| Today is: Wednesday, Shvat 15, 5772 · February 8, 2012
Tu B'Shevat - New Year for Trees
• New Year for Trees
Today is Tu B'Shevat ("the 15th of Shevat") which marks the beginning of a "New Year for Trees." This is the season in which the earliest-blooming trees in the Land of Israel emerge from their winter sleep and begin a new fruit-bearing cycle. Legally, the "New Year for Trees" relates to the various tithes that must be separated from produce grown in the Holy Land. We mark the day by eating fruit, particularly from the "Seven Kinds" that are singled out by the Torah in its praise of the bounty of the Holy Land (wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives and dates). On this day we remember that "Man is a tree of the field" (Deuteronomy 20:19) and reflect on the lessons we can derive from our botanical analogue. For more on Tu B'Shevat go here
Five [tragic] events occurred to our forefathers on the Ninth of Av: It was decreed that [the generation of the Exodus] will not enter the Land; the first and second Temples were destroyed; Betar was conquered; and the city [of Jerusalem] was ploughed over
- Talmud, Taanit 4:6
Chitas and Rambam for today: | 
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