TuBishvat marks the ‘Birthday of trees’ – but what is it marking? Is it marking the tree’s age or the tree’s growth? In the case of trees, a tree is considered one year old on TuBishvat, even if it is planted a week before TuBishvat. This is important in Jewish law and tradition for determining when the fruit of a tree can first be eaten (fruit that ripens in its fourth year – that is, after its third Tu’Bishvat), and laws of shmitah (sabbatical year when the fruit is not harvested). Other meaning is derived from the time of year in which TuBishvat occurs – and this links it to the concept of growth. TuBishvat actually falls at the midpoint of winter – as spring approaches and the sap in trees begins to flow and trees begin to bud and flower. TuBishvat thus comes to mark a change from being in a state of latency to one of reneed growth.
Each year we get a year older – but how is this connected to growing up? When we talk about ‘growing up’, there are several ideas we might have in mind:
Growing up as getting older – the passage of time. Last year I was 8 and now I am 9 years old.
Growing up as physical development – growing physiologically from immature to mature. In children we generally also associate this with growing bigger. In older people we
Growing up as cognitive maturity – growing up as becoming wiser, more nuanced in our understanding of the world. Telling someone to ‘grow up’ in this sense is to tell them to act with more maturity.
Finally, does everything get older over time? Are there some things that don’t age or grow even as time passes?
Discussion Plan: What is the Meaning of “Blessing”?
If I bless you saying “May God grant you long life”, is that the same as wishing you a long life?
If I bless you saying “May God grant you long life”, is that the same as hoping you will have a long life?
Can people give blessings, or only God? If people can give them, do you think there is a difference between a blessing given by God and a blessing given by a person? Explain.
Can you ‘give a blessing’ without blessing someone /something?
Is there a difference being blessed and being a blessing?
If a quality of ‘being hot’ is that the thing that is hot gives off heat – then is it possible that a quality of ‘being blessed’ is that the thing that is blessed gives off blessings?
Could you ‘be a blessing’ if you had no effect on those around you?
Once while Honi HaMa’agal (the circle-maker) was walking down the road, he saw a man planting a carob tree. Honi asked, “How many years will it take for this tree to bear fruit” The man answered that it would take 70 years. Honi said, “Are you so healthy that you expect to live that long to enjoy its fruit?” The man answered, “I found a fruitful world, because those who lived before me planted trees for me. In the same way, I shall do this for my children.”
( Babylonian Talmud, Ta’anit 23a)
Shimon bar Yochai
Shimon bar Yochai: “if you are holding a sapling in your hand and someone says that the Messiah has drawn near, first plant the sapling, and then go and greet the Messiah.” Avot d’Rebbe Natan 31b
In this passage, God makes three kinds of claims regarding how Avram will be blessed:
I will bless you
You shall be a blessing
All the families of the earth shall bless themselves by/through you
What is a blessing? What does it mean ‘ to be blessed’? What might it mean to regard yourself blessed by the presence of someone else?
How might giving or receiving a blessing be different from being a blessing? Or being blessed? Whereas the activity of ‘giving or receiving blessings suggests a kind of transaction – with something being passed on from one person to another, the state of ‘being a blessing’ and ‘being blessed’ suggests some state of being – some inner active quality of a person. Here there is an interesting question – is ‘blessing’ being used transitively or intransitively? There is a difference between verbs used non-transitively (like “she is standing over there” OR “she Is crying” and transitive verbs (like “Sam was hitting the pillow”). Whereas non-transitive verbs like standing and sitting don’t have any direct object, you can only be ‘hitting’ if there is some object that directly receives your action (to hit you have to be hitting something).
A lot of verbs can be used both ways – and this seems to be the case with blessing. In this way ‘being blessed’ might grammatically be more like ‘being kind’ than ‘being happy’ – to say someone is being kind is to point to the way they interact with others and the world – it is doubtful you could be kind if you were totally alone on a desert island. (where there was no-one/nothing to be kind toward). While being happy is an inner state.
Another way of thinking about “being a blessed to others” might be the sort of thing that we might have in mind when we say of someone: “she is such a calm person, when she is here she has a calming influence on the whole room.” (or spiritual person, or agitated person – the point being their state of being has an impact on their environment). We might also think of ways that we are blessed because of the presence of other people in our lives.
How might these meanings shed light on the text?
In addition to blessing Avram, God says he will bless all who bless Avram and curse all those who curse him. This not only suggests that people (as well as God) are capable of blessing and cursing – but opens up the moral question of what it means for God to act toward others according to how others treat Avram. What are we doing when we bless and curse people? Is it just another way of wishing them something (for instance, good or bad luck?). Can the idea of giving or receiving a blessing have significance even if you don’t believe in ‘ a God who blesses or curses?
In Summary:
We might see being a blessing / being blessed as :
An Inner Quality or state (non-transitive)
Could just be in you
Could also radiate out from you (like a person who is calm can make the room calm by their presence – the person impacts their environment)
A quality you have that expresses itself outward to an object (like hitting – where you are hitting something)
Something you pass on to someone else through the act of blessing them
Through your interactions with others, their lives change in a substantial way (eg., they become a great nation)
We might understand blessing as:
Wishing or hoping
Something only God can give or something people can also give, or both.
the person being blessed is the one being changed, or the person giving the blessing is the one being changed, or both.
Having meaning only if you believe in God or having meaning even if you don’t believe in God?
These are fine (and somewhat complex) distinctions, but getting the students to think about these ideas is guided by different discussion plans – for example, the discussion plan on “giving and receiving blessings’ explores the transitivity of ‘Blessing.’
Metaphors capture the qualities of one thing through the imagery of another (“He gave a lion’s roar”). It is more than a comparison (“His scream was like a lions roar”) becomes it suggests that the object (the lion) – or some quality of the object – is part of what he is (and expressed in the sound he made). The tree has been an important metaphor in Judaism for both describing the Torah and describing a person.
This exercise strengthens our reasoning skills by asking us to reason toward the best explanation. If someone sets out with these items (amongst others) on a journey, what might you infer about:
Where they might be going;
What they might be planning to do;
How they plan on getting there.
Sunscreen, thick boots, compass, a water bottle and a back pack with a box of worms
Shorts and T-shirt, a leather jacket, gloves, goggles, a beach towel and book.
A can of gasoline, bottle of water, spare tire, MP3 player, and horse in a trailer
A 50ft rope, pegs, hammer, hard helmet, 4 wheel drive
Iced chocolate cake, change of clothes, a CD wrapped in wrapping paper, train schedule, candles
As a variation, in pairs prepare to tell the story of this journey to the rest of the group.
Returning to the Lech l’cha text – what do we know about what Avram took with him? What might we infer from this about his thoughts about the journey he is making?
