Similarly, Shevat is a winter month on the Jewish calendar, but it brings us hope of Spring's imminent arrival. Shevat ends the darkest time of the year and witnesses the beginning of the blossoming of the shkedim, or almond trees, in Eretz Yisrael. It is a month of promise and renewal.
In the middle of Shevat, on the fifteenth day of the month, corresponding to the Hebrew date Tu, we celebrate the renewal of the trees and flowering plants with the holiday Tu B'Shevat. This celebration, known as "the birthday of the trees," helps connect us to our spiritual homeland, where Spring is beginning to be visible.
But it is not only at this time that our tradition helps the Jewish communities of the Diaspora to feel linked to the physical land of Israel. Throughout the winter months, we include a prayer for rain in the Amidah. We call God Mashiv ha ruach uMorid ha gashem – the One who makes the wind blow and the rain fall. Without rain to soak the ground in winter, the earth would not be ready for planting in spring. In the months leading up to fall's harvest and Sukkot, we include a prayer for dew, thanking God, Morid ha tal, the One who causes dew to fall. Without rain in its proper season, and dew in its proper time, our crops would not be able to grow and the land would not be able to nourish us.
Our liturgy helps us to remember the changing of the seasons in Eretz Yisrael. How amazing it is that Jewish communities around the world thank God for the rain which falls in winter in the land of Israel. We pray facing Jerusalem, to remind ourselves that we live outside the land which God promised to our ancestors. But even as we build vibrant Jewish communities in the Diaspora, we pray for bounty in Israel. We pray that God will watch over the land, bringing "rains in their season, so that the earth shall yield its produce and the trees of the field their fruit."
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