The Mishna informs us that there are four New Years days and four Judgement days in each yearly cycle. The New Year for Trees fall in the month of Shvat. Hillel and Shammai disagaree about what date of the month is the actual new year for trees. This teaching explores the mystical underpinnings of their disagreement.
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Hillel and Shammai’s Dispute about the Fruit Tree’s New Year
1. בס"ד
Hillel and Shammai’s Dispute about the Fruit Tree’s New Year
Tu B’Shvat 2015 / 5775
Sarah Yehudit Schneider
The first of Shevat is the New Year for trees, says the School of Shammai. Beth Hillel disputes this and rules that it
falls on the fifteenth of the month. [Mishna RH 1:1]
The Mishna informs us that there are four New Year’s days in the Jewish calendar as well as
four Judgment Days1
. It then proceeds to explain the significance of each. There is a subtle
quirk in the Mishna’s language that begs interpretation. Among these eight red-letter days,
three apply to fruit trees. The 1st
of Tishrei marks the New Year for saplings (;)נטיעה the 15th
of
Shvat (Tu B’Shvat) marks the New Year for budding trees (,)אילן and on the 6th
of Sivan
(Shavuot) the fruitage of the year’s harvest receives its heavenly reckoning (האילן .)פירות
The Mishna lists each of these eight dates along with the cycle that begins anew when
it comes around—the reign of kings, the tithing of vegetables, the years of creation, the new
budget of spiritual resources available this year, etc. And in each instance, the Mishna uses a
plural subject—kings, years, livestock, rain, etc.—except for the three times that it mentions
fruit trees. On those occasions the Mishna employs a singular noun—tree or seedling—though
a plural form would have been more correct.
In this way, says R. Tsadok2
the Mishna presents both a literal teaching about how to
apply our agricultural laws to the fruit harvest, and simultaneously directs our attention to the
one-and-only-tree, the tree-that-embraces-all-trees, the tree that stands “at the Garden’s
center,” the one that is called the Tree of Life…but which is also, equally, the Tree of
Knowledge of Good and Evil. The Torah mentions the “center of the Garden” twice. First it
notes that the Tree of Life grows there.3
But further on, Chava identifies that central tree as
the one that is forbidden to her, which clearly brands it as the Tree of Knowledge.4
How can
both assertions be true?
Rabaynu Bechaya explains that the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge were
actually fused together as one.5
The Tree of Life embraced its higher canopy, while the tree of
knowledge comprised its lower half. This ilan at the heart of our Tu B’shvat observance is two
trees in one, a fact that is built into the language itself. The term ilan6
(tree)—the singular
noun that the Mishna employs when it mentions the New Year of the Tree—has the gematria of
91 which, Kabbalists note, is also the sum of two names of G-d—the four-letter (unutterable)
Tetragrammaton and Adon-oi, the name that we speak when we encounter those letters in
prayer and study. These two names (Havaya7
and Adon-oi) refer to the masculine and feminine
aspects of HaShem called Blessed Holy One and Shekhina—Transcendence and Immanence. In
Jewish symbology the Tree of Life associates with the Blessed Holy One; the Tree of
Knowledge with the Shekhina.
The Tree of Life corresponds to the Written Torah8
(...היא חיים )עץ whose associations are
always good. The written Torah does not permit tinkering or innovation. Before this holy
writ we can only hear and obey; there is nothing to add. To “eat” from the Tree of Life is to
partake of the world in a way that serves G-d through self-nullification. At any moment one is
willing to die for truth; to sacrifice one’s ego on the altar of divine service.
This Tu B’Shvat teaching is dedicated anonymously to the wilderlands and wild spaces of our planet. The human species should fulfill its holy
charge as protector of the Garden and of all living things.