java create date object using a value string

Use SimpleDateFormat parse method:

import java.text.DateFormat;
import java.text.SimpleDateFormat;

String inputString = "11-11-2012";
DateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("dd-MM-yyyy");
Date inputDate = dateFormat.parse(inputString, dateFormat );

Since we have Java 8 with LocalDate I would suggest use next:

import java.time.LocalDate;
import java.time.format.DateTimeFormatter;

String inputString = "11-11-2012";
DateTimeFormatter formatter = DateTimeFormatter.ofPattern("dd-MM-yyyy");
LocalDate inputDate = LocalDate.parse(inputString,formatter);

 import java.util.Date;
 import java.text.SimpleDateFormat;

Above is the import method, below is the simple code for Date

 SimpleDateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy/MM/dd HH:mm:ss");
 Date date = new Date();

 system.out.println((dateFormat.format(date))); 

Whenever you want to convert a String to Date object then use SimpleDateFormat#parse
Try to use

String dateInString = new java.text.SimpleDateFormat("EEEE, dd/MM/yyyy/hh:mm:ss")
        .format(cal.getTime())
SimpleDateFormat formatter = new SimpleDateFormat("EEEE, dd/MM/yyyy/hh:mm:ss");
Date parsedDate = formatter.parse(dateInString);

.Additional thing is if you want to convert a Date to String then you should use SimpleDateFormat#format function.
Now the Point for you is new Date(String) is deprecated and not recommended now.Now whenever anyone wants to parse , then he/she should use SimpleDateFormat#parse.

refer the official doc for more Date and Time Patterns used in SimpleDateFormat options.