- Shabbat and Holidays
- Tu Bishvat
1397
In 1882 Baron Edmond de Rothschild’s Carmel (East) Wine Company produced its first bottles of wine in Rishon L’Ziyon. At that time Rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin (Netziv) was the rav and head of the famed yeshiva in Volozhin in then Lithuania. He was also the titular chairman of the Chovevei Tziyon - The Lovers of Zion - the organization that encouraged Jewish immigration to the Land of Israel and helped support monetarily the nascent but growing population of the "yishuv hayashan" - the pre-Zionist settlers in the Land of Israel of the nineteenth century. His nephew, Rabbi Baruch HaLevi Epstein (the author of Torah Temima, a popular commentary to the Torah) lived with his uncle and aunt in their home while being a very young student at the yeshiva. He recorded for us in his writings that the Carmel Wine Company sent a bottle of wine from its fist production efforts to Rabbi Berlin in recognition of his efforts on behalf of the Jewish settlers in the Land of Israel. When that bottle of Israeli wine finally reached the small village of Volozhin and was delivered to the house of Rabbi Berlin, the great rabbi entered his bedroom and changed into his Shabat garments in honor of a bottle of wine produced by Jews from the grapes of the Holy Land and upon which all of the agricultural mitzvoth of the Torah had been fulfilled. I have often thought about this vignette when I hear observant Jews say they prefer wines from France, Argentina, Chile, Australia, South Africa, California, etc. over Israeli wines. They just don’t get it. The lesson of the "boksar" of Tu B’Shvat has apparently not yet taken hold in their souls and psyches.
So Tu B‘Shvat is not just a date (no pun intended) on the Jewish calendar year. It represents our undying and never failing attachment to the Land of Israel. It connects us to the two thousand year old entry in the Mishna that called the day of fifteen Shvat the New Year for trees in the Land of Israel. The day is a slight holiday in Jewish ritual and synagogue service. I still ate "boksar" this year and its taste has not really materially improved. Yet I enjoyed every bite and I again saw my parents eating it with me. There were many other tastier and more delicious Israeli produced fruits on the table before me. But none carried with them the emotional message in my heart that the "boksar" piece did. So to me the message of Tu B’Shvat did not end last week with the passing of the day. Rather it serves every day to strengthen our claim to this piece of holy ground and to confirm the great times - each person under his vine and fig tree in security and happiness - that was promised to us by our prophets.

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