Rerooting of an Alienated Folk in the Soil of Their Own National Life

Rabbi Melanie Aron

Saturday, May 3, 2008

The Bible was written down over 2,500 years ago, in a society very different than our own, so it is not surprising that there is much in it that is hard for us to understand. This week’s portion Kedoshim includes some of the most famous and significant words in the Bible- “v’ahavta lerayecha kamochah, you shall love your neighbor as yourself”, but alongside them, right in the same chapter, some other laws that seem quite obscure.

In reading and discussing this week’s Torah portion, Millie and Lindsay both noticed the rules concerning fruit trees.

“Three years it shall be forbidden for you, not to be eaten. In the fourth year its fruit shall be set aside for jubilation before Adonai. Only in the 5th year may you use its fruit, that its yield to you may increase.

“That’s harsh”, Lindsay said, though on investigation we found that it’s healthier for the tree this way. And so we have the p’shat, the simple meaning of the verse: Give your trees some time and they will produce better fruit.

But with this verse, as with many others, there are additional meanings as well.

The Midrash tells us that a child is like a tree. For the first three years children should be allowed to grow up freely, like the tree they should grow untrimmed. Then in the fourth year, the child, like the tree, is sanctified, that is they are taught to recite prayers and blessings, and finally in the 5th year they are taken to school. For this reason, to this day, the hair on Orthodox Jewish boys is not cut for their first three years. After that they are sanctified, a yarmulke is placed on their head, and they are taught to say a b’ruchah. Then at five are sent to cheder to study Torah.

The word for this rule concerning fruit being forbidden for the first three years is orlah, the same word used for circumcision, so that literally one could translate verse 23 “leave its top with its fruit uncircumcised”. This is a remez, a hint, that there is additional meaning to this verse. Orlah is used for physical conditions with moral or religious ramifications. Jeremiah uses this word to say that the ears of the Israelites are blocked and prevented from hearing God’s words. Ezekiel speaks of thickened lips which cannot speak God’s words and Deuteronomy in telling us to circumcise our hearts, describes a thickening of the heart, which requires a metaphorical circumcision, so that we can develop the proper attitude in life. Perhaps this is a hint that what we are learning about here is not agriculture but life, about developing the kind of heart that isn’t always looking for short cuts, a heart that is willing to take a long term view for the things that are truly important. The Torah is called a tree, and so we must allow it time to implant itself within our hearts.

Finally, the mystics remind us that this section begins “and when you come into the land.” This is about returning to the land of Israel. If we are replanted in our ancestral soil then it will lead to hilul, that is jubilation and to a sanctification. The S’fat Emet, a famous Jewish mystic, writing only four years before the Biluim, the early Eastern European refugees from Czarist Russia, went to establish farms in the land of Israel, wrote about the power of planting given to the children of Israel. At that time the planting was both literally and metaphoric. It was not just planting crops but also planting the Jewish people in the soil of their own independent national life. For A.D. Gordon, the great philosopher of Jewish labor, as well as for Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, Israel’s first chief rabbi, this physical work of planting took on a much greater spiritual meaning. It was not only the trees that would flourish, but also the people, not just the individual farmers, but the Jewish people as a whole. This is what Millie talked about in discussing Jeremiah’s words found in this week’s Haftarah: “They shall rebuild the desolate cities and dwell in them. They shall plant vineyards and drink their wine, make gardens and eat their fruit.”

As we prepare this week for the celebration of Yom HaAtzmaut, Israeli Independence Day, on the 60th anniversary of Israeli independence, we think of the blessing of being planted in our own national soil, of the protection this offers Jewish refugees from around the world, and the potential it offers Jewish culture, to develop and flourish, in a place where being Jewish is not the exception, but the norm. Happy Yom HaAtzmaut to us all. May Israel be at peace, so that it may continue to contribute to the community of nations.