In these cold winter months, when the rain is pouring down, and the fog passing over Bat Ayin, the winds seeping quite through the door and the floor as cold as the ma'ayan to that first morning touch- I have to say thank you to Beit Shammai… Though I should follow the natural cycle and get depressed in these short days- I have taken to laughing at the storms. Whenever I feel down I simply walk outside and dance in the face of the rain- drawing great joy from the knowledge that in a few months, this same spot will be a beautiful sunny day and the rainstorms but a fading memory.
Beit Shammai is connected to what we may call the absolute Truth - it is taught that in the end of days, the halacha will follow their opinion as the end of days represent a time of great Truth being revealed to our minds. So since Beit Shamai will be the authority in those times- theirs is perhaps the more complete Truth. Now according to Beit Shamai, the Rosh Hashana for trees is actually on Rosh Chodesh, the new moon of Shevat. The new moon, as we all know, gives off no light. But it is not in the perception of light that Beit Shamai is interested; rather, their interest is in light's hidden, absolute aspect.
Beit Hillel teaches that the Rosh haShana for Trees is the 15th of Shevat (Tet Vav i.e. Tu), the day of the full moon, and we, in the present era of time, follow this opinion. For, surely, mustn't we honor our current limited reflection of the great light, even though it is somewhat less than light itself? The tension between these points of view - what our relative perspective shows us versus our knowledge that it is only a relative perspective-is one of the most basic struggles with which we are confronted..
These two different outlooks as to when is the Rosh Hashanah for Trees, are like the two levels on which Am Yisrael functions. It is taught that Jews have no Mazal (allegiance to a ruling sign of the zodiac) but that if we did- it would be the bucket of Shevat. This is commonly understood as follows: when we truly engage Torah, we are tapping into a level beyond the fixed natural order, but if we don't get intimately involved with Torah, we remain as buckets, waiting to draw our waters. These two levels we can operate on, are maybe seen in the argument of Shamai and Hillel.
A yid is a Jew is a yehudi, whether as a full moon or a new moon. Our identity is as innate as appetite (the character trait to be mended for this month). Everyone of us must swallow their food to live. Too, we all, with amazing equality, "ingest" that which Hashem continually gives us. Yet there is a chance for everyone to strive for more - one may chew as many times as one wants before the universal act of swallowing- and with each chew one draws in more of the taste of life, one releases a clearer distillation of the nutrients that the food is delivering us. Through this chewing of life experience we carve out a unique identity- built on what's hidden inside of ourselves, and develop into something far greater than the generic person we once were. We turn from a specimen into an expression, personalities as opposed to numbers. Though we will always be "just another Jew," we will also be living out the unique name and web of relationships into which our selves are invested. Ton engage in this process- to fill ones vessel with Torah, to fill one's Jewish identity with the content to which one's heart and mind guide one - is to fully live the opportunity of being and becoming in this world. In this walking of an individual path, I may stray perhaps from the hard and fast path that is dictated to me by my birth, from that absolute Truth of an as yet unseen moon. That will become a part of my story. Beit Shammai is surely important- my basic level of existence as a Jew is surely the roots from which I draw. But to say that the pure Truth of an unseen moon will determine how my branches grow is to ignore decision - the decision of following Beit Hillel. Beit Hillel's position was deemed the halachic one in part because he always mentioned Beit Shamai's opinion before his own. We must also learn from this…
One of the lessons I jotted down on my "learned from the trees" list this year was from a Big Leaf Maple in Seatte,WA….the deeper our roots and the longer our trunk- the more amazingly far we can spread our branches and leave.
On one hand, we must live rooted in Beit Shammai- that my absolute ends are as a Jew- Hashem Echad- connected, rooted, deeply imbued by the tremendous gift of an innate identity within an ancient expression of the creation. We each are deeply indebted to that somewhat monolithic identity of Truth: Jewish blood, from the mother, brit mila, b'damayich chaya. At the same time, we must remember that this incredibly extensive group-Truth is really just the roots of our Tree. For just as surely Hashem commanded each tree to bring out its own seed- that divergence which is the individual's path, the world of personal expression, that each Jew has a mitzvah to learn Torah- not just the experts, absolute participation, the Oral Torah, power to the masses, every house a holy temple…your life and your reflection- the moon is rising. The fullest expression of our people is in each one of us living out the personal connection…
Shaul David Judelman
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Shaul David Judelman currently resides in Jerusalem. After growing up amongst the Douglas Firs of Seattle, Washington, he came to Israel on a quest for Judaism alive in its land. He spent six years in the Bat Ayin Yeshiva Rabbinical program and now teaches at Yeshivat Simchat Shlomo while working on several different environmental initiatives in Jerusalem. He is the founder and coordinator of Simchat Shlomo’s Eco-Activist Beit Midrash, a program offering holistic in-depth Torah study around issues of ecology. |