This coming Thursday is Tu B’Shevat, the Rosh Hashanah / New Year’s Day for trees. (This designation has Halachic consequences for tree owners and buyers of fruit.)
R’ Zvi Yehuda Kook z”l (1891-1982; Rosh Hayeshiva of Yeshivat Mercaz Harav in Yerushalayim) writes about trees: The Gemara (Shabbat 88a) states, “Hashem created the world conditionally. If Bnei Yisrael will accept the Torah, Creation will endure. If not, Hashem will return the world to Tohu Va’vohu / astonishing emptiness.” [Until here from the Gemara.]
Thus, by studying and observing Torah, one becomes Hashem’s partner in the Creation of nature. For this reason, man, especially the righteous person, is likened to a tree (Devarim 20:19; Tehilim 92:13).
R’ Kook continues: We learn in Pirkei Avot (Ch.3), “One who walks on the road while reviewing a Torah lesson, but interrupts his review and exclaims, ‘How beautiful is this tree! How beautiful is this plowed field!’–Scripture considers it as if he has forfeited his soul.” [Until here from the Mishnah.]
The Sin is to Detach the Beauty of Nature from the Torah
The Mishnah is not teaching us to ignore nature’s beauty, R’ Kook writes. Indeed, there is a Berachah to be said on a flowering tree. The Mishnah is speaking of someone who “interrupts” his learning, i.e., he detaches the beauty of nature from the Torah, seeing nature as a separate entity.
The sage who taught the just-quoted Mishnah, Rabbi Yaakov, teaches later in Pirkei Avot (ch.4), “This world is but a corridor leading to the main hall,” i.e., the World-to-Come. He is teaching: Do not see this world and nature as separate from Olam Ha’ba and Torah.
They are but a continuum, and the light of Olam Ha’ba and Torah can reflect back upon, and illuminate this world and nature so that we see Hashem in it. (Le’netivot Yisrael)
Reprinted from the Parshat Beshalach 5784 email of R’ Yedidye Hirtenfeld’s parsha sheet for the Young Israel of Midwood in Brooklyn, NY.
