Secret lives of trees

So much happens beyond what we can see. If you look up in the sky tonight, you will see just a sliver of a moon. Rosh Chodesh Sh’vat – the new moon, marking the beginning of the month of Sh’vat – fell on Monday, 19 January. It’s the month when we will celebrate Tu B’Shvat, the festival of trees. While it’s mid-summer here in South Africa, in the northern hemisphere, it’s bitterly cold, the darkest time of year. Everything seems frozen and dead. Why, then, would it be a time to celebrate a festival of trees? 

Because it’s exactly now that, invisibly to us, the sap begins to rise in the trees, and buds appear. Most famously the shkeidiyah (almond tree) is the first to put out its blossoms. The rains that have fed the earth over winter begin to rise into the veins of the trees. 

Our tradition likens the Torah to a Tree of Life, just like we sing when we put the Torah away, “Eitz chayim hi” (It’s a Tree of Life to those who hold fast to her.) (Prov 3:18) Trees are everywhere in the Bible, from the trees in the Garden of Eden to Psalms – Tzaddik katamar yifrach (The righteous shall flourish like a date palm) (Ps 92:13). Even we are compared to trees – ki ha’adam eitz ha-sadeh (because a human being is a tree of the field) (Deut 20:19), an image that is developed by the kabbalistic tree. 

Many readers here might have already heard that I’m going to start work at Alyth Gardens synagogue in London from July. I have enjoyed writing for the SA Jewish Report for the past 20 years, and have been blessed to spend those two decades working for the community as a rav in Cape Town. Rabbi Andi and I have watched our children grow up as the synagogue grew with us and around us – the fruits of the tending and nurturing of the many lay leaders, rabbis, synagogue teams, and congregants who have stepped up to nourish this remarkable community. And the incredible fruits for me have been the chance to stand by the sides of my congregants at their baby-blessings, weddings, Bneimitzvah, and funerals, to hold each other in hard and celebratory times. Fortunately, my work extended beyond the walls of my shul to the wider Jewish community of Cape Town and the rest of the country. So much tending, nurturing, and growing. 

As I move on to this new challenge, I’m looking forward to seeing how those trees that I have helped to tend – Temple Israel; the Cape Town Jewish community; and South African Jewry – continue to flourish with the loving care of all its gardeners. May you, reader, with G-d’s help, be one of those, and on our next visit, may we have the merit of walking around these gardens admiring the work of your hands. 

Shabbat shalom.