Ki aadam etz asade labo mipanecha bamatzor.

Trees have always been considered a symbol of life. Since the beginnings of world creation, God plants a garden in Eden, and puts there the man and woman He had formed.

And God made every tree, “pleasant to the sight and good for food”, grow from the earth; “the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil”. Three trees are planted by the divine hand: the fruit tree, for food; the tree of eternal life, and the tree of knowledge.

And God said: “Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it” (Gen. 2:16-17).

And man and woman ate and, from that moment on, man and woman knew the difference between good and evil. Man and woman now “knew” and could distinguish the good from the evil. Disobeying the divine word caused man and woman to begin to know, to start their being aware that the world is not a rose garden, that it is not possible to live eternally in the Garden of Eden. You have to leave the garden in order to know, to learn, to grow, to become a person.

God ends his speech saying: “Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever” (Gen. 3:22).

Man and woman were then removed from the Garden of Eden, and the tree of life remained safe from the hands of man.

That is why we are like the tree of the field; we eat from its fruits and observe that there is a world before us, there is a world of knowledge and experiences inviting us to discover it.

Every tree growing from the earth, according to the Cabbala sages, brings forth the sacred sparks in that place, raising the mineral life to the level of vegetable life, allowing later on the rise of vegetable to human, which enjoys the gift of speech, the gift of knowledge. Even the divine revelation to Moses happens by means of a tree, a small tree in the midst of the wilderness, the sne boer, surrounded by fire that did not burn it down, and there, God’s revelation through speech. The divine sparks of the encounter between man and God, between the creator and His created being, as a reencounter through the same element of nature wherein, as of the act of disobedience to divinity, man and woman start to walk on the path of knowledge, the path of discovery, of dis-cover, of being able to see that which was hidden before. Adam discovers Eve, and together they will create a new life. That is why God says, “Behold, the man is become as one of us…” Not only do they recognize the difference between good and evil, but they are also capable of creating life; they can pro-create. We lost our condition of immortality; we could not eat from the tree of life, but God blessed us with the possibility to create it.

Each and every one of us has the strength and capacity to discover that which is still hidden from our eyes and from our feelings. There is no age for this; we always have the chance to open a new door, which will in turn open another door, and another, and another.

One day, Arieh Levin, the tzadik of Jerusalem, met Rabbi Abraham Itzhak Hacoen Kuk, the “Rav Kuk”, first chief rabbi of the State of Israel. They walked together through the fields and, at some point, Rabbi Levin recounts: “… I cut a flower… Rav Kuk was amazed and he kindly told me: ‘Believe me when I say that I have always carefully refrained from cutting a plant or a flower without a good reason. For no plant on this earth exists without a higher principle which commands: Grow. Each sprout of vegetation says something; each stone murmurs a secret. Each one of the creatures intones a song of praise. The purpose of even the humblest vegetation in nature is divine, possesses a sublime thought, a whispered secret, something special.’”

And we as well, as the tree of the field, as the tree of knowledge, have a higher principle commanding us: grow, discover, reveal that which is hidden. Each one of our buds tells us something, murmurs a secret to us; each one of us also intones a song of praise. Our purpose, even the humblest in our lives, is divine, possesses a sublime thought, a murmured secret, something special, for in God’s eyes, each and every one of us is special.