2. Tu B'Shvat - The New Year of the Trees
Tu B'Shvat is the Jewish New Year for the trees. It takes place on the 15th of Shvat, which is an Hebrew month that usually falls between mid-January and mid-February.
Tu B'Shvat is an ancient holiday. Its original purpose was to calculate the age of the trees.
Leviticus 19:23-25 states that no fruit may be taken from a tree during its first three years of life. Fruit from the fourth year was given to God as a burnt offering, and in the fifth year the fruit could be eaten.
Trees aged one year on Tu B'Shvat, so in many ways Tu B'Shvat is the birthday of the trees.
Tzadik ka tamar ifrah - an Israeli dance for Tu bi Shvat.
TSADIK KATAMAR
Tsadik katamar yifrach, yifrach
Tsadik katamar yifrach
(repeat)
Ke'erez bal'vanon yisgeh
Ke'erez bal'vanon yisgeh,
Ke'erez bal'vanon yisgeh, yisgeh
The RIGHTEOUS MAN
The righteous man will flourish like the palm tree.
The righteous man will flourish
He will thrive like a cedar in Lebanon.
He will thrive like a cedar in Lebanon.
He will thrive, thrive like a cedar in Lebanon.
(repeat)
The festival of the fifteenth of Shvat is not mentioned in the Tanach. The Mishna discusses the issue: when should the New Year for Trees be observed?
From this, we understand that the assignment is not the establishment of the festival but the determination of the correct agricultural calendar for fruit trees.
There was a disagreement between the schools of Shamai and Hillel [two major judicial schools of thought in the time of the Mishna] as to the correct date for the New Year for Trees.
The school of Shamai maintained that the first day of the month of Shvat was suitable, whereas the disciples of Hillel calculated that the fifteenth of Shvat was more suitable. Custom follows the school of Hillel.
Obviously, the disagreement was not based on any inability to decide upon the festival or select a date on which to plant trees. The New Year for Trees was necessary in order to be able to implement the precept of tithing fruit.
The Torah commands every Jew to take yearly tithes from the fruit of his trees and give it to the priests and Levites dedicated to the Temple services, as well as to the poor.
It is forbidden to calculate the tithe from one year using produce of another year. Therefore, it became imperative to determine the date of the New Year for Trees.
Our sages, who were well versed in agriculture, reached the conclusion that the fifteenth of the month of Shvat is the marginal date when the rains from the previous year cease to irrigate the trees and they are benefitting from the new rains.
The Essence of the Festival
Tu B'Shvat is the festival which most visibly demonstrates the Jewish people's link to Eretz Israel. It is the festival when everyone experiences their love to the land and for the commandments which relate to the land.
It is the festival of agriculture and nature's renewal; the festival of love for trees which reaches back to our distant roots as a people in the land of Israel.
This festival was born in the country of Israel, where its main customs and traditions developed. When the country was conquered and the Jewish people went into exile, they took with them their customs, inclduing the festival of Tu B'Shvat. Taking it with them, they symbolically carried with them throughout their wanderings Eretz Israel itself and the memory of its fruits and trees.
Every year, as this date arrived, Jewish houses set their festive table with the fruits for which the land of Israel was legendary - raisins [grapes] and nuts, figs and dates, olives, pomegranates, and the grains constituting the "seven species" of the land.
Together with these fruits which illuminated the dark corners of exile, light from the skies of Israel would enter each home.
The very sweetness of the fruits alleviated the bitterness of life in exile and reminded Jewish people everywhere that the land of Israel awaited its children.
In these days of renewal, when the people has returned to its own land, this festival, too, has found a new expression.
No longer only the date when fruits of the Land of Israel are tasted, it has been transformed into the day for tree-planting, as it says in the Torah: "And when you shall enter this land, you shall plant fruit-bearing trees..." [Vayikra 19.23].
Songs for Tu bi Shvat:
- Al Haderech Etz Omed
- Ha'etz Hu Gavoha
- Artza Alinu
- Hashkediya Porachat
- Atzei Hatzaftsafot
- Hazorim Bedim'a
- Betzel Atsei Ha'oren
- Hazorim Bedim'a (2)
- Eretz Zavat Chalav
- Ilanot
Etz Chaim
- Kach Holchim Hashotlim
- Etz Chaim
- Hi (Tree of Life)
- Oyfn Veg Shteyt a Boim
- Etz Ha'alon
- Shir Al Etz
- Etz Hamishalot
- Tapuach Chinani
- Etz Hasadeh
- Tzel Etz Tamar
- Etz Hazayit
- Zum Gali Gal
Major Customs of the Tu bi Shvat:
1. Eating fruits
One of the most important customs of this festival is to eat those fruits for which ancient Israel was famed, as in the verse:
"For the Lord G-d will lead you into the good land, a land flowing with waters... A land of wheat and barley and vine, of fig and pomegranate, the land of the olive and honey".
Dvarim 8; 7-8.
The first fruits of these species were once brought as an offering to the priests in the Temple.
Below are the seven species which became the symbol of the land of Israel:
wheat, barley, a cluster of grapes, figs, the pomegranate, the olive tree and date palm.
For this reason, an effort is made to acquire the fruits of these seven trees for the table, but other fruits are also eaten associated with the land and its produce, particularly: almonds, citrus fruits, apples - whether fresh or dry.
2. Special ceremonies:
The town of Tsfat [Safed] in the Upper Galilee played an especial role in the determination of the traditions associated with Tu B'Shvat. In the 16th century, after the Expulsion of the Jews from Spain [1492], Tsfat became the recognized center of the Kabbalah [Jewish mysticism].
The Kabbalists of Tsfat, the most well-known of whom was Rabbi Yitzhak Luria Ashkenazi [also known as Ari zal], interpreted the Torah and its commandments through secret methods of study.
They accorded the festival with new meanings and inaugurated new rituals for the observance of "night ceremonies of rejoicing for trees", resembling, in some degree, the traditions of the Pesach seder. Family members would gather around the table, set with a white cloth and an abundance of flowers and fruit, as well as flasks of white and red wine. The ceremony for Tu B'shvat includes readings from the Torah, Talmud and Zohar [one of the major writings of Kabbalah], relating to fruit.
Special blessings would be recited over flowering and fruit-bearing trees.
Following this, four cups of wine would be imbibed:
* The first cup - white wine, symbolic of slumbering nature;
* The second cup - white wine, mixed with a small quantity of red wine for the awakening of nature;
* The third cup - red wine, mixed with a small quantity of white wine, for the conflict betwen the rains and the sun, and the victory of heat over cold. Red is also used to symbolize the explosion of color in the flowering fields;
* The fourth cup - red wine alone, for the splendor of the sun and summer.
After the four cups are imbibed, the ceremony proceeds with the eating of fruit.
3. Planting trees:
From the sources -
"And when you enter this land, you shall plant fruit-bearing trees..."
Vayikra 19.23
"The Holy One, blessed be He, occupied Himself with planting immediately after Creation of the world. For it is specifically written: "And the Lord G-d planted a garden in Eden". So shall you also, when you enter the land of Israel, first of all occupy yourself in planting."
Vayikra Rabba 25
The planting of trees is a labor which has a symbolic meaning over and beyond its literal interpretation.
Look at our special Tree of Life.
The Kabbalah Tree of Life is a representation of the thirty-two paths comprised of the ten sefirot and the twenty-two paths through which they run.
The Tree of Life describes the descent of the divine into the manifest world, and methods by which the divine union may be attained in this life. It can be viewed as a map of the human psyche, and of the workings of creation, both manifest and not. It is important to realize that the pure nature of divinity is unity, and that the seemingly separate aspects or emanations exist only in view of the emanated, living in a state of illusory separation.
The names and numbers of the ten sefirot are given in order below.
1 - Kether (Crown) or Kether Elyon (Supreme Crown)
2 - Chokmah (Wisdom)
3 - Binah (Understanding or Intelligence)
4 - Chesed (Mercy or Grace) or Gedullah (Greatness)
5 - Geburah (Severity or Power), Din (Judgement) or Pahad (Fear)
6 - Tifereth (Beauty) or Rahamim (Mercy)
7 - Netsach (Victory or Constancy)
8 - Hod (Glory or Majesty)
9 - Yesod (Foundation) or Tsedek (Justice)
10 - Malkuth (Kingdom) or Shekhinah (Divine Immanence)
"She
may not have had a voice, but she was the voice of the country. My
mother listened to Yaffa Yarkoni; my grandson listens to Yaffa Yarkoni;
and she accompanied us, the members of my generation, all our lives,"
Koren said yesterday.
"At the age of four, we sang her children's
songs; as teenagers, we danced to the sounds of her ballroom tunes.
During the Six-Day War, she came to perform at outposts at which our
friends fought. She was there all the time."Born Yaffa Abramov in Tel Aviv in 1925, to
parents who immigrated to Israel from the Caucusus, Yarkoni spent her
childhood with her mother and brothers in Givatayim, where her mother
ran the Tslil cafe. Yarkoni danced with the Gertrude Kraus ballet
company and appeared at the cafe.
"People used to say that, late at night,
after sitting at the Kassit cafe, the bohemians would move on to the
Tslil in Givatayim because there was a young singer there who sang very
beautifully," recalls actor Shlomo Bar-Shavit. "We went to Givatayim to
see what everyone was talking about, and that is where is saw Yaffa for
the first time."
Bar-Shavit tells of Yarkoni's love affair
with the microphone. "When Yaffa spoke, she had one voice, and when she
sang, she had a different voice," he says. "The microphone really loved
her. Her voice would seep into the microphone - it was a lovers'
dialogue. They would become one. Her voice would caress the microphone
and the microphone would return the love."
"She was a singer of microphones," agrees
composer Gil Aldema. "People would say she didn't have a voice. She,
too, would say, 'Shoshana Damari knows how to sing; I simply sing.' But
in my opinion, she had a very pleasing voice. And it wasn't only the
voice. She had feeling, and she knew how to express it. She also
commanded the stage better than others. It's no wonder her songs were
received so well."
More than anything else, Yarkoni is
identified with Israeli songs, such as "Bab el-Wad," "Ha'amini Yom
Yavo" and "Hen Efshar." However, during the late 1940s and 1950s, she
also made a name for herself with so-called ballroom songs, with the
rhythm of tango or swing beats.
"The general mood was very anti-ballroom,"
recalls Koren. "And Yaffa wasn't loved by the media. She wasn't a part
of the consensus ... Yaffa was a singer of big bands and dance
orchestras. But she was smart enough to make a switch. She made a record
of the songs of Mordechai Zaira, sang 'Erev Shel Shoshanim,' made a
record from the songs of the young Naomi Shemer, and slowly got herself
and the listeners accustomed to the fact that she was going back to
singing more nationalist songs. But in truth, deep in her heart, her
true love was for swing and jazz and blues. That's what she used to
listen to, too."
During the 1960s, Yarkoni performed abroad frequently, gracing some of the best-known stages in the world.
"With her charm and elegance, she was a fantastic ambassador for the State of Israel," says Bar-Shavit.
"While the Israel Defense Forces conquered
enemy positions, she conquered the hearts of the soldiers. She was the
nightingale of the IDF and the entire nation," President Shimon Peres
said about Yarkoni yesterday.
Ms. Yarkoni's career largely echoed Israel's own history, and she became
a symbol of the generation that built the state, her classic ballads
harking back to a time Israelis remember as more heroic and less
complicated.
One of her most beloved songs, Bab el Wad, is an ode to the Israeli fighters who died in ambushes while driving
convoys to Jerusalem during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. The lyrics were
written by Haim Guri, who later became one of Israel's national poets.
Yitzhak Rabin, who went on to become prime minister, commanded the
brigade that captured the area where the ambushes occurred. In a
television interview shortly before his assassination in 1995, Mr. Rabin
said Bab el Wad was one of his favorite songs.
That and other vintage songs sung by Ms. Yarkoni became anthems of Israeli memorial days.
Though she was renowned for performing for the troops on the front
lines, Ms. Yarkoni told interviewers in her later years that she did not
like being known as the songstress of the wars and that she was
hurt by critics who said she had built a career on the back of military
conflict.
She initially served as a wireless operator during the 1948 war, but soon joined an army entertainment unit.
As her career progressed, Ms. Yarkoni moved from singing mostly
nationalistic songs to ballroom dance music, being a fan of swing, jazz
and blues
4. Jewish jewellery
from Wikipedia
Jewellery has been a part of Jewish culture since Biblical times.
There are references in the Bible to the wearing of jewellery, both as a decoration and as a symbol.
Now, Jewish Jewelry is worn to show affiliation with Judaism, as well as talismans and amulets.
One of the most common symbols in Jewish jewellery is the star of David.
Another popular symbol is the hamsa, also known as the "Hamesh hand".
The Hamsa appears often in a stylised form, as a hand with three fingers raised, and sometimes with two thumbs arranged symmetrically. Its five fingers are said to symbolise the five books if the Torah.
The symbol is used for protection and as a talisman to ward off the evil eye in amulets and charms and can also be found in various places such as home entrances and cars.
It is also common to place other symbols in the middle of the hamsa that are believed to help against the evil eye such as fish, eyes and the star of David.
The colour blue, or more specifically light blue, is also considered protective against the evil eye and many Hamsas are in that colour or with embedded gemstones in different shades of blue.
The Chai is also a popular Jewish motif for necklaces.
Other motifs found in Jewish jewellery are symbols from the Kabbalah, such as the Merkaba, a three-dimensional Star of David, and the Tree of life. Pieces of jewellery are decorated with parts or initials of known Jewish prayers and with 3-letters combinations, believed to represent different names of the Jewish God.
Some of the Jewish jewelry symbols:
# Star of David (Magen Dovids)
# Hamsa
# Chai
# Mezuzah
# Hebrew name necklaces
# Dove of peace
# Fish Charms # Mizpah Pendant
# Kabbalah Bracelets
# Eilat Stone
# Roman Glass
Bluenoemi - Tel Aviv
