Tu B'Shvat 2015

Mishna Rosh Hashanah 1:1: There are four New Years: … on the first of Shevat the New Year for the tree, according to Bet Shammai. Bet Hillel say, on the fifteenth thereof.

Vayikra Rabbah 25:3: Rabbi Yehudah ben Shimon began his discourse with the text, “After the Lord your G-d shall you walk” (Deuteronomy 12:5). But can a man of flesh and blood walk after the Holy One, blessed be He(?)… But in truth the Holy One, blessed be He, from the very beginning of the creation of the world, was before all else occupied with plantation, as is proved by the text, “And the Lord G-d planted a garden in the first instance in Eden” (Genesis 2:8), and so do you also, when you enter into the land, occupy yourselves first with nothing else but plantation; hence it is written, “And when you shall come into the land, then you shall plant.”

Rav Nachman bar Yitzchak said: Why was the Torah compared to a tree, as it says "for it is a tree of life for those who hold fast to it" (Proverbs 3:18)? To teach you that just as a small tree may set a larger tree on fire, so too is it with scholars, where the small sharpen the large. After all, Rabbi Chanania said "I have learnt much from my teachers, and more from my friends, but from my students more than anyone"

Pirkei d’Rabbi Eliezer chapter 34:

Six voices go from one end of the world to the other and the sound is not audible… When a fruit-bearing tree is cut down the voice cries out from one end of the world to the other, and its sound is not audible… When the soul departs from the body the voice goes out from one end of the world to the other, and its sound is not audible….

Midrash Kohelet Raba 7:28: When G-d created the first man He took him and showed him all the trees of the Garden of Eden and said to him ‘See My works, how beautiful and praiseworthy they are. And everything that I created, I created it for you. Be careful not to spoil or destroy My world – for if you do, there will be nobody after you to repair it.’

One day he [Honi the Circle Drawer] was journeying on the road and he saw a man planting a carob tree; he asked him, How long does it take [for this tree] to bear fruit? The man replied: Seventy years. He then further asked him: Are you certain that you will live another seventy years? The man replied: I found [ready grown] carob trees in the world; as my forefathers planted these for me so I too plant these for my children. Honi sat down to have a meal and sleep overcame him. As he slept a rocky formation enclosed upon him which hid him from sight and he continued to sleep for seventy years. When he awoke he saw a man gathering the fruit of the carob tree and he asked him, Are you the man who planted the tree? The man replied: I am his grandson. Thereupon he exclaimed: It is clear that I slept for seventy years.