The Key to a Successful Winter

Last week, right after a heavy rain, I stepped outside to clear my head. The sky was still low and gray, but the ground was alive. The grass around me wasn’t just green — it was glowing. The wheat in the fields near Afula was pushing upward with a kind of urgency, as if every blade had been waiting for this exact moment. And the kalaniot… those fiery red flowers stood tall, defiant, like sparks rising from the soil. 

Even the olives — barely noticeable, light green buds the size of poppy seeds — were beginning to swell with new life. 

For a moment, I just stood there realizing:   

Winter is not dying. Winter is giving birth. 

We sometimes forget this because we experience the “other” winter — the one behind closed doors. The winter of thick blankets, glowing screens, late mornings, and early nights. The winter where procrastination becomes our most refined skill. The winter where the cold slows us down, and the darkness convinces us to stay put. 

We think winter is hibernation. But step outside, even for a minute, and you see the truth: 

Winter is the season when Hashem renews His world from the ground up. And if you let yourself be part of it, winter becomes your time of renewal too. 

The World Outside Your Door 

Walk outside right after the rain. 

The trees glisten as if they were freshly painted. The colors sharpen because the dust has been washed away, revealing the world as God intended it to be seen. Who needs AI-enhanced imagery when the eyes that Hashem gives you capture a level of beauty no computer could ever touch? 

Everything is reborn. Fields that were cracked dust only weeks ago now stand like lush carpets. Life that was hidden beneath the soil is fighting to rise. 

If you’re paying attention, something inside you rises with it. Your soul feels lighter, younger, somehow reset — like a child waking up in a renewed world. 

The Doorframe That Decides Your Winter 

Two winters exist side by side. The one of warmth, screens, and slumber… and the one of rain-washed color and Divine rebirth. 

The difference between them is shockingly small: The front door. 

Walk through it, even for a few minutes, and you step into Hashem’s world — a world that is bursting with growth. Stay behind it, and winter becomes a slow freeze in your mind and spirit. 

Tu B’Shvat: The Hidden Turning Point 

Right in the middle of winter — six weeks from its start and six weeks from its end — Hashem gives us a day that unlocks the whole season: Tu B’Shvat. 

The Mishnah teaches (Rosh Hashanah 1:1) that this is the New Year for Trees. Jewish law forbids us from eating fruit from a tree in its first three years. So how do we measure a tree’s age? 

🌳 Not by when it sprouted. 
🌳 Not by when it blossomed. 
🌳 Not by when it produced fruit. 

Its age changes on Tu B’Shvat — even if nothing visible has appeared yet. 

Growth doesn’t begin when the world sees it. Growth begins when God decides the time has come. 
The tree becomes something long before the branches show a single sign. 

And so do we. 

Tu B’Shvat teaches us to celebrate what is growing beneath the surface — inside our land, inside our world, inside ourselves. 

A Taste of the Land Itself 

On Tu B’Shvat we taste figs, dates, pomegranates, olives, grapes, wheat, and barley — the fruits of Eretz Yisrael. 

But we’re not just eating produce. We’re tasting the revival of life itself. We’re honoring the miracle that the Land wakes up every year, from north to south, from the Galilee to the Negev. 

And here’s something we don’t think about often: 

When you take a bite of challah made in Israel, you are literally absorbing the Land of Israel into your blood. The wheat feeds off of the soil, turning the Land itself into bread, and the bread is digested into blood, coursing Eretz Yisrael through your veins.  

Hashem designed a world where His gifts don’t just nourish us — they become part of us. 

Winter Is About Transformation – Not Survival 

Every Rosh Hashanah gives the world a new beginning. Tu B’Shvat gives your winter a new beginning, and tells you that spiritual renewal happens even when everything looks quiet. Even when the cold is heavy. Even when you feel stuck. 

Hashem wakes up His creation in the rain-soaked fields, in the buds you can barely see, and in the quiet stirring inside your own heart. 

So go outside this winter. 

Let the colors, the rain, the rebirth remind you what renewal feels like. Leave the hibernation behind and embrace the transformation God is offering you right now. 

Winter isn’t slowing you down. Winter is waking you up. 

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David Ben Horin lives in Afula with his family, 60,000 passionate Israelis, and Matilda, our local camel.