Monday was Tu B’Shvat, the day our tradition calls the Birthday of the Trees. Throughout this week, the Daily Kavanot will focus on nature, the environment, and sustainability practices.
Here is a Biblical fun fact with which to begin your day:
Other than humans, trees are the most-mentioned living earthly being in the Tanach. The story of humanity begins, in some ways, with trees—the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and the Tree of Life shape our world outside of the Garden of Eden. Trees are the symbols of righteousness, of Torah, of the Divine, and of the Messianic future. For example, we are promised in Psalm 92—part of our Shabbat morning liturgy—that:
The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree and grow like a cedar in Lebanon.
Planted in the house of Adonai, they shall flourish in the courts of our God.
They shall still bring forth fruit even in old age; they shall be fresh and full of sap;
What an image! No wonder the Biblical authors were enamored with trees as a metaphor! And yet, they did not live in a world of such arboreal abundance.
Professor William Osborne is the author of “Trees and Kings: A Comparative Analysis of Tree Imagery in Israel’s Prophetic Tradition and the Ancient Near East.” Of this, he writes:
As any astute tourist quickly observes, the landscape of much of the Near East is predominantly stark and barren. The land is comprised of innumerable shades of brown, with only brief interjections of green and blue. The higher in elevation one goes, the greener the picture becomes. Consequently, mountains and rivers, along with the forests that adorn them, seem to be natural focal points for anyone who lives or travels in these lands. The ancient peoples, from the remote western world of Egypt to the eastern river marshes of Babylonia, lived in the land, not simply on it. They were all agrarian cultures, whose livelihood was found and maintained among the shade, fruit, shelter, and beauty of their trees. As a result, there can be little doubt that this lifestyle had a significant effect on these ancient cultures and the way they perceived the world. Trees were some of the most sacred elements in ancient Near Eastern civilizations.
We know that our move from agrarian to industrial societies has been disastrous for our ecosystem, for our environment, and for the natural world in which we live. And yet, all week, I have been more attuned to our trees—the beautiful pink magnolia trees blooming on our street, the stately California oaks that give my neighborhood its name, the towering pines, and of course those white pear blossoms. Perhaps, even in our urban/suburban lives, we can see the holiness in the world that blooms around us.
—Rabbi Sari Laufer