The Purpose of Tu Bishvat (The Jewish New Year for trees)

Almond trees in blossom at the village Pesagot (North of Jerusalem)

Judaism has laws to protect nature. The festival of Tu Bishvat comes to remind us of the importance of nature. 

But nature is strictly relegated to second place in Judaism. Nature will never become God in Judaism.

The only similarity that I can find to the custom of planting trees on Tu Bishvat, practised in the modern State of Israel, is in the Biblical account of God planting a garden in Eden. 

Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden, and there he put the man He had formed. (Gen 2:8). 

What a wonderful thing for God to do! He planted a garden and put the man which He had created in it.

Adam must have been happy, surrounded by natural beauty, but most of all, in his solitary state, he must have rejoiced to have God as a companion. His heart must have swelled with love for his friend, God, whose constant presence and conversation must have inspired him, making life a veritable paradise. 

But Adam disobeyed God, who expelled him from the garden. His sadness at the loss of the company of his great friend must have been immeasurable. He was alone.

It’s perfectly logical that he longed to renew his friendship. I can visualize Adam spending many hours remembering the good old days when he used to communicate with God on a daily basis, and how lonely life had become without God’s companionship. 

He began to idealize those moments of communication and to see them as being holy.

He desperately needed to return to those wonderful times, but to do that, he’d have to create a suitably elegant and beautiful place where those encounters would take place once again.

The question arises: did he recreate that situation, and if so, where is this wondrous place of encounter? Is it a garden?

The natural beauty of a garden, however, would actually make it unsuitable; a garden full of beautiful trees and plants would distract the man from devoting himself to his relationship with God. This kind of distraction can be seen in the temples of eastern religions, such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Shintoism, which are surrounded by gardens. The respectful, even holy way that those religions regard stones and trees is foreign to Judaism

Judaism created a temple where gardens are prohibited. The temple, built by Solomon, was bereft of gardens, and the planting of trees in the precinct of the temple was declared idolatry.

The temple, which Solomon created, would be a symbol that the spirit of God resides in the midst of the nation, as promised in Exodus 25:8 וְעָ֥שׂוּ לִ֖י מִקְדָּ֑שׁ וְשָֽׁכַנְתִּ֖י בְּתוֹכָֽם “make me a temple and I will dwell in their midst”. God, as it were, would reside in the heart of every Jew.

The Song of Songs, also known as the Song of Solomon, is a beautiful description of the kind of meeting enjoyed by Adam (the Jewish People) in the temple in Jerusalem. 

The poem describes the love affair of a man and a woman. It has been interpreted in various ways. One of the most popular interpretations in Judaism is that the love affair is between the Jewish People and God. 

The first verse tells us that King Solomon composed the song, he also built the temple. 

The second verse tells us that the beloved asked her lover to quench her thirst from the water of his mouth because the words that emanate from His mouth are better than wine יִשָּׁקֵנִי מִנְּשִׁיקוֹת פִּיהוּ, כִּי-טוֹבִים דֹּדֶיךָ מִיָּיִן 

Words (symbolised by water) give spiritual sustenance and emanate from God when the beloved meets Him in the temple in Jerusalem. (Many interpretations translate this verse “Kiss me with your lips because your breasts are sweeter than wine.”)

In the same way that the beloved goes to find her lover in the garden, so the place where the Jewish People go to seek spiritual sustenance is the temple in Jerusalem, built by King Solomon.

God doesn’t dwell in the temple. Solomon built the temple as the place where people go to pray to God, the place where God and the Jewish People meet. 

God is everywhere; He is not confined to a structure. The temple served the same function as the Garden of Eden, but it’s not a recreation of the Garden of Eden, and its holiness is not derived from the presence of God, as in polytheism, but from the presence of man calling on God. The temple is a recollection of the meeting between Adam and God, which took place in the Garden of Eden.

Solomon loved God, and he built the temple on Mt. Moria as the place where he would go to call on God. 

The lover, Solomon (the Jewish people), rejoiced and sang praises to God, the lover, in the temple.

Other religions, especially Hinduism and Buddhism, which developed at the same time as Solomon,  also built temples, which one can visit to this day in Asia. Those temples are surrounded by nature. 

Trees and beautifully painted wood define them as holy precincts. This is by no means the case of the Jewish temple.

Judaism regards visiting temples of other religions as idolatry. 

Judaism draws a strict line, separating nature from the worship of God. 

Their temples are dwelling places for their gods, and they are built in the middle of nature, surrounded by trees and beautiful vegetation. Nature is worshipped in and around their temples. 

Note:

A garden is implied in the Song of Songs

The implication that the beloved met in a garden is conveyed in the words, “Give me to drink” (water me), the first words of the song (after the title). Water is the most important requirement of a garden.. 

Most texts translate the Hebrew word “yeshakeni” as,  “Let him kiss me”. The Hebrew word “nashak ( לנשק) can mean “to kiss”, or “to desire”, or “to give to drink”, in other words, “to water, or to give to drink”. 

Nature conservation in the Bible

The origin of Tu Bishvat