Parashat
Yitro 5769/ February 14, 2009
Lectures on
the weekly Torah reading by the faculty of
A Tree Comes of Age
Prof. Daniel Sperber
President,
Jesselson
Institute for Advanced Torah Studies
The first
mishnah in Tractate Rosh ha-Shanah
tells us that one of the four dates for the New Year is the New Year for
trees: “On the first of
shvat is the New Year for trees, according to the
House of Shammai.
The House of Hillel say on the fifteenth of that month.”
The gemara (loc.
sit. 14a) presents the view of the House of Shammai
and explains: “Why?
Rabbi Eleazar said,
citing Rabbi Hoshaiah:
since most of that year’s rain is past, and
still most of the season is ahead.”
Rav Hai Gaon,
the last of the Babylonian geonim (11th
century) was requested to interpret this gemara,
and so he did.
[1]
But after doing so, he continued and said
that the rabbis of the land of Israel – “the rabbis over there” – give another
reason, namely that thus far the trees have been living off the water of the
past year, and henceforth they live off the water of the coming year (according
to the Jerusalem Talmud, Rosh ha-Shanah
1.2). Rav
Hai Gaon added:
This seems
reasonable. For this season is called in
the language of Ishmael al’jamra al-
taniya (= the second ember), and at this time the sap
begins to flow and the trees begin to drink and come alive, and it is said
gari al-ma fi al-
ud (the water has entered the tree).
What did
Rav Hai Gaon
mean by saying that this time of year is called “the second ember”?
This remark can be understood in the light of
an ancient Arab legend, according to which people spend the rainy season closed
up in their tents, wrapped in layers of clothing, dozing by the glowing
fireplace. The flocks and herds are also
gathered into their enclosures surrounding the tent, shivering with cold and
waiting for sunny days and expansive pasture in the fields and hills.
Then Allah is stirred by his great mercy to
bring down for them three embers from heaven:
one ember, jamrat al-
hawi (the ember of air) comes down on the seventh of
Shvat and warms the air, bringing tidings of the
arrival of spring. Then the farmer wakes
from his slumber, opens the enclosure and begins to send his livestock out to
the fields. However they will not yet
find good pasture, and the weather is still bitter cold.
Then the farmer waits expectantly another
seven days, until the fourteenth of Shvat, on
which day Allah brings down another ember from heaven (jamrat
al-mayi – the ember of water), and then the water
warms up, enters the trees and makes them blossom and bear fruit once
more. This makes the farmer joyful, and
he sends his livestock off to the hills to pasture.
However the weather is still too cold and
windy to go out and till one’s fields.
The farmer counts another seven days, and then Allah brings down the
third ember from heaven (jamrat al-
ard – the ember of the earth).
The soil gets warmer and begins to be covered
by tender blades of grass. Then the
farmer shakes off the laziness cast over him by the rainy season, and goes out
to work in the field and in his garden until evening.
Another
variant of this legend about embers appears in the work of the 13th-century
Arab geographer, Al-Kazwini, in his cosmography.
[2]
During the month of Shvat
the farmers of the
So we see
that Rav Hai
Gaon meant to explain the view of the
The Sages
felt kindly towards trees and cared for their welfare and health.
They even said that if a tree is unhealthy,
restrictions against its fruit do not apply (Tosefta,
Shevi’it 1.10):
“The tree may be pruned with a knife … and
neither the laws of the seventh year nor concerning the customs of the Amorites
are to constitute any hindrance.” In
other words, one may paint a red mark on the unhealthy tree in order to
announce that its fruit is allowed, and one may even do so during the
sabbatical year and even if the gentiles do the same, or even if passersby
might pray over it.
Just like
human beings, trees have their own birthday and New Year, a sort of Bar
Mitzvah, marking their no longer being orlah
(their fruit forbidden because of the trees’ young age).
Trees are dormant in winter and awaken to
drink the water that grows warmer from the second ember in the middle of the
month of Shvat, so that they can produce their
fruit in due season and enable us to recite a benediction over trees and the
fruit they bear.
***
Another
noteworthy theme connected with Tu
b’Shvat is that the fifteenth of Shvat
was traditionally a day off for teachers and pupils in the Beit
Midrash. On
that day the Beit Midrash
did not function, and the youngsters did not come to their rabbi’s house to
study. Upon leaving the morning prayer
service, the melamed (instructor) had to give
his pupils wine and honey cake at his own expense, not theirs.
[5]
This date was also considered the end of the
term:
[6]
When the
New Year for trees came on the fifteenth of Shvat,
… the melamed would depart, regardless of his
employer’s wishes, for he would have in mind to find another location and a
city where he would be more highly respected than in his previous position, and
where the pay would be better. Until the
beginning of the next term the number of students would dwindle, until a new
melamed arrived… And thus it would continue,
until the youngsters would grow up and chirp like birds and the rabbis would
not know what they are saying … and they would begin to behave superciliously …
and impudence, levity and the like would increase.
During term-time, however, they were very strict in
disciplining their instructors, as we learn from the records of the communities
of
It has
become known to the community that there are some melameds
who have been doing the Lord’s work fraudulently, letting off the youngsters
from their studies on days that are not vacations, as on the past Sunday, the
day after the fifteenth (of Shvat, which that
year fell on the Sabbath), not only canceling studies on the holy Sabbath but
also on Sunday, thereby contravening the law of the Torah and not only causing
irrevocable damage but also coming under the general rule, “Cursed is he who
does the Lord’s work fraudulently.”
Seeing this, the community cannot stand silently by and therefore warns
that such a thing shall not be repeated in the future, but that the
melameds shall teach the schoolchildren regularly,
and if anyone violates this rule he shall be given a punishment beyond bearing.
No more need be said.
[1] See B.
M. Levine, Otzar ha-Geonim
le-Rosh ha-Shanah,
[2] Vol. 1,
p.76.
[3] Cf. Yom-
Tov Levinsky, Sefer
ha-Moadim, Part 2, Yemei
Mo’ed ve-\
Zikaron, p. 321.
[4] In the
film Lord of the Rings we see the wondrous and beloved characters known
as Ents, large old and wise trees,
full of kind-hearted wisdom, who play a
central role in saving the world of humankind.
[5]
According to Minhagei Wormeise
by Rabbi Yospe Shemesh,
1673. Perhaps the widespread practice of
handing out report cards on Tu b’Shvat,
even though there is no vacation then, originated from this custom.
[6] Records
of Talmud Torah,