Tu b’Shvat Is Not a Jewish Version of Earth Day https://mosaicmagazine.com/picks/religion-holidays/2019/01/tu-bshvat-is-not-a-jewish-version-of-earth-day/

January 18, 2019 | 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.

Monday is the fifteenth day of the Hebrew month of Shvat, called by the Talmud the “new year of the trees” as it marked the beginning of a new period for the tithing of fruits. Over the centuries it developed into a holiday, known in Hebrew as Tu b’Shvat—first transformed by 16th-century mystics, then by early Zionists, and finally by the Jewish Renewal movement into a sort of Jewish Earth Day. This last transformation, argues Meir Soloveichik, with its overtones of rootlessness and ideological malleability, betrays the day’s longstanding significance as a celebration of the enduring connection with the Land of Israel, and hope for return to Zion. (Video, 26 minutes.)

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