Tu Bishvat 15 Shevat

Essential elements of life in the fertile crescent, fruit trees occupy a special place in the Hebrew Bible and the verses it devotes to them are currently the core of the festival of Tu Bishvat although this day is not mentioned nor evoked.

Among the numerous ordinances of the “Code of Holiness” is the way to treat these trees: it is appropriate, after having planted them, to consider the fruits for three years as an excrescence (orlah) which it is forbidden to touch; the fourth year following their planting (neta revaï), these fruits must be dedicated to God and can only be used for the benefit of staff 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 (grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives and dates). One of the blessings that God showers on the people of Israel is that they will enjoy, by taking possession of the land, vineyards and olive groves that they have not planted. It is appropriate to give thanks to him by taking tithes from the products of the land throughout the first six years of its seven-year cycle.

These tithes, localities collected in addition to the tithe reserved for priests, must be in the sanctuary area or converted into money to be spent in this locality, and consumed in a state of ritual purity by the farmer during the first, second, fourth and state of purity fifth years and by the Levites (as well as, later, the needy) during 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 of the field”. The righteous is also compared to the palm tree or the cedar and its fruits as well as the Torah to a “tree of life”.