Parshas Shoftim: 5785

“Because man is the tree of the field.” (Devarim 20:19)

The Chayei Adam says that Elul offers a unique opportunity to return to Hashem, because it was at this time that Moshe ascended to receive the second set of Luchos after the Eigel, and remained there until the atonement was completed on Yom Kippur. This phenomenon recurs every year. Although Hashem is always open to teshuvah, in Elul it’s easier to have our teshuvah mercifully accepted. (Rav Ozer Alport, Parshah Potpourri)

I’ve always loved Joyce Kilmer’s line: “I think that I shall never see, a poem lovely as a tree.” I love trees. Over the years, I’ve planted a cherry tree, a pear tree, an apple tree, an olive tree, and most recently an almond tree.

You’d think I’d have a veritable orchard in our small garden by now. But no. The results have been slow and disappointing. The pear tree produced one lone pear in all its years with us, then had to be uprooted to make way for renovations (with halachic sanctioning, of course). Ditto to the olive tree whose olives were hard, black, and not tasty.

The apple tree got swallowed alive by a yellow rose bush, and if it’s still growing behind those gorgeous flowers, then it must like its life incognito in the corner.

And the original cherry tree got eaten, literally, by black beetles and was chopped down (not by George Washington, but by my boys) to be replaced by a small, new one-twig specimen and promises of life becoming a bowl of cherries.