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Tu B'shevat - January 30, 2010

	Tu B'shevat is a holiday that is not a holiday, or perhaps, more correctly, a non-holiday that is a holiday. Unlike all of our holidays, there are no proscribed customs and prohibitions associated with this day, except we do not say tachanun, a prayer in which we beseech G-d for his mercy which is recited immediately after the silent shemonah eisray, the standing prayer. There is also the custom of eating a new fruit and many have developed the custom of eating fruits which the Torah mentions in conjunction with the praise of the Land of Israel.
Tu B'shevat is not mentioned in the Torah. It is mentioned in the Mishna which tells us that there are four Rosh Hashanahs. Tu B'shevat, which unlike the others does not start on the first of the month, but rather the fifteenth, is the Rosh Hashanah of trees. The sages explain that by the fifteenth of Shevat the soil is saturated with the rains of the passing winter so that growth is assured for the New Year. Therefore any tree planted before Tu B'shvat is considered as belonging to the previous year. Since Tu B'shevat is related to trees and the fruits of the tree, the custom in Israel is to plant trees on this day.
	Since it is the land of Israel that we yearn for and love, we combine the two: the fruits and the mitzvahs. We find new fruits that we have not yet eaten this year and we make the blessing "shecheyanu", "Blessed are You, Lord our G-d, the King of the universe, who has kept us in life and provided us with sustenance, that we have come to this time." In this manner we combine the aspect of the tree, which is giving its best, its fruit, to the aspect of man giving his best, the mitzvah of the recognition of G-d's goodness in our world. Source: The Jewish Magazine

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