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Tu BiSh'vat: A Personal Reflection

Barbara Kavadias

While we have been having a relatively warm winter in the United States, it cannot compare to what winter is like in Israel. It is the rainy season there, the time of year that Israel greens up, with cooler temperatures and rain (which feels like a miracle every time I experience it) in between

Tu BiShvat Videos

Learn more about the Jewish holiday of Tu BiShvat with these videos.

Tu BiSh’vat: Resources

Rabbi Joan Glazer Farber

In a few weeks we will be celebrating Tu BiSh’vat. There are numerous approaches you could take in planning your celebration.

Three wooden bowls filled with dried fruit and nuts

Tu BiShvat: Touchstones in Time

Rabbi Don Cashman

I love Tu BiShvat’s low-key preparation: no sermons, no sukkah, and no kitchen turned upside down. Quick trips for food and wine, and I’m all set.

Greening Your Congregation as One Way to Make It Holy

Julie Bank

When a group of us – congregants from University Synagogue in Los Angeles, CA – attended the Consultation on Conscience a few years ago, we learned about the GreenFaith Energy Shield, a program that encourages faith communities to reduce their carbon footprint. We returned home ready to put our faith into action.

Colorful recycling bins against green grass

7 Tips for Starting a Congregational Recycling Program

Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism

Our role as custodians and stewards of God’s earth is to protect and preserve the ecology and environment as best we can.

New Beginnings: Tu BiSh’vat and Environmental Action

Lizzie Stein

In this moment of transition, we will celebrate a different kind of new beginning: Tu BiSh’vat, the new year for trees. Tu BiSh’vat is an opportunity to celebrate the earth and to recommit ourselves, for another year, to environmental action.

New Beginnings: Tu BiShvat and Environmental Action

Lizzie Stein

Tu BiShvat is an opportunity to celebrate the earth and to recommit ourselves, for another year, to environmental action.

Tu BiShvat: Customs and Rituals

The Jewish mystics of the 17th century, the Kabbalists, created a special ritual—modeled after the Passover seder—to celebrate God's presence in nature. Today in modern Israel, Tu BiShvat has become a national holiday, a tree planting festivaTu BiShvat is not mentioned in the Torah. Scholars believe the holiday was originally an agricultural festival, corresponding to the beginning of spring in Israel. But a critical historical event helped Tu BiShvat evolve from a simple celebration of spring to a commemoration of our connection to the land of Israel. After the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 C.E. and the exile that followed, many of the exiled Jews felt a need to bind themselves symbolically to their former homeland. Tu BiShvat served in part to fill that spiritual need. Jews used this time each year to eat a variety of fruits and nuts that could be obtained from Israel. The practice, a sort of physical association with the land, continued for many centuries.l for both Israelis and Jews throughout the world

Tu BiShvat: History

Although the celebration of Tu BiShvat has a long and varied history, the theme most commonly ascribed to the holiday today is the environment.