Saving the Garden Route

Rabbi Asher Deren

The Shul of Blouberg

West Coast

There’s an old saying that “we don’t inherit the earth from our parents, we borrow it from our children”.

I loved the message so I googled it, Wikipedia’d it but didn’t find any definitive source. Until last week I heard another one – the Talmud;

“An old man was planting a tree. A young person passed by and asked, What are you planting? A carob tree, the old man replied. Silly fool, said the youth. Don’t you know that it takes 70 years for a carob tree to bear fruit? That’s okay, said the old man. Just as others planted for me, I plant for future generations.”

This Wednesday, February 4, is the Jewish Holiday of Tu B’Shvat, the 15^th of Shevat which the Mishna tells us is the “Rosh Hashanah for Trees”.

Why do trees need a Rosh Hashanah? Did the cherry trees also go to their in-laws for dinner on Tuesday night? What is it supposed to mean?

Well, just as Rosh Hashanah is the day when we celebrate a new cycle of life for man, so too this season, four months after the rain season in Israel, is when the saturated soil begins to infuse the trees, giving them new life that will blossom in early spring.

What’s interesting about fruit trees as opposed to grains or vegetables, is that while the latter provides relatively quick returns, the labour intensive work of planting and tending to a fruit tree, never produces fruit in less than a year, and often much longer.

In King Solomon’s “Song of Songs” where he depicts the love of G-d for his people in the narrative of a Love Poem, he writes: “Bosi L’gani Achosi Kalla” – “Come to My Garden my Sister my Bride”.

G-d invites us to his Garden, a place where lush trees offer succulent fruit to enjoy and relish.

This world is a Garden. My Garden. Come visit Me. Here.

Have you been reading the papers or listening to the news? Crime, corruption, pollution, hunger, war… Is this really a Garden? G-d’s Garden? Jungle would probably be a more accurate description.

But if you notice, G-d doesn’t say that the world is Woolworths’ fresh fruit section in season where you just pick your selection of mango and blueberries off the shelf and check out. He says it’s my Garden.

It’s a place where I am – in these trees and in these fruit, where Goodness and G-dliness reside. But trees have to be planted, fruit have to be peeled, and when you see the world for what it really is, G-d’s Garden, then you will tend to those trees and find those fruit.

Does it take work? Of course it does. Sometimes 70 years of work. But does it produce? You bet. It produces the sweet fruit that can be found in each and every bite, in every moment of life.