“And the next morning… the staff of Aharon, of Beis Levi, had blossomed. It produced a blossom, sprouted a bud, and had grown almonds.”
(Bamidbar 17:23)
After Korach’s rebellion, Hashem told Moshe to prove to Klal Yisrael that He had singled out Shevet Levi to serve Him. Every shevet put a staff in the Ohel Moed. The next morning, they saw that only the staff of Levi had blossomed.
Normally, first a plant buds, then flowers, and then the flowers fall off as it produces fruit. Yet Levi’s staff had buds, flowers, and fully developed fruit all at once, compounding the incredible miracle (Rabbi Eliyahu Hoffmann, Olas Shabbos).
I dream of an almond tree — the first fruit trees to bud, their pink flowers herald spring’s arrival. My garden is brown and boggy after the rainy season, and I want an almond tree there, whispering its promise of the color soon to come.
I picked the perfect spot in the garden, but that’s as far as I got. Every year, Tu B’Shevat time, I’d remember that I really want to plant an almond tree!
Rav Moshe Feinstein teaches that Hashem wanted us to realize that there’s value in the flowers and buds, not only in the fruit that follows it. Normally, we judge the success of our work by the fruit it bears, not the process. Not so, however, with Torah and mitzvos.
The buds and flowers — the effort we put into the mitzvah, the time, preparation, energy, and enthusiasm — are just as important as the final fruit, the mitzvah itself. At times, one may expend great effort to learn Torah or do a mitzvah, and in the end fail to achieve one’s goal.
But while we may think our efforts were for naught, it’s imperative that we remember that it’s not so. Our attempts to perform a mitzvah bring Hashem great pleasure.
I was so proud of myself when I remembered my almond tree before Tu B’Shevat this year. But when I went to our local nursery, they didn’t have any.
Undeterred, a few days later, I went to a larger nursery that stocks hundreds of trees. No luck.
