Rosh HaShanah Second Day: The Tree and You

(A Community Discussion led by Rabbi J.B. Sacks on September 27, 2022)

We just put the Torah away, and the last words we sang were the Eitz Chayyim Hi. It is actually sung whenever we read the Torah. The chumash that we usually use to follow the reading of the Torah is called Eitz Chayyim as well. So the words must be important, and I’d like us to start our discussion on this Rosh HaShanah by examining those words. They actually come from the Tanakh, our Bible.

TEXT #1: Proverbs 3:18

עֵץ־חַיִּ֣ים הִ֭יא לַמַּחֲזִיקִ֣ים בָּ֑הּ וְֽתֹמְכֶ֥יהָ מְאֻשָּֽׁר׃

She is a tree of life to those who grasp her,

And whoever holds on to her is enriched.

Questions to Consider:

• To what does the “She” in this verse refer? [In the context of the Torah service, we are clearly meant to identify the “she” with the Torah itself. It is clear in the context of Proverbs that the Torah is not meant].
• How do trees nurture and sustain?
• What is the “tree of life” that you have held onto throughout this past year, the tree of life that has sustained you and nourished you?
• How has it sustained you?

The prophet Isaiah uses the image of the tree to refer to the entire Jewish People.

TEXT #2: Isaiah 65:22

 כִּֽי־כִימֵ֤י הָעֵץ֙ יְמֵ֣י עַמִּ֔י

 For the days of My people

shall be as long as the days of a tree

Questions to Consider:

• How are the Jewish people like a tree?
• How is Congregation Am HaYam like a tree?
• Where on the tree are you–are you a branch, the trunk, a leaf, a bud?

The Torah itself suggests that every person is like a tree.

TEXT #3: Deuteronomy 20:19

כִּ֤י הָֽאָדָם֙ עֵ֣ץ הַשָּׂדֶ֔ה

For a human being is a tree of the field

Questions to Consider:

• How is a person like a tree?
• What kind of a tree are you most like? How so?

A contemporary poem helps us to explore this imagery further.

TEXT #4: You and the Tree

(Chelan Harkin; Susceptible to Light, adapted by J.B. Sacks)

Drop yourself off in the woods.

Leave yourself there

Erase your mind

of its to-do lists.

Become part of the forest

at whatever lever:

tree, snag, log, sapling.

Know that you, too, have bark

that protects you from

the beetles of life

and that’s okay

but feel under it

growth lives there,

life lives there.

Go on and speak

what your heart sees.

Say, “I am this tree.

This tree is me.”

Watch it grow, leaf, blossom,

wilt, decompose, grow again…

grow again.

You and the tree,

a High Holy Day miracle.

Questions to Consider:

• How do you react to this poem?
• Which words, phrases, images, leap out at you?
• What High Holy miracle do you need this year?
• How can the tree that is you grow into that miracle?

This discussion, perhaps, can gain additional importance, because we are about to recite musaf. During the Musaf, three times we’ll declare that “Hayom harat olam,” which is often understood as pointing us to G!d’s original creation at the time of Rosh HaShanah.

TEXT #5: Hayom Harat Olam (Rosh HaShanah Musaf)

 הַיּוֹם הֲרַת עוֹלָם. הַיּוֹם יַעֲמִיד בַּמִּשְׁפָּט כָּל יְצוּרֵי עוֹלָמִים

Today is the conception of the universe;

today, G!d’s judgment enables all that’s created in the universe to stand.

Questions to Consider:

• What do the first three words, “Hayom Harat Olam,” “today is the conception of the universe,” mean to you, especially because it is Rosh HaShanah?
• How does G!d help you to stand erect, stand tall, stand proud today, like a tree?
• How can you take today’s feelings–and the catharsis of these two days of Rosh HaShanah with you into the New Year?

Finally, for those of you who come regularly, you know that I often point out the root of the Hebrew word, to get a sense of a deeper connotation of what a verse may be offering us. The theory about Hebrew is that every word, no matter how long or how short, is based upon a three-letter root. There is also another theory that is less well-known that particularly applies to Biblical Hebrew, is that when two (or more) different words share the same first two root letters, that they share a common theme or sensibility. So let’s look at some biblical words or roots that begin with the two Hebrew letters ayin and tsadi that make up the Hebrew word for “tree.”

TEXT #6: Building on the Word Tree/עץ

עץ

      to hurt; to fashion, to shape/a-tzav = עצב

advice = עצה

 might, bones/o-tzem = עצם  

to be vast, to be mighty/a-tzam = עצם

to restrain/a-tsar = עצר

assembly = עצרה, עצרת

Questions to Consider:

• עצב: What is your hurt, and how might you shape it or fashion it into something healthful, beautiful, inspiring this New Year?
• עצה: What advice do you need to let sink into your bones as we begin 5783?
• עצם: How mighty are you feeling as we enter the New Year? What “bones” can you give to your mightiness, your depth/vastness this new year?
• עצר: What do you need to restrain within yourself, so that other parts of you might grow branches?
• עצרה, עצרת: Trees grow tall and proud, and grow in might, because they work in assembly. How will you connect with CAH this year?

May we do the work of pruning our inner branches through teshuvah.

May this year we continue to be grounded in the earth of our lives, remaining sturdy and resilient through life’s winds.

May we provide fruit and shade to all whom we touch.

May we be cognizant of our place within the grove that is Am HaYam, and that our grove is part of the forest called Am Yisrael, the Jewish people.

And may we all be able to come next year again to celebrate our tough bark and our deep roots, and proclaim that surviving a year, thriving through much of it, and being together constitute High Holy Day miracles.

Amen.