Tu B'Shvat

Essential elements of life in the Fertile Crescent, fruit trees occupy a prominent place in the Hebrew Bible and the verses it currently devotes to them form the core of the holiday of Tu B'Shvat although this day is not mentioned there or evoked.

Among the numerous ordinances of the “Code of Sanctity” figure the way of treating these trees: it is advisable, after having planted them, to consider their fruits for three years as an excrescence (orlah) which it is forbidden to touch; the fourth year following their planting (neta revai), these fruits must be dedicated to God and can only be used for the benefit of the personnel from the fifth year.

Of the seven species listed by Moses to illustrate the fertility of the land of Israel, five are produced by trees (the grape, the fig, the pomegranate, the olive tree and the date). One of the blessings with which God showers the people of Israel is that they will enjoy, by taking possession of the land, vineyards and olive groves which they have not planted. It is appropriate to give him thanks by taking tithes from the produce of the earth during the first six years of its septenary cycle.

These tithes, localities collected in addition to the tithe reserved for the priests, must be in the sanctuary area or converted into money to be spent in that locality, and consumed in a state of ritual purity by the farmer during the first, second, fourth and purity in the fifth years and by the Levites (as well as, later, the needy) in the third and sixth years of the cycle; there is no tithe in the seventh year.

Finally, fruit trees are so precious that it is forbidden to destroy them during a military siege because “man is a tree in the field”. The just is also compared to the palm tree or the cedar and its fruits as well as the Torah to a “tree of life”.