“Man is a tree of the field,” and today the 15th of Shevat the JEWISH calendar to celebrate the “New Year for Trees.”
So how are we similar to our botanical friend? The tree’s primary components are the roots, which anchor it to the ground and supply it with water and nutrients;the trunk, branches, and leaves which comprise the body of the tree; and the fruit, which contains the seeds by which the tree reproduces itself.
The spiritual life of man also includes roots, a body, and fruit. The roots represent our faith which comes from our patriarchs and matriarch, as they say “we are believers children of believers.”Our faith is our source of nurture and perseverance. The trunk,branches , and leaves are the body of our spiritual lives which is contained in our intellectual, emotional, and practical achievements. The fruit is our good deeds and our potential. It is the ability to influence others, to plant a seed in another fellow human being and see it sprout, grow and bear fruit.
Tu B’Shevat marks the day in which the winter rain in the Land of Israel starts wining down and the sap, life force,of the tree begins activating it so it can bloom again. Interestingly in the wintertime the trees seem dead, not one little leave is there, but H”S through nature has His way of showing us that there is no such thing as death. Death is really an interruption of life, and eventually we have the power to reinvent ourselves and come out from the darkest places because there is a part of us that is grounded and revitalized. The same with physical death, there will be a time when all those who have been gone will sprout again.
#TuB’Shevat
some excerpts taken from “Inside Time” by Yanki Tauber
www.livealittlehigher.com
