We're the only nation to finish the last century with more trees than we had in the previous one.
By BARBARA SOFERbarbara sofer 88(photo credit: )
Of course we Israelis are innovative and daring - a people with a constant stream of new technological ideas and bungee jumping young people backpacking through the Third World. But one of the sublime pleasures of life here, whether you're religious or not, is our connections to the cycles of the year.
Take, for instance, the public discussion of the first rain. Our enthusiasm for the first rain goes beyond the relief of having precipitation after a long dry summer. We want to know if the rain is merely an insignificant shower or if it indeed ranks as the yoreh, the biblical first rain. "I will give the rain of your land in its season, the first rain - yoreh- and the last rain - malkosh - that you may gather in your corn, and your wine, and your oil," says the Bible in Deuteronomy 11:14. Thirty-three hundred years later, meteorologists and rabbis weigh in on the status of the rainfall. Based on Psalm 65, for the rain to be yoreh it has to saturate the ridges and reach down to the depths. This discussion rates the evening news.
Likewise, every seven years we of the modern Jewish state are still marking the sabbatical-shmita years The current shmita year began on Rosh Hashana 5768, and ended two weeks ago on 29 Elul 5768, September 13, 2007-September 29, 2008. When we returned to our land in modern times, it was obvious that we'd continue marking the biblical injunction of sabbatical years.
How exactly we should apply the ancient rules to our essential agriculture was and is a subject of much argument. The pioneering museum in Mazkeret Batya documents the refusal of the early settlers to plant during the sabbatical year despite the hunger and the displeasure of Baron Rothschild's representatives. The correct implementation of shmita remains a subject of argument. But whether you accept the heter mechira ("selling" the land to non-Jews to allow the consumption of local produce), prefer a system of supervised harvesting called otzar beit din, or buy carrots and onions imported from Italy, the concern to mark the biblical sabbatical year demonstrates the ongoing continuation of the traditions that have bound us to our land.
WHEN IT comes to our national forests, there is no debate. The biblical commandment to leave the land fallow is kept faithfully. Forest land is neither worked nor cultivated during shmita. In practical terms, that means that last year there were no popular Tu Bishvat school excursions for planting, no tourists rejoicing at planting trees with their own hands and no ebullient forest dedications.
The grandson of a friend was on a family trip to Colorado where the expanses of natural forests impressed him. "They must have a great JNF here," he said. When he explained what he meant to the forest ranger, the Coloradan shook his head. "No, son, God planted these trees." For whatever the divine reason, in the Promised Land, God has left the responsibility for the planting to us.
The successful greening of our tiny portion of the earth is, of course, the fruit of the efforts of our unique national institution, the Jewish National Fund-Keren Kayemet L'Yisrael, one "hedge" fund that continues to yield dividends. The concept of a national fund owned collectively by the Jewish people was first proposed in Basel at the first Zionist Congress in 1897 by Zvi Hermann Schapira. But Professor Schapira, a mathematician, couldn't sell it. Not until four years later in 1901, after all the pros and cons had been endlessly argued, did Theodor Herzl vent his exasperation and push through the resolution.
Schapira had died three years earlier and the first JNF-KKL donor was a delegate who pledged £10 in his memory. Herzl himself made the second contribution. A bank clerk named Haim Kleinman from a small town in Galicia suggested placing a collection box in every Jewish home - and the famous Blue Boxes were born. The first task of JNF was to acquire land, parcel by parcel, but early on, forestry became a major activity. The first JNF-KKL trees were planted in 1905, an olive grove in memory of Herzl, who'd died of heart failure at 44.
The rest is history. Much of the forestation was the hands-on work of new immigrants seeking employment soon after their arrival. By the 1970s, forests were opened for the public as recreation areas for picnics, hiking and exhilarating vistas, a mix of amusement and inculcating a love of the land.
We have figured out how to plant forests in most unlikely locations. Yatir, our largest forest, actually borders the Negev, and it's the only forest in the Middle East where an ongoing study of carbon dioxide exchange and its impact to impede global warming is happening. So precious are our forests, that during the Second Lebanon War, even though employees in the North weren't required to work, JNF-KKL firefighters eschewed shelter from the Katyusha rockets to remain in the forests to extinguish fires.
We've successfully planted more than 240 million trees on our rocky soil. We're the only nation to finish the last century with more trees than we had in the previous one. All this while keeping sabbatical years.
To understand the lengths we go to protect this tradition, look at the procedure that was created for frustrated tree-planters during shmita. JNF-KKL came up with a system to "prepare" a tree for planting. You could bag a tree sprout in a polyethylene bag together with a non-soil planting solution. The bags were placed on a raised polyethylene surface so that the future trees would never touch the earth.
Next week, on Simhat Torah, we'll also recite the prayer for rain - not for the yoreh, which we've already enjoyed, but "to soften the wasteland's face when it is dry as a rock." We pray for blessing, for life and for plenty.
The first job of the winter rains is to wash the soil and make it amenable to baby trees. The champion gardeners of the JNF-KKL are poised to plant tens of thousands of new saplings: tiny oaks, pistachios, carobs, pines and eucalyptus. I like to think of all those new young roots stretching deep into the rested, renewed soil of our ancient homeland.
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