Just as his seed is alive, so too is he alive...
16 Shevat, 5723 (1963)
I trust that all of you, delegates and members of the various branches convening today, come imbued with a goodly measure of inspiration drawn from the two very recent auspicious days of this month, the yahrtzeit of my father-in-law, the Rebbe, of saintly memory, on the 10th of the month, and of the New Year for trees, which was yesterday.
Among the topics discussed at the farbrengens on both these occasions occurring within one week was the affinity between these two notable days, and how their instructive messages are related.
The Torah likens a human being to a tree, and the tzadik to a flourishing date palm.
Moreover, in a remarkable statement in the Talmud our Sages declare that a tzadik lives on forever, “for just as his seed is alive, so too is he alive.”
It is noteworthy that the word “seed” is used here rather than “descendants,” “children,” or “disciples,” though all these are included in the word “seed.”
In choosing the word “seed” in this connection, our Sages conveyed to us the specific image and ideas which this word brings to mind:
The wonderful process of growth, which transforms a tiny seed into a multiple reproduction of the same, be it an earful of grain, or in the case of a fruit-seed, a fruit-bearing tree; the care which the growth process requires, and how a little extra care at an early stage is multiplied in the final product; the fact that the more advanced and more highly developed the fruit, the longer it takes to grow and ripen, so that grain, for example, takes but a few months to reproduce itself, while it takes fruit-bearing trees many years to mature, etc.
All these principles apply in a very practical way in the performance of our daily service of G-d, which, of course, embraces our entire daily life, since it is our duty to serve G-d in all our ways...
