Tu b’Shvat: Tax Deadline, Holiday of the Trees, or an Expression of Longing for the Land of Israel? https://mosaicmagazine.com/picks/religion-holidays/2018/01/tu-bshvat-tax-deadline-holiday-of-the-trees-or-an-expression-of-longing-for-the-land-of-israel/

January 31, 2018 | Meir Soloveichik
About the author: Meir Soloveichik is the rabbi of Congregation Shearith Israel and the director of the Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought at Yeshiva University. His new website, containing all of his media appearances, podcasts, and writing, can be found at meirsoloveichik.com.

The fifteenth day of the lunar month of Shvat (in Hebrew, Tu b’Shvat), which falls today, has been reinvented in recent decades as a celebration of nature and even of environmentalism. Arguing that this is a misinterpretation of the day’s meaning, Meir Soloveichik explains its original significance for the tithing of fruit and how 16th- and 17th-century rabbis transformed it into a celebration of the fruit of the land of Israel. (Interview by Eric Cohen. Video, 8 minutes.)

Read more on Tikvah: https://tikvahfund.org/library/zionist-meaning-tu-bshvat/