Community Blog

Shabbat Shalom! This week’s Torah portion is Parashat Beshalach, in which we find the song of the sea and the final push of the Israelites’ escape from slavery into freedom. As you know, the holiday of Tu BiShevat is also this weekend. Although trees look dead in North America at this time of year, the reason tomorrow and Monday signify the birthday of the trees is that the sap is starting to rise within them. We have some dead-but-still-standing trees in our wooded area behind the synagogue, and they look nearly indistinguishable from the ones that will, in just a few months’ time, be green and thriving once again. 

After the Israelites cross the sea, in the latter part of the parasha, they set up camp at an apparent oasis called "Marah," which literally means "bitter."  Because - get this - the water from the oasis was so bitter that they could not drink it. So HaShem directs Moses’s attention to an “eitz,” which Moses throws into the water and makes the water sweet and drinkable. Though JPS translates “eitz” as “a piece of wood” here, it also literally means tree. Of course, a tree is a piece of wood, or a piece of wood is a part of a tree, so this is maybe just semantics, but I feel like they conjure up different images in the mind’s eye. And even if we were native Hebrew speakers who understood eitz could reasonably mean either concept and that throwing a stick into the water makes more sense than a whole tree, still the idea that it’s the tree-ness of the wood that makes the water clean and refreshing resonates with me. 

There is a reason we call the Torah “the Tree of Life”: Trees symbolize growth and sturdiness, resilience and the source of life. They provide clean air, and a multitude of foods. Their roots connect with one another underground as their branches intermingle above our heads. They can apparently even make bitter, possibly stagnant, waters into something fresh and delicious. Is there anything they can’t do?!

After the Israelites drink the clean waters at Marah, HaShem assures them that as long as they follow the laws they are soon to receive, they will find drinkable water, enough sustenance, and safety from the diseases they witnessed during the Egyptian Plagues while they are on their journey to the Promised Land. The Torah does not record a response to this from the Israelites. However, perhaps in order to drive the point home, God leads the people on from Marah and they immediately come to a much better oasis. This is particularly notable, because between crossing the sea and reaching Marah, they did not encounter any water at all for 3 days. At Eilim, the next oasis, they find 12 springs and 70 palm trees. Medieval Spanish commentator Ibn Ezra catalogued a variety of interpretations about how many trees there really were from other rabbis of his era and the previous hundred years: “Some say there were seventy species of palm trees. Others assert that there were seventy for each and every tribe. Still others assert that there were seventy for each and every Israelite!” The Malbim, the 19th century Ukranian commentary, suggests that maybe there really were just 70 trees, but those trees each symbolized another of the elders that helped Moses to govern the Israelites (and the 12 springs of course represent the twelve tribes). Again at Eilim (which means “gods”, and oddly this name does not appear to be drashed on by the usual commenters), we see the interconnectedness of drinking water and trees, and the symbolism of these vital components to life. We depend on them, and we would be better served by learning from their symbiotic relationships with one another. 

This Tu BiShevat, you should for sure join our seder to celebrate the trees, maybe hug a tree and/or plant a tree. But also, drink deeply from the waters of life. Pause to appreciate the ease of which we have access to drinking water, something which should be a human right but which too much of the world does not have. Commit to clean up a water way near us, maybe even before our next Reverse Tashlish. May you feel refreshed, regenerated, and sustained through the bleak winters of your soul, for your life-blood will rise again.