12-18 Shevat, 5778 - - 28 January - 3 February, 2018

12 Shevat

• In some Sefardic communities collections would be made to provide the poor with fruit for Tu B'Shevat

13 Shevat

• Yahrzeit of Rav Boruch Sorotzkin (d. 1979) Rosh Yeshiva of Telshe Cleveland. He was the second generation leader of the Yeshiva in its American incarnation, and descended on both dsides from earlier leadership of the Yeshiva. He took a very active role in advocating for Orthodox Jewry on the national and international stage. His death at age 62 was a great loss.

14 Shevat

• Yahrzeit of the P'nei Yehoshua (d. 1757) one of the primary Achronim on the Talmud.

15 Shevat

• Beginning of the Fiscal Year for the tithing of fruit, as well as the new year for eating fruit from four-year-old trees. This is NOT a Day of Judgement for trees.
• Many have the custom to eat fruit on this day; some seek out specifically fruits from Israel.
• Wood for the altar in the Temple would begin to be cut down on this date.
• There will be a total lunar eclipse (which can only occur when there is a full-moon, the 15th of a Hebrew month) visible in parts of North America and Asia.

16 Shevat

• Yahrzeit of Rav Shalom Mordechai HaKohen, Maharsham (d. 1911). Author of Daas Torah an important commentary on Shulchan Aruch and other Halachic works.

17 Shevat

• Purim Sargosa. The Purim of Saragossa was established in the year 1440, fifty- two years before the Jews were exiled from Spain. In the city of Saragossa, Spain, the Jews were ordered to appear at a public reception honoring the king with all of the Torah scrolls of the community.
  The rabbis of the community decided that it would be safer to remove the Torahs from their cases, and were sure that the king would never know the difference. Unfortunately, there was a Jew in the community named Marcos who was a rebel and a troublemaker. He went to the authorities and betrayed the rabbis' plan, citing the Jews' disrespect for the king as the reason for not bringing the actual scrolls. The king was furious at this slight and ordered the Jews to open the cases at once. A terror fell upon all the Jews, for the punishment for disobeying the king was the most severe, but they had no choice but to open the cases. They were completely amazed and dumbfounded when they saw that all of the cases contained Torah scrolls.
  What they could not have known was that the previous night, the caretaker of the synagogue had a dream in which the prophet Elijah appeared to him and ordered him to replace the scrolls in their cases. The dream was so vivid that the caretaker did as he was instructed, but he had no time to inform the rabbis of his action. The king saw that the Jews were innocent; the accusation was baseless. He ordered the informer put to death for his false accusation. To commemorate their redemption, the rabbis established a special Purim to be celebrated throughout the generations on the 17th and 18th of Shevat.

18 Shevat

• Yahrzeit of Rav Beinish Finkel, Rosh Yeshiva Mir, Yerushalaim (d. 1990). I had the honor of meeting him on a couple of occasions, you could not find a friendlier, more down to earth, person.