On Tu B’Shevat, the entire landscape is in bloom after the rains

Photos: National Library of Israel

Tu B’Shevat is a lovely time to hike the hills of Eretz Yisrael.

Cool winds blow gently across the landscape, wildflowers splash color across the fields, and white almond blossoms — always the first trees to flower and without fail on the week of Tu B’Shevat — signal the Tu B’Shevat season, prompting hikers and stay-at-homes alike to hum “Hashkeidiah Porachat” almost without realizing it.

But this year, the rains that Jews in Eretz Yisrael have been davening for arrived in abundance and don’t seem to be letting up yet. While we rejoice in the gishmei brachah, that rain can turn a scenic trail into a muddy mess.

So what’s a nature lover to do? On a rainy day, one idea is to skip the soggy paths and head instead to the National Library (NLI) in Jerusalem for its current exhibit, “There Are Flowers in the Library,” which explores the cultural and historical meaning of Israel’s floral landscape. While nothing can replace a brisk walk through nature as soon as the skies clear and the ground dries, leafing through NLI’s books and artifacts offers a different kind of blooming experience.

Seeds of Hope

Tu B’Shevat as the holiday of trees is sourced in Maseches Rosh Hashanah: The 15th day of Shevat is a halachic date tied to the agricultural mitzvos. When the Jews still lived and planted in Eretz Yisrael, questions about when to date the beginning of an agricultural year for matters like maasros and shemittah were relevant in a practical, day-to-day way. Yet after the Churban, most of the Jews were exiled from the Land and therefore couldn’t keep mitzvos connected to it — the mitzvos tluyos b’aretz.

But we could still study those mitzvos, no matter how far from Eretz Yisrael the galus took us. Through study of these halachos, Jews kept alive the enduring connection to and longing for Eretz Yisrael. And even if Jews could no longer keep the mitzvos connected to the Land, they could still mark Tu B’Shevat, the day that affirms the eternal bond between the Land and the Jewish People. The mitzvos tluyos b’aretz were only waiting to be lived again — like the seeds of flowers, just waiting for the right time to emerge from beneath the ground to blossom.

In the sixteenth century, Rav Yitzchak Luria of Tzfas, the Arizal, introduced a kabbalistic dimension to Tu B’Shevat, manifested by the Tu B’Shevat Seder. An early written mention of this minhag is in Birkas Eliyahu by Rabbi Eliyahu of Ulyanov, published in 1728, a little over 150 years after the Arizal’s passing. But long before that, the Arizal’s followers continued in his tradition, and today, the Tu B’Shevat Seder has endured, especially in the chassidic world.

A Tu B’Shevat Seder borrows the structure and many details of the Pesach seder — four cups of wine, a family gathering, questions and answers, ritual and foods that tell a story — to delve into the mystical aspects of trees and fruit. Pesach traces a movement from confinement beneath the ground — Egyptian slavery began with Yosef thrown deep in a pit — to freedom, while Tu B’Shevat marks the first stirrings of growth beneath the cold, wintry and dead-looking surface of the land. Neither is a random festive meal, but a carefully ordered process that teaches patience, memory, emunah and hope, especially when those roots of redemption are yet unseen, buried deep underground.