The first Mishna in Mesechet Rosh Hashanah discusses the four Jewish new years. In order to properly adhere to timely laws and fulfill religious obligations, these new years were instituted. Tu Bishvat, as explained by Hillel in the Mishna, is the new year for the trees and is celebrated on the 15th of the Hebrew month of Shevat. 

The new year for the trees allows for the Jewish people to count on a consistent cycle for laws pertaining to farming and plant growth. For example, the new year helps one count the three year cycle from when a tree was planted. This is an important count, because there is a Jewish law that states a person cannot eat from his or her plants until three years from its planting. This is just one of the many Jewish laws relating to physical land in need of a new year to maintain a consistent count. 

In addition to the new year allowing for a proper count, it also highlights the difference between the laws of the physical land as opposed to other laws. Aside from two (possibly three according to Rabbi Eliezer) Jewish planting laws, the rest of these land laws are specifically tied to the borders of Israel and cannot be done outside of Israel. These mitzvot are referred to as “Mitzvot Teluyot L’aaretz,” meaning, “mitzvot ties to the Land [of Israel].” 

This connection between farming laws and Israel, evokes a larger Jewish theme regarding the inherent relationship between the Jewish laws and the Land of Israel. 

In explaining the purpose for these laws related to the land of Israel, Rabbi Yaakov Moshe Charlop said that it is not that the holiness of the Land of Israel is tied to the laws, but rather, it is due to the sanctity of the Land that these laws were created to be tied to Israel. By performing the Jewish laws of the land, the Jewish people were given the gift of uncovering Israel’s inherent divine holiness. Rabbi Charlop quotes the Mishna to show that this concept is not only connected to the farming laws, but rather to all the Jewish commandments. The Mishnah stated, “[in order] to grant merits to Israel…[God] gave them [the Jewish people] many laws and commandments.” 

The question then becomes, why are only some of the Jewish laws limited to the borders of Israel? 

This is because, while all the laws are connected to Israel and its sanctity, there is still a difference between laws relating to the physical land and other commands. The Gemara explained this distinction by dividing up the laws into two categories. The first included the laws performed with the body, “mitzvot haguf.” The second category referred to the laws tied to the soil, “chovat hakarka.” The laws in the first category are not bound by Israel’s borders, while the second category is limited to Israel’s borders. 

In his commentary on the Torah, Nachmonidies explained that this connection to Israel’s holiness clearly explained why the Torah stated that if one transgressed one of the Torah commandments, the land would reject the people of Israel. 

The relationship between Judaism and Israel is prominent in the Torah and, as seen through the laws of the land, inexplicably connected to the Jewish practices. The only way to wholeheartedly and completely serve God in the way He intended, is to live and practice the Jewish laws in the Land of Israel. While it was always an essential part of the Jewish identity and tradition, the Land of Israel, particularly in the 19th century, became an integral part of Jewish survival and hope. 

Jews have lived in the land of Israel for approximately 4000 years. Since the BIblical period in approximately 1900 BCE, the Jewish people have related to Israel in a repeated pattern; destruction, exile, return and rebirth. Specifically, throughout Jeruslaem’s history, it has been destroyed 17 times and 18 times reborn. 

In the 19th century, as European Jews suffered violence and antisemitism, there was a hope that helped many survive. This hope was not just an ideology, but a national movement to liberate the Jewish people. This hopeful concept, zionism, was the belief that the Jewish people deserved to be safe in their homeland.  Zionists believe in the Jewish people returning to their brothers and sisters who remained in Israel. 

Turning this dream into a reality, in the late 19th century, small groups of zionist pioneers began returning to their ancestral homeland to join the community of Jews who had never left. 

Israel’s national anthem, Hatikvah (The Hope), addresses the ever-present relationship between Israel, their homeland, and their laws. As stated in the anthem, “The hope of 2000 years:/ To live as a free people/ In our own land,/ The land of Zion and Jerusalem.”

Two months before his assassination, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin stated in 1995, “Three thousand years of dreams and prayers…wrap Jerusalem in love and bring close Jews of every generation – from the fires of the Inquisition to the ovens of Auschwitz, and from all corners of the earth – from Yemen to Poland.” 

Rabin expressed the way Jerusalem was a testament to the survival and resilience of the Jewish people. While JEws had been exiled, there had remained a Jewish presence in ISrael, and a Jewish hope across the globe that Jews would one day serve God in the way God once commanded them. 

Tu Bishvat celebrates the ancient connection that exists between the Jewish people and the land of Israel. Early Zionist pioneers planted new trees as a symbol of regrowth. These trees were the symbol that their hope and hard work had been worth it, because they had returned and restored the roots of their nation.