The Hebrew month of Shvat is when nature in the Land of Israel awakens from its winter slumber. It may still be cold and wet outside, but the trees sense the lengthening daylight hours that herald the oncoming seasonal change.
The sages tell us that in Jewish tradition there are different days on the Jewish calendar that can be considered the new year (Mishnah, Rosh Hashana 1:1). For the trees, that day is in the month of Shvat. According to the School of Shammai it is on the first of the month, while according to the School of Hillel it is the 15th. Common practice follows the School of Hillel, and the arboreal new year is marked on Tu Bishvat.
There are, however, almond trees in some areas of Israel that seem to adopt the position of the School of Shammai, as they diligently begin to blossom at the beginning of the month.
Hassidic master Rabbi Zvi Elimelech Shapira (1783-1841) of Dynow, Poland, noticed that when listing the different new years, the sages mostly used the plural form: kings, festivals, years, seven-year cycles, jubilees, and vegetables. But when it came to the arboreal new year, the sages used the singular: “On the first of Shvat [it is] the new year for the tree – as per the words of the School of Shammai; the School of Hillel says it is on the 15th.”
Why do the sages employ the singular noun?
In his famous work Bnei Yissaschar (Zolkiew 1850), Rabbi Zvi Elimelech cited a tradition that the arboreal new year is indeed for one type of tree only; the tree that we need for performing a mitzvah – the citron that provides the etrog for the four species on Sukkot. Since Tu Bishvat is the new year for the etrog tree, Rabbi Zvi Elimelech opined that on this day we should pray that we will merit to have a good etrog next Sukkot. The merit of each person, he explained, determines the quality of his etrog. With a witty phrase, he noted that “behold, his prayer will bear fruit.”
Rabbi Zvi Elimelech did not cite a specific source, merely referring to a tradition “that we have received from our teachers.” A piece to the source puzzle appeared in a work published in 1908 by Rabbi Yitzhak Mordekhai Padua (1884 – murdered in 1942), who served as a hassidic master in the Polish town of Opoczno. Rabbi Padua reported that hassidic master Rabbi Avraham Yehoshua Heshel of Opatow (1748-1825) had said that he already knows on Tu Bishvat “which etrog he will have on the festival of Sukkot.”
Not only did Rabbi Zvi Elimelech not cite a specific source, he also did not detail which prayer should be said. Presumably, any heartfelt prayer for a good etrog would suffice.
A GENERATION after Rabbi Zvi Elimelech of Dynow, far from the cradle of Hassidism in Eastern Europe, the great Iraqi rabbi known as the Ben Ish Hai, Rabbi Yosef Hayim of Baghdad (1835-1909), published a prayer for the etrog that was fashioned for Tu Bishvat.
The prayer opens with biblical verses, and then a supplication that appears to be an original composition by Rabbi Yosef Hayim. The prayer singles out the etrog but also includes requests for other fruit: olives, grapes, figs, pomegranates, nuts, dates, apples, carobs, pears, peaches, and berries.
The notion of a winter prayer for an etrog may seem strange. We might wonder: Is this prayer still meaningful and relevant?
Praying for a good etrog is not preposterous, since humans have not mastered nature, and the idea of a natural disaster wiping out etrog crops is not beyond the imagination. Our generation knows only too well that pandemics can shut down communal life, that bushfires flamed by high-speed winds can rage through entire regions, and that floods can bring aggressive saltwater crocodiles into peaceful towns.
However, agriculture has developed such that the etrog industry is flourishing. Quality etrogim flood the market each year. Blemishes can only be discerned with a magnifying glass, and questions that once troubled rabbis are no longer relevant. It was not that long ago that Jewish legal literature discussed the permissibility of using an etrog from the previous year. Rabbis debated whether it was better for one town to have a whole etrog or to cut the etrog in half so that two towns could each have a piece of it. These questions have been consigned to fascinating chapters in Jewish legal history.
BUT IT is not only the change in the etrog industry and in agriculture more generally that challenges the relevance of this prayer. If salties are wading through the streets of Townsville, Queensland, and if fires are raging in Los Angeles, California, a good etrog is hardly the most pressing issue! Surely, instead of praying for an etrog in eight months’ time, we should be praying for our brothers and sisters still held in captivity, for our soldiers who are battling to overcome wounds sustained in battle, for the success and safety of our soldiers who are still selflessly serving the country, and for those who had to evacuate their homes to be able to restart their lives.
How many of us would be willing to trade a beautiful etrog, if in eight months’ time we could have peace in our land? Isn’t that what we should be praying for?
So how, then, might we frame the Tu Bishvat etrog prayer?
One possibility is to see it as a micro-prayer that reflects a broad concern for agriculture. According to this way of thinking, we are praying for agricultural success in general: for those who toil in the fields, for those who work in the laboratories developing disease-resistant strains of crops, and for all those who are involved in the process of providing fresh produce to humanity. The etrog prayer encourages sensitivity toward agricultural endeavors. We may only start thinking about an etrog as the festival Sukkot arrives, but without planning, dedication, and hard work over a sustained period, there will be no etrogim when Sukkot arrives.
Another way to frame the etrog prayer is to see it as a metaphor for growth and hope as we emerge from the darkness of winter. The trees may be bare at the moment, but they will blossom and bear fruit. A prayer during winter for a ritual that will be commemorated after summer is an expression of faith that we will get to that time and need an etrog.
Thus, a prayer for the etrog now is a prayer for a future – the future of the Jewish people. ■
The writer is a senior faculty member at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies, senior lecturer at Bar-Ilan University’s Faculty of Law, and rabbi in Tzur Hadassah.