Tu b’Shevat

The origins of Tu b’Shevat, according to the sources, are prosaic. Reading the first mishna of Tractate Rosh Hashannah would make one think of a fiscal calendar; it is, in accordance with the ruling of Beit Hillel, the end of one tax year and the beginning of a new one for produce from trees for the purposes of tithes and other such taxes. Beit Shammai would have that in effect on the first day of Shevat. The 15th marks the point when the rainy season  is more than half way over in Eretz Yisra’el, when buds start to appear on the trees. 

Over the centuries, the observance of Tu b’Shevat has taken on greater meaning. It became customary to eat fruits that are grown on trees, more specifically, ones mentioned in the Torah: olives, dates, figs, grapes, and pomegranates; and to recite a shehechiyanu if one had not eaten that fruit during that season. During the Sixteenth Century the Kabbalists of Tzfat developed a ritual seder for the observance of the day. Over the past century, the day was infused with additional meaning with the growth of Zionism as Eretz Yisrael was resettled and Jewish agriculture revived.

In more recent years, some have looked to this day as a reminder of the importance of the environment and our role in it. And it is no wonder. On January 14th, the Doomsday Clock was moved to five minutes before midnight, due in large part to the destructive threat of global warming. But most will consider environmental issues to be in the realm of political, economic, or scientific concern. Why should we consider the environment a religious issue as well?

One does not have to look far beyond the first chapters of Genesis to discover the tension over the place of the human in the environment. Chapter 1 places man at the end of a long list of creations, perhaps as the ultimate creation, with the blessing to פְּרוּ וּרְבוּ וּמִלְאוּ אֶת־הָאָרֶץ וְכִבְשֻׁהָ, to “be fruitful, multiply, and to populate the earth and conquer it.” (v. 28) Man is passive in the process of creation but looks forward to an unrestrained role as an aggressive conqueror. Chapter 2 presents an opposite view: the earth seems incomplete without Adam - vegetation had not yet come forth כִּי לֹא הִמְטִיר ה’ אֱלֹקים עַל־הָאָרֶץ וְאָדָם אַיִן לַעֲבֹד אֶת־הָאֲדָמָה, “for God did not cause rain to fall on the earth and Adam was not [yet] to work the land.” (v.5) Adam does not appear as the ultimate creation. He has an active role to play, if not in creation itself, then in its completion, as an adjunct to the work of the Creator. Later, he is placed in the garden in Eden לְעָבְדָהּ וּלְשָׁמְרָהּ, “to work it and to protect it.” (v.15) His is not the unrestrained conqueror found in Chapter 1; he is placed here as a steward. He can do the work needed to make it function properly, but he must also protect it. 

Another verse often cited by the environmentally-minded is from Deuteronomy 20:19: when engaging in a siege, a Jewish army is not to cut down any fruit-bearing trees כִּי הָאָדָם עֵץ הַשָּׂדֶה לָבֹא מִפָּנֶיךָ בַּמָּצוֹר. The syntax of this verse makes it difficult to translate. Rashi, for instance, proposes reading this as a rhetorical question: “Is the tree of the field like a man who can seek refuge from you?” Abraham ibn Ezra, on the other hand, reads it as a declarative statement: “For the life of man is the tree of the field...” While Rashi’s reading seems to make most sense on the whole and has been adopted by most modern translations, either approach offers a meaningful reading. Indeed, humans need trees, even those that do not bear fruit, for survival as they provide not only food for nourishment but also a critical means of converting carbon dioxide into oxygen and diminishing the dangerous affects of CO₂ on the atmosphere. The tree is also a magnificent metaphor for the human: strong yet bending, steadfast, tall, arms reaching outward, deeply rooted and bearing new fruits in its season. Rashi’s reading, on the other hand, focuses on the limitations of the tree when compared to the human: defenseless, unable to take flight in the face of danger, subject to human whim. Why even ask the question? Isn’t it obvious?

Maybe it isn’t. As much as the Torah demythologizes nature, midrash often plays a reverse role. One midrash, on this week’s parasha, speaks of to the discontinuity that exists between Ex 14:16 and 21. In the former verse, God tells Moses to raise his staff and split the sea, but in the latter verse, Moses raises his staff, but it is God who splits the sea, not Moses. A midrash (Mekhilta dRY, Beshallah 4) tells how the sea refused to heed Moses’ command until God comes, at which the sea complies. The midrash cites the question of Ps 114:5, מַה־לְּךָ הַיָּם כִּי תָנוּס, “Why, sea, do you flee?” and the sea’s answer in v. 7, מִלִּפְנֵי אָדוֹן חוּלִי אָרֶץ מִלִּפְנֵי אֱלוֹהַּ יַעֲקֹב, “From before the Master, tremble the earth, from before the God of Jacob.” The darshan sees in this Psalm a dialogue between an unidentified interlocutor and the sea, a force of nature not known for its ability to speak. This dialogue refers to this moment at the sea, which is not out of the question as it opens בְּצֵאת יִשְׂרָאֵל מִמִּצְרָיִם, “When Israel left Egypt.”

The rabbinic mind does not reject the possibility that nature has a personality, an ability to communicate which, albeit hidden from the human ear, still can be heard on another level. We can see in another midrash a statement that speaks to the inaudible cries of a fruit-bearing tree that is cut down.  בשעה שכורתין את עץ האילן שהוא עושה פרי הקול יוצא מסוף העולם ועד סופו ואין הקול נשמע. “When a fruit-bearing tree is cut down, a cry goes out around the world, but the cry is not heard.” (Pirkei dRabbi Eliezer 34.) It brings to mind another cry unheard by human ears: after Cain kills Abel, God says to Cain, קוֹל דְּמֵי אָחִיךָ צֹעֲקִים אֵלַי מִן־הָאֲדָמָה, “the cries of your brother’s blood cries out to me from the earth.” (Gn 4:10) Blood, as we know it, is silent, just as the fruit bearing tree is silent; yet, both let out a silent scream unheard by human ears.

Perhaps it is a good thing that we cannot hear those cries of the inanimate, for if we could, all else might be inaudible over the din. Nature, as created by God, is a miracle which is renewed daily. We cannot hear the sounds of nature crying, but we can train ourselves to be cognizant of the miracles that abound and surround us daily. Big miracles have limited staying power; within three days the Israelites forgot the miracles that they had just experienced at the Red Sea. How easy is it to lose sight of the miracles of nature that seem part of a static fabric of existence?

Life on this planet is in peril, only because we, as custodians of God’s creation, have fallen down on the job. We have treated this earth as conquerors do in conquest, treating its resources as spoils of war. But once those spoils are spent, there is no where else to turn to satisfy our ever expanding appetite. We do have a religious responsibility, as stated about Adam in the garden in Eden לְעָבְדָהּ וּלְשָׁמְרָהּ, “to work it and to protect it.” Tu b’Shevat is but one reminder of nature’s frailty in the face of the destructive nature of our species, and that the responsibility is ours to repair and heal the only home that God made for us.