Shalom everyone,
    Shevat has some intrigue to offer those who love Torah...and wonder about Oral Torah.
    About the only thing we observe is Tu B' Shevat....the 15th of Shevat, but there is so much more that we should be aware of.  For instance:

Deut. 1:3 says:
   "It was in the fortieth year, in the eleventh month, on the first of the month, when Moses SPOKE to the children of Israel, according to everything that Hashem commanded him to them."

Sooooo.....this would be the LAST TIME that Moses SPOKE the TORAH!!!

    We are told that Shevat is always 30 days long....because of this happening.
    We are told that the month of Shevat is declared to be a FULL MONTH..ie have 30 days...therefore by the heavenly signs...the first sliver of the NEW MOON will always be a slightest visible New Moon...the very biginning of the LIGHT by which darkness is erased.....and likewise the end of the month will always be the longest dark moon phase...causing the month to be called a FULL MONTH.
     Lunar months are 29+ days; or 29 marginal days long.  But...not so for Shevat.  For it will take 30days + to go from the slightest sliver to the next sliver of New Light to be seen again.
     Likewise, we know that Moses took 30 days to recite this Oral Torah.  For we know that from the scripture above until the crossing of the Jordan took 60 days....as we are told that the children of Israel mourned Moses Death for 30 days.  The 30 days of Shevat, + 30 days of Adar for his Sheva bring us to Nisan 1.
    As I was reading this passage of scripture this morning....I saw some interesting things.
    There is a picture of the end of days here....like the end of the journey thru the wilderness for the children of Israel.
    Many of those in attendance would see the ending days of their lives....for they would not be allowed to cross over the Jordan.  They would be those who could recall and be witness to the Oral Torah that Moses was teaching.  That would be a Shevat happening.
     Many would be from 40 years and younger...would not have experience the Exodus except for having been told about it.  Some would have heard a disparaging story, and some would have been told of the miracles, and faith of what would be in the future.  And, some would have been told both stories.  Before the end of the month though, all of their elders (except Joshua and Caleb) would be of their own generation....for all of the ones who had endured the coming out of  Egypt...had put all the footsteps down 'till  the ending of this month....had actually made the pathway through the wilderness and around the mountain....would never cross the Jordan.  They would be burried in the dust of the Earth.  But that was the purpose of their life...to tell for eternity the story of Exodus.  Even Moses life story was the Exodus.    And then, a period of 30 days...until everyone mourned the passing of the time of the Exodus.
    I saw in this time frame of the month of Shevat...a like time frame for all of us...
    I saw 40 x 50 = 2000 years of Jubilees not kept.  Jubilees are Land Sabbaths.  The children of Israel had to occupy the entire land for 50 years before they celebrated a Jubilee Sabbath.   They never kept a Jubilee...except maybe one..durring Solomon's time (that is just what I am remembering...like the children of Israel remembering the Exodus...it is hard to remember, what you never experience). I can hardly figure out how the Jubilees begin and end (perhaps they are like the month of Shevat).  (Does Shevat come from Sheva...a mourning period?)
    I saw in chapter 1:38  Joshua was designated as the Son of Nun, but I also saw in Chapter 3:28 the mention of Joshua as different.....it is instead of Yahoshua Ben Nun, it is AT (alef-Tav) Yahoshua".  But I also saw in chapter 1:38/39...Israel mentioned as At Yshrael....so I read that important part of the verse, because it speaks of later years after the Israelites are dispersed again.   TO OUR TIMES.  This "AT Israel" is not translated...it is found at the end of verse 38, beginning of 39...so it is like a conjuction that is left out of the translation.

   "38)Joshua son of Nun, who stands before you, He shall come there;  strengthen him, for he SHALL cause Israel to inherit it.".........the hebrew has "alef-tav   yod shin resh alef lamed"

   Is "At-Israel" like unto "At-Yahshua", the ending from alef to tav?

   "39)And as for your small children of whom you said, "They will be taken captive," and your children who did not know good from evil this day---they will come there, to them shall I give it and they shall possess it."

    All of the children of Israel...never lived on All of the LAND OF ISRAEL at one time...and so was there ever a Jubilee year?  In the days of Solomon...had the tribes not separated and gone their own way?

I think we are seeing this prophecy of Moses unfold today, in the month of Shevat.  It is as if....the only way we have to know Torah....either Oral or written is by word of mouth.  This is the generation of the "Broken Stones" (our hearts) yearning for the Torah....and we will hear it with our Broken Hearts ... and like vs. 36 says, we will inherit the Promised Land because, like Caleb, we follow Hashem WHOLEHEARTEDLY.  We are like the 2nd. person who got to go into Caanan land...not the leader like Joshua, but like Caleb....because we heard and applied Torah wholeheartedly...

That is the essence of Shevat --- the time of the end, of our journey to a distant land (earth instead of heaven)....still a little while before we say our good-byes..a time for preparing to cross the Jordan...a time for mourning.

Shalom,
Miriam Brown