Not surprisingly, there is no biblical reference to the holiday of  Tu Bishvat. Rather, the sources that describe this calendrical observance are found in the Mishnaic tractate, Rosh Hashanah, (the New Year). More on that later... 

In order to understand Judaism and its holidays, sometimes one must go beyond the Hebrew Bible. While the bible contains the scriptural basis for many of our holidays, not all are biblical in origin. This may sound confusing to those who have always thought of the Jewish people as the ‘people of the book'. In fact, we are the people of the books. Which books? The written law and the oral law. The written law refers to Torah, Prophets and Writings, or the Hebrew Bible; the oral law is commonly understood to mean the Mishnah and the Gemara, which together equal the Talmud. Although the Bible is considered more important than the Talmud, we make sense of

Dear friends,

At a recent Bar Mitzvah celebration at Robinson's Arch, there was something special in the air. The family and close friends gathered at 8 am, and the Bar Mitzvah boy looked happy but nervous.  He carefully laid his tefillin for the first time, with some help from the Rabbi, and accurately and confidently read his Torah portion and chanted the blessings.  His grandparents beamed with pride, and his siblings marveled at their little brother who had reached the age of mitzvot.  We sang, we danced and praised God for having brought us to this joyous moment.  It was a special time in the life of this family, and a moment they will always cherish.  The Rabbi was me, and the boy was my youngest child, Matan.               &nb

I was recently asked why the holiday of Hannukah does not appear in the Hebrew Bible. There are many theories and a great deal of scholarly discourse on this question. The discussion mainly revolves around the question of why the books of Maccabees I and II do not appear in the canon of the Hebrew Bible. In fact, these books originally appeared in the Septuagint, a Greek translation of the Bible prepared by the Jews of Alexandria. The Septuagint, including Maccabees I and II was eventually adopted by the nascent Christian community. Once these books became part of the Christian canon, they essentially became lost to the Jewish community for many centuries.

Today, Maccabees I and II are an excellent source of historical information about the Jewish community and its collision with Antiochus Epiphanes the IV and Greek culture. Just because they are not included within the Jewish canon does not mean that they cannot shed enormous light on a crucial moment in Jewish history.

Tags: jewish holyday hannoukah candles lights feast maccabees