„A joyous Tu BiShvat! What can we possibly learn from trees? Rav Kook…”

The earth was commanded by the Holy One to produce fruit trees bearing fruit, and the Midrashim and commentators explain that this refers to a tree whose trunk, too, could be eaten, as well as the fruit of the tree.

But the earth did not do so. Rav Kook explains that this concerns a process that affects all of us.

Think about needing to travel from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv; the way to Tel Aviv is long and superfluous, and we would gladly forgo the journey and arrive at once, in a single moment, in Tel Aviv. All this is because there is no significance to the journey; there is only a destination.

We live in a world that has a journey; in order to move from place to place we must walk or travel, and we do not arrive at once. In order to eat fruit we must grow a tree, weed, and wait a long time for the fruit. The trunk is the means to reach the fruit; it has no purpose in itself.

In the future we will live in a world in which even the means to attaining the goal will be a goal; the way will be part of the goal and not merely a means to move from place to place. Thus the taste of the tree will be like the taste of the fruit - there will be significance in the trunk just as there is significance in the fruit of the tree, there will be significance in the journey to Tel Aviv just as there is significance for that person in arriving in Tel Aviv.

When we succeed in reaching such a state, laziness will pass from the world; a person will understand, with inner understanding, everything he does, and the doing of every matter will be deeper.

A pleasant day!

For the recovery of Rabbi Yaakov Chai ben Margalit, Rabbi Yosef Shalom ben Chaya Musha, Shalom ben Malka.