TU B’SHEVAT (15th of Shevat) DAY OF TREE PLANTING

By Stan Schroeder (adapted from Jewish Agency for Israel JAFI)

In ancient times, the land of Israel was covered with forest. During the years the Jews spent in exile, the forests were cut down by the land's new inhabitants and the soil became dry and yellow desert. Only towards the end of the 19th century, with the beginnings of Zionism, did Jews start returning to the land of their forefathers. The representatives of the Zionist movement considered forestation a sacred duty, the symbol of the arrival of the era of renewal. With scant regard for the effort required, the enthusiasts cleared the hills of stones and planted forests. In the mosquito infested swamps they planted eucalyptus trees. The first tree-planting Tu B'Shvat ceremony of modern times was performed by the inhabitants of the Galilee moshav of Yessod HaMa'alah on the western shore of the lake in 1884. On that day, hundreds of trees were planted, including 770 citrus trees.

The First Aliyah followed pogroms in Russia in 1881-1882, with most of the olim (immigrants) coming from Eastern Europe; a small number also arrived from Yemen. Members of Hibbat Zion and Bilu, two early  Zionist movements that were the mainstays of the First Aliyah, defined their goal as "the political, national, and spiritual resurrection of the Jewish people in Palestine."

Though they were inexperienced idealists, most chose agricultural settlement as their way of life and founded moshavot — farmholders' villages based on the principle of private property. Three early villages of this type were Rishon Lezion, Rosh Pina, and Zikhron Ya'akov.

The First Aliyah settlers encountered many difficulties, including an inclement climate, disease, crippling Turkish taxation and Arab opposition. They required assistance and received scanty aid from Hibbat Zion, and more substantial aid from Baron Edmond de Rothschild. He provided the moshavot with his patronage and the settlers with economic assistance, thereby averting the collapse of the settlement enterprise. The Yemenite olim, who mostly settled in Jerusalem, were first employed as construction workers and later in the citrus plantations of the moshavot.

This tradition of planting trees began way back in 1890, when Zeev Yabetz the famous teacher and writer went out with his students in a school in Zichron Yaakov for a celebratory planting. In 1908, this initiative was popularized by the Israeli Teachers trade union and later on by the Land Development Authority.

In 1908, the Teachers' Union declared Tu B'Shvat a day of tree-planting. The city of Tel Aviv had not yet been founded, so the students from the Jewish schools of Yaffo [Jaffa] planted trees on the agricultural allotments of the college at Mikve Yisrael, not far from Yaffo. In 1913, fifteen hundred Jerusalem school students went out to the settlement of Motza, near the city entrance, where they fulfilled the precept of planting trees. During the First World War [1914-18], the Jewish population of the country lived in constant danger. The inhabitants of Tel Aviv fled the city and the tree-planting tradition stopped, only to be renewed during the British mandate period - since when it has continued uninterrupted.

The values that implore us to take care of the earth today are values that have always been integral to Judaism. Ba’al Tashchit—Do not destroy.  Take care of the earth.

Since the establishment of the State of Israel, all forestation has been transferred to the "Keren Kayemet leYisrael" [Jewish National Fund], and thousands of dunams of forest have been planted. The JNF is the largest foundation within the Zionist movement and has been responsible for purchasing land in Israel for settlement and forestation since 1905.

On Tu B'Shvat in 1949, Jerusalem was encircled by a "Forest of Defenders" in memory of those who fell in the War of Independence. The first tree in the forest was planted by then Prime Minister, David Ben Gurion. The day also marked the beginning of the Knesset's first session, which is why the Knesset celebrates its own birthday on the fifteenth of Shvat.

Today Tu B’Shvat has a special significance. It combines the planting of trees, a symbol of Israel’s commitment to forestation and the environment, with the birthday of the Knesset, a symbol of Israel’s democratic government, the only democracy in the Middle East. TuB’Shvat is also the birthday of the Israeli Knesset. February 8 will be the Knesset’s 63rd birthday. Let us pray that this, the 18th Knesset, will guide the Jewish State toward peace and security and become a “Light unto the Nations”.

I have included a Tu B’Shvat poem in the right hand column. It is by Shin Shalom, a renowned Israeli writer born into a Hassidic family in Poland in 1904. The family moved to Vienna in the wake of World War I, and then to Jerusalem in 1922. He was a prolific writer of prose and poetry until his death in 1990.

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Board Meeting Dvar Torah (October 2, 2019)
By Owen Delman

“Blind obedience without the restraint of reason or morality is dangerous.”

“Abraham should not be honored for willing to kill his child because of a command from God.”

“The key word is blind — this is the stuff of fanatics and terrorists.”

These are some of the concepts regarding the Akedah discussion today. There are rabbis who refuse to include the Akedah in their Rosh Hashanah services because the concept is unacceptable. They reject any of the interpretations which attempt to justify the basic premise of God commanding a sacrifice. Given the holocaust with the murderers using as a defense that they were “just following orders” (an example of ‘blind obedience’) they condemn the whole concept.

Bringing it into our present day, they say if there had been a trial of Abraham he would have used the defense of “God ordered me to do it” and that this is quite similar to the defense stated by the assassins of Yitzhak Rabin who claimed that to give any part of Israel back would be a denial of God’s plan for Israel.

So how should do we deal it?

In Stan’s Torah study group we often hear the refrain “but that can’t be true” or “but that doesn’t fit with something in another part of the bible.” The questioner gets reminded that these are stories, parables used for teaching concepts.

After services yesterday, (where I had posited a number of theories of what the Akedah meant) a friend came up to me and asked me which one was the correct interpretation.

I asked him with which one he felt most comfortable because there is no one answer.

The Bible is not history, not an accurate accounting of past events

Let me stop for a moment: I’ve studied history and literature. Let me explain the differences.  History is a written account of past events based on the author’s examination of events and documents to back up his conclusions. Literature is a creation of an author perhaps based on fact or wholly conceived by the author. The Akedah is a story in the Torah meant as a lesson; a piece of literature. In the study of literature it is accepted that it is less important what the author meant as opposed to what the reader sees in the work — how it affects him. There is no correct answer, only how the viewer is affected by the piece.

Once a piece of art (literature, painting, sculpture, etc.) is given to the world, it matters little what the artist meant. What is important is how it is perceived and how it affects the contemporary viewer.

When you understand the Akedah for what it is to our day, to us, it becomes much more understandable. Those rabbis who won’t even allow the Akedah to be part of their Rosh Hashanah story may be missing a wonderful teaching lesson for the sake of political correctness.