Tu B’Shvat – Finding our roots

The pasuk in Devarim (20:19) when discussing the possible event of the Jewish army laying siege to a city gives us a mitzva not to cut down the trees surrounding the city and rhetorically asks us, “is a tree like a man, that it should give way in front of you in a siege?”.

Although the pashut pshat here is a rhetorical question, Chazal tell us that this pasuk is in some ways actually comparing people to trees. The most basic and obvious way that people are comparable to trees is in breathing (watch the fascinating parallels here): trees take light from sun and carbon dioxide in the air and “breath” it in through their leaves, it passes through the branches, and into the trunk of the tree. The tree then expels oxygen from trunk to branches to leaves and out into the air. The person walking by, breathes the oxygen into his trachea (trunk), it then enters his lungs through the bronchi (branches) and finally gets into the blood through the alveoli (leaves), and he then expels carbon dioxide the way the oxygen came in. If you look in a science book the processes look like mirror images of each other, we and the trees have been locked in a breath-for-breath relationship since the beginning of time.

But, at the beginning of time it wasn’t a tree who gave us our first breath. Bereishis 2:7 tells us that we are made up of two components, “afar mim ha’adama” and “vayipach be’apav nishmas chayim”. Hashem formed us from dirt and then blew His breath into us and He continues to blow His breath into us through the trees. Our life began by a breath from Hashem Himself.

I think two messages for Tu B’shvat emerge here. Firstly, if you follow the parallels of our relationship with breathing and the trees, there seems to be a step that the trees use the we don’t. Light. The trees absorb light from the sun to begin the process of their breathing. If we are the inverse of the trees we should be letting out light at the end of the process, but we don’t shine when we breathe, where is the light? I think the answer is that the trees absorb a physical light, and we have the capability to let out a spiritual light with something as (seemingly) simple and mundane as breathing. We do it every day, we do it by second nature, and we need to do it in order to survive. If we realize that Hashem is breathing His breath into us by way of the trees every second and think of what power that gives us to have the Source of reality giving us life in its most fundamental form and we tap into the energy that comes with that, we can let out the true light while we breathe, every second of every day.

Secondly, Tu B’shvat is in the dead of winter when there isn’t a leaf in sight. But the gemara tells us that on that day, a little bit of sap starts rising from the dead tree in the effort of bringing it back to life. In the middle of February, whether you are learning, working, attached or feeling distant we all have days where we feel empty of all connection. However, the tree that looks dead has a massive amount of roots buried deep under the ground where that little bit of sap comes from. We, as the “upside down trees”, have spiritual roots, buried deep, and on Tu B’shvat a little bit of sap comes out, and begins the revival process in preparation for us.

It is only the fact that the roots are buried deep that they stay alive and healthy. Our roots are at times unnoticeable, but they are always pulsating with the Light of Hashem, and Tu B’shvat is the time to revive and feel the connection growing stronger.

Enjoy and have a great Yom Tov!

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