You’re the Beanstalk

Many attempts at explaining the non-halachik significance of Tu B’Shvat focus around Devarim 20:19 “a man is the tree of the field.” The verse is rhetorical in its pshat, but Taanis 7a suggests we can learn the verse as a statement, comparing people to trees. While there are plenty of beautiful trees in the world, this comparison doesn’t seem very flattering, so what are we to learn from the trees, and why would we want to be compared to them?

Rabbi Menachem Mendel Shneerson (Shaarei Ha’Moadim Chodesh Shevat) suggests that the advantage (maalah) of the trees (tzomech) is that they never stop growing. Even after a tree has stopped getting taller it continues to get wider, to sprout new branches, and to produce leaves until it dies. As long as a tree is still alive, it is always growing.

Next week we mark the new year for the trees, and we can be like them, growing everyday!

Crossing the Rubicon

I am all about the truth, and the truth is I am nervous about blogging.
I am all for the sharing of ideas. It’s nice to get quick feedback and to reach audiences beyond my normal peer and professional groups. But this is really out there: I am not sure every rough draft idea I churn out is fit for mass consumption, and once it’s up, the Rubicon has been crossed. I see the value in a process of development via comments and links, but does that process have to be viewed by the entire world, and do the stages along the way have to be so irrevocable? The claim that putting it out there makes you reason better only works when the posts are not mandated. I have to post for school so I need to post every week whether I have a strong thought or not. Here’s the point of contention (the nekuda if you will): In my mind you publish an idea when it has been refined, not as a starting point to refining it.

No more stalling, the figs are ready… I’ll see what the other side of the river looks like.