My father hated to go to the
movies. My mother, who loved the movies, would go with friends when she wanted
to see a film. I can remember only once in my childhood when we went to
the theater to watch a movie as a family.. That movie was called “The Longest
Day”. When it came out in 1962 my father, who had served overseas in the army,
wanted to see it. So we piled into the car and went to the West Side Theater in
Scranton, Pennsylvania to see that movie. Afterwards we went to the ice cream parlor
for sundaes. It is one of my favorite and precious childhood memories,
Many of you know this movie. ‘The Longest Day”
captures the day in 1944 when the US Army and Allied forces send a huge force
to invade Normandy. With heroic efforts
and great loss of life, the troops made it on to Omaha beach and entered deep
into French territory. This week marks the seventy fourth anniversary of that invasion
of Europe by the allies, known as D- Day.
Our Parasha for this week opens
with preparations for another invasion -- the invasion of the Land of Canaan by
the Israelites. Moses sends spies -- one
from each tribe -- to reconnoiter Canaan. Moses asks them to return with
specific information. Are the cities fortified or out in the open? Are the
people armed and prepared to defend themselves? These are questions that any
responsible military leader would need to answer before preparing for
successful invasion. Then Moses asks a peculiar question. Moses asks the spies to report back if there are any
trees in the land. Can you imagine Eisenhower asking if there were any trees in
Europe? Why would Moses need this information? G-d already told him that
the Land was flowing with milk and honey, that it was a fertile land with
rivers and forests.
Rashi answers that Moses, in asking
about trees, was really asking if there were any righteous people living among
the Canaanites who, through their connection to G-d, might help defend the
Canaanites against an invasion by the Israelites. Righteous people providing
leadership to the Canaanites would make conquest of the land all the harder.
There would need to be additional preparations to meet that contingency. Later
on, in the Book of Deuteronomy, trees will again be compared to people. When
the Jewish people are laying siege to a city, the Israelites are commanded not
to cut down any fruit trees. “For is a tree like a person, that it can run
away?” asks the Torah. It is a rhetorical question. The answer of course is,
“No” -- a tree has no way of defending itself against the ax. Therefore we
ought not to destroy it. It would run away if it could!
But would a tree know that it was
in danger? It turns out that trees are a lot more like people than we would
think. Both trees and people have crowns. Both have limbs that move and trunks
from which the limbs come. Trees breathe, like people. Trees thrive when they
live in communities, which we call forests. Recent research into the life of
trees has shown that trees communicate with one another through their root
systems and through fungal systems that connect the roots of one tree to the
roots of another. Older trees are able to communicate their experience to
younger trees, which help the younger trees to prepare for adverse conditions.
In other words, trees have their own Torah that they pass down through the
generations. Professor Susan Simard, who has studied the communication system
that trees use, has dubbed this the “wood wide web”.
The Talmud compares a person whose
wisdom exceeds their good deeds to a tree whose branches are numerous, but
whose roots are few. The wind comes and uproots it, and turns it upside down.
This serves as a metaphor that
alerts us that there are people who are very intelligent, very gifted and
highly skilled in their fields. These individuals might display the outward
trappings of success as defined in our culture. They show they have lots of
“branches” and “leaves” -- they have big homes and flashy cars, they wear
expensive clothing and take lavish vacations. We might envy these people, but we should not,
for we cannot see what lies below the surface. If we use our gifts, our
intelligence, our skills only for selfish reasons -- to accumulate more
“things” -- we may look pretty good on the outside -- but according to the
Talmud, our roots may still be shallow. We are neither planted firmly in a
community nor connected to others. In times of trouble, we might feel extremely
vulnerable. Without an ethical tradition to guide us, without a community to support us, without
a heritage to look to, our lives can easily be turned upside down by the
inevitable storms that come along in life.
The Talmud also teaches that a
person whose good deeds exceed their wisdom is like a tree with few branches
but with a healthy root system. Even if all the winds in the world were to blow
against it, they would not move it from its place. Here the Talmud is
describing a person who uses their intelligence in the service of others. They
may, or may not, have many “branches”, or outward signs of wealth and success,
but unseen, underneath, they are rooted in their tradition and to their
community. In times of pain, loneliness, and sadness this person draws on their
faith, on their community, on their sense of belonging and this will in turn
help them in times of trouble.
Seventy four years ago this week American
soldiers sacrificed their lives on Omaha Beach so that we could build a world
into which we could grow deep roots. Our job is to continue to build the kind
of families, the kind of congregation, the kind of nation from which we can
draw nourishment and sustenance to live healthy, productive lives -- lives that
can weather the vicissitudes of life that are sure to come our way.
Shabbat Shalom
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment