Celebrating Potential

the new year for trees is an exception what happens on this day and why do we celebrate it if we were to celebrate the date when the trees become adorned with fruits it's understandable the date we celebrate for the trees is actually at a time when the trees are barren and cold naked orphaned from their foliage and orphaned from their produce yet this day became the rosh hashanah for trees what is the meaning of this and how do we celebrate it we celebrated by eating fruits from the tree which at this point the tree is not capable of producing what is the message of this in the land of israel at this point most of the winter's rain has already saturated the earth by this day the 15th day of shemat we can be sure that a new vitality a new sap ascends into the tree allowing for its future rejuvenation at the surface there's nothing going on right now but that is only on the surface to be is the celebration of potential invisible potential but real and authentic all of the future growth of the tree is possible only because of the sap rising in the tree at the time of the fifteenth day of the month of shvat the potential has been created and that is what we celebrate today at the surface you say i don't see any change whatsoever the trees are barren and lifeless but precisely at this moment life secretly started to develop anew in this tree you can't always see the fruit but you could still celebrate the process of growth itself because the most important thing in life is to identify and celebrate the existing potential not getting frustrated by the process and imagining the final product right now to the point that we already sit down and we take fruits and we put it on the table and we say baruch wait the trees are dead no no no we don't see death we see the potential for life and we already are filled with joy as though the process has been completed even though it has not been completed this is a very comforting message in today's day many of us are on lockdown our lives have been transformed many of us have suffered significantly with the onset of this horrific pandemic everyone's life has been affected there is fear there was anxiety there are those loved ones we had to say goodbye to and the finality is devastating and the future seems bleak nobody knows what's going to happen will we have this under control at some point will life go back to normal and yet i think that this message of the 15th day of schwart teaches us something very powerful and that is real transformation happens in silence real transformation happens during those times in our life when it doesn't seem like a lot of good things are happening that moment when the trees celebrate their birthdays are not moments that at the surface seem so promising whenever you have to give birth to a new reality a new concept a new emotion a new experience a new opening in your life often you have to lose everything from the past the seed cannot morph into a tree if it's not decomposed if you wanted the seed should be maintained as a seed on your window seal that's wonderful but it's never going to be able to be transformed into a tree it has to go through the stages of decomposition in order to be able to be metamorphosized into something completely new and that metamorphosis is never visible it's going to take a lot of time till we're going to see the results but don't lose your enthusiasm and your passion during those moments once asked winston churchill what his definition of success was and churchill said by the definition of success is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm in the process and of course what he meant is that's exactly how you're going to succeed [Music] the yeshiva.net