Tu Bi’Shvat - How Agriculture and Society can affect Religion even today

C N-H

Tu Bi‘Shvat (or תבשב ו״ט in Hebrew) isn’t just like any other holiday. Unlike usual religious holidays that revolve around a story about important people and events that happened to them; Tu B‘Shevat is an agricultural holiday. It is also known as “the new year of the trees” or “the holiday of the trees”, as the weather conditions around this time of year in the Mediterranean are optimal for farming. It takes place on the 15th of Shevat in the Hebrew calendar and on the 6th of February this year

As you may know already, religion is often based on ancient stories involving a god or multiple gods and their interactions with people While it isn’t only to motivate social norms and to differentiate between right and wrong, several religions hold an important place for agriculture and nature as well. During the early stages of society, agriculture was important for survival since people learned how to grow their own food without only hunting for it (the Agricultural Revolution).

As humanity became dependent on agriculture, it also created the need for better prediction of the changing seasons The climate in the Middle East is characterized by two main seasons: a damp and rainy winter (October to March), followed by a long period of hot and dry summer (June till September). In between lays spring, when the soil is humid and temperatures are mild. These are perfect conditions for planting new crops that will provide the next harvests of the year In addition, some trees start blooming at this time and therefore are celebrated as the new year of the trees

But why that name? There is actually a meaning behind it. In Hebrew numerology, letters have specific values of numbers You would add the digits of the letters together to get the needed value; math, basically. The first 2 letters in the name- ‘tet-vav‘ (ו״ט) which you pronounce as tu-bi-shvat, stand for the date of this holiday ‘Tet‘ is equivalent to 9 and ‘ vav ‘ to 6, which together makes 15 You already thought a step further, you could work out that Shevat is the name of the month You may wonder why 9 and 6 are used instead of 10 and 5 It‘s because the letters for 10 and 5 are ‘yud‘ and ‘hei‘ which also stand for a version of the god‘s name, which isn't allowed to be said or written

Tu B‘Shevat is traditionally celebrated by eating typical fruit from Israel such as dates, figs and grapes For Jewish communities globally to be able to preserve this tradition of eating these specific fruits like in Europe as well, they Middle East as 19th Century, g this holiday n, especially n and in schools, adays to help e change. ears, you can got passed on itions, seeing many years.