20:19).  

Our holy Talmud tells us, in Ethics of our Fathers, that a person whose wisdom is greater than his good deeds is like a tree that has more branches than roots. A wind can uproot it and turn it upside down. 

But a person whose good deeds exceed that of his wisdom is like a tree that has stronger roots than it has branches. Even if all the winds of the world were to come and blow against it, they could not budge it from its place. (Pirkei Avot 3:22)

Just as a tree's strength and stability is in its roots, so a person's strength and stability is found in how well they are rooted - in their family, their community, their heritage, and their people. Where better to establish roots than in our own Land, where our history began, when our nation was founded, where our language and literature evolved, and where our heritage and culture are rooted. 

The date of the holiday is set in mid-winter, by which time the majority of the rain has fallen; the trees begin to flower, and the sap begins to rise. 

This is the lesson we learn from Tu B'Shvat—exceedingly relevant at the beginning of the third decade of the 21st century; when all seems so cold and dark, when the trees are bare, and nature appears dead, we know that that first flower on the almond tree and those wild flowers that push themselves up through the wet ground are on their way.  We know that the warmth of spring is approaching.  

We know that, despite the gloom and the bleakness, it will get better, because it always does. We have but to wait. 

In all the dried fruits and taxes and tree-planting ceremonies, we must not lose the opportunity of celebrating our miraculous Land, where trees proliferate alongside start-ups and Hebrew classes for new immigrants; where volunteerism is a way of life; where the language of our ancestors is read and written and spoken; and where miracles surround us! After 2000 years of exile and homelessness, after centuries of ghettos and pogroms and murder, after the endless battle against that two-sided coin of antisemitism and assimilation, we have, today, right now!!! with God's grace, a chance to re-establish our roots, deeply, and permanently in our Land.  

During this month of Shvat (שבט), שנשמע בשורות טובות (Shenishma Besorot Tovot), we should be blessed to share only good.