Tu B’Shvat, the New Year for trees will be here soon. So what?

 Why do we even think twice about it? In ancient times it was the watermark of determining the age of a tree for various ritual purposes, but today there really isn’t much to focus on if you see reality through pragmatic lenses.

There is another way to look at things. You can use your capacity for imagery to help you get through what is arguably the narrowest strait of all, the place within you that just won’t allow the mind’s realizations to flow down to the heart. You know so much and so do the rest of us, but feeling some passion for what you know can be an entirely different matter. When you let your imagination become your servant (instead of fantasy being your master), then everything can change. The reason for this is that imagery has components of the mind (since you can’t imagine something that hasn’t sprouted from your existing repertoire of memories) and also draws from richer less conscious emotional self, through it symbolism and color.  “A man is like a tree”, the Torah tells us. This is an image that can change your life.

Envision a tree, its roots deep in the ground, all of its existence aimed at one goal; moving upward and producing fruit. In fact, even trees that don’t bear edible fruits do blossom and produce buds, and for them too all of their biology flows towards reaching that goal. Take this opportunity to look at your roots, explore your early memories and ask yourself one question, “What can I take from this that I can now use to nurture me”. Reject everything else just as Abraham rejected Terach’s paganism while at the same time never rejecting the pure faith that inspired him as a child and turned him into a seeker. Draw from the positive examples, from the family folklore of survival, and from our collective ancestors. Make your imagery vivid! Make it real!

 Move from there to asking yourself where your unending list of have-to is really leading. What sort of fruit do you see yourself bearing? The word niv in Hebrew means both bud and phrase. Look at your speech critically. It is the fruit of your thinking process. Listen to what you say. Is this what you want your heritage to be? What do you want to leave here? Children? People whose lives that you touched? Perhaps some wisdom or compassion?

The Torah is called the tree of life, recalling the Garden of Eden. This is not the tree from which Adam ate. He ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, the tree that made it possible to confuse good with evil so that you can draw in negativity without knowing it. You can rename it good (or create a new vocabulary to paint it in other colors). Cruelty can be imaged into feeling empowerment. Hatred can be imaged into feeling victory. Everything depends on the image that you create.

The 15^th of Shvat like all 15s in our tradition has enormous symbolic value. Ten is the letter yud in the Hebrew number/letter system called gematria. It is the smallest and most self contained of letters. It is above the line, not on the line. It is a symbol of transcendence. Five is the letter hai. With its both feet on the floor (and its open bottom) it symbolizes this word, where reality is concrete and failure is possible. When these two letters are combined you have the formula for perfected imagery, where you bond the part of you that is transcendent with the   part of you that is earthy.

 Your “tree” can grow to the heavens, never leaving the earth even as it moves on higher and higher.