Tu Bishvat (New Year of Fruit Trees) among the Jews (Tu Bishvat)

The New Year's holiday for fruit trees in Israel marks the end of the long rainy season, after which nature enters a new cycle of its development, renewed and reborn. According to the canons of Judaism, Israel, all of humanity, the animal world and the plant world have their own separate calendars, according to which the age of everything on Earth is measured. Tradition says that God created a wonderful holiday for people - the New Year. Seeing all the beauty of the celebration, the trees wished for similar fun and joy for themselves. God heard their request and granted it immediately. Since ancient times, the full moon in the middle of the month of Shevat marks the New Year for fruit trees. In Judaism, this holiday is considered highly revered and is celebrated with great honor according to a number of ancient customs. In ancient times, the Jewish people always separated a tithe from the harvest for the needs of the priests. It was believed that the priests were busy in the temples, they were doing a good deed, praying for a good harvest, and they did not have time to cultivate the field themselves. The peasants happily presented some of the collected fruits. The only condition for proper alms is to hand over exactly on time and only fresh harvest. It was forbidden to give the fruits of this year towards the next. That is why the wisest established a special day, Tu Bishvat, to distinguish between the harvests of different years. In addition, in Israel there was a strict prohibition: not to use the fruits of trees in the first three years of their fruiting. The holiday of Tu Bishvat helped to observe the prohibition, since it was intended to count the age of each individual tree. The New Year of fruit trees in Israel is an ancient holiday with its own history. When the Second Temple fell and the Jewish polity ceased to exist, Tu Bishvat lost its importance and was no longer celebrated. Many had to leave their native land due to the looming threat of war. Military conflicts transformed the land of the forefathers, many forests were destroyed, and the place of flowering gardens was taken by a barren wasteland. A new stage of the holiday - the emergence of the Zionist movement. The return to their homeland inspired the Jews to immediately revive the country's former natural delights. Thanks to active defenders of natural resources, a new tradition of mass greening campaigns has been created. A delicate almond tree in lush bloom is an integral symbol of the holiday. Schoolchildren, students, office workers and simply not indifferent people plant hundreds of young seedlings on the streets, in squares and parks on the day of Tu Bishvat. Their goal is to turn the desert into a Garden of Eden, to instill in young people a love of nature and respect for their own land. New Year for fruit trees is not an official day off in Israel. Today this is more of a reason to carry out large-scale actions in support of the environment. Excursions and hikes are traditionally organized. On this day, it is customary to eat special food made from cereals and all kinds of fruits that were collected exclusively in Israel. The order in which the dishes are consumed, as well as their quantity, also matters. In some regions, the number of fruits for the festive table reaches fifty names. In this way, Jews emphasize the capabilities of their own land, its wealth and fertility. They treat each tree with special reverence and care, comparing its nature with the nature of man: man and tree are filled with strength thanks to their roots, the lush crown is similar to the life path of a person, and the fruits of the tree are like children for man.