The prophetic books of the Bible contain many metaphors based on natural and agricultural life. The contrast of the pious and the arrogant in Jeremiah 17:5-8 employs a comparison of “a tree planted by water” and something called arar in Hebrew. Following Harold Fisch’s translation in the Jerusalem Bible, we read:

“5. Thus says the Lord: Cursed [arur] be the man who trusts in man, and makes flesh his arm, and whose heart departs from the Lord. 6. For he shall be like the juniper tree [arar] in the desert, and shall not see when good comes; but shall inhabit the parched places [charar] in the wilderness, a salt land not inhabited.

“7. Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is. 8. For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, and that spreads out its roots by the river, and shall not see when heat comes, but its leaf shall be green; and shall not be anxious in the year of drought, nor shall it cease from yielding fruit.”

What was intended by Jeremiah’s warning that those who lack faith will become like an arar, and what is this plant that represents a failure of faith? Both the classic rabbinic Bible commentators and the Biblical botanists of the twentieth century struggle with this question. Is the arar a well-adapted desert plant that the prophet used to represent a smug, self-sufficient loner, or is it a plant that requires a moister environment and withers and struggles to survive in the desert? We must answer this question in order to understand Jeremiah’s metaphor and the theology that it expresses.

Onkelos’s ancient Aramaic translation and the medieval Bible commentator Rabbi David Kimchi, known by the acronym Radak, agree that arar is an alternate name for the plant also known in Hebrew as acuvit or acuvitah. Avraham Even-Shoshan’s etymological Hebrew dictionary and Avi Shmida’s MAPA Dictionary of Plants and Flowers in Israel both identify acuvit as Gundelia tournefortii. This plant is known in modern Hebrew as acuvit hagalgal and in English as tumble thistle. Acuvit means obstacle or hindrance. Perhaps the plant was given this name in reference to its spiny leaves.

This member of the Aster family is similar to the central Asian tumbleweeds that became common in the deserts of western North America during the nineteenth century, though the two are not closely related. When the tumble thistle’s seeds are mature, the dry plant detaches from its roots and the wind rolls it across the landscape, scattering seeds along its path. Its forbidding spines and rootless, solitary travels as it disperses its seeds make it a promising candidate for Jeremiah’s figure of the lone, faithless desert hermit. Indeed, a literal translation of acuvit hagalgal is “rolling hindrance”, an appropriate name for this tumbling ball of spikes. Even-Shoshan suggests that it may also be identical with the galgal (literally, “wheel”) mentioned in Isaiah 17:13 and elsewhere. The aptness of the metaphor is supported by Shmida’s observation that the genus Gundelia has no close relatives in its family. However, it is less clear why Jeremiah would have chosen this well-adapted desert species to represent one who “will not see when good comes.”

What theology follows from this reading of arar? Radak states that the arar’s thorny exterior conceals a tender, edible heart. The accuracy of this statement as a description of the tumble thistle is debatable. However, it supports the suggestion that Jeremiah intended a plant that would provide a metaphor for isolation. A provocative implication of this reading of Jeremiah is the idea that a lack of religious faith obstructs not only closeness to God, but even interpersonal intimacy. Radak’s comments on verse 5 help to explain this unusual idea. He explains the phrase “who trusts in man, and makes flesh his arm,” to mean that human efforts can succeed only with God’s support or approval. Radak’s interpretation of the tumble thistle is surprisingly close to the metaphor of the sabra, or prickly pear cactus, adopted by modern-day Israelis to represent themselves as externally tough and curt, but tenderhearted and warm at the core. Still, the tumble thistle is not a completely satisfactory candidate for the arar. The parallelism between verses 5-6 and 7-8 contrasts the arar, stymied by its desert environment, with the flourishing “tree planted by the waters”. The tumble thistle is well suited to its dry environment; it does not embody this metaphorical contrast well.

Why did Fisch’s Jerusalem Bible translation render arar as juniper? Bible commentators often use similar words in related languages to explain obscure terms. In Arabic, arar is the juniper. The Phoenician juniper (Juniperus phoenicea) occurs in relatively well-watered Mediterranean regions, including the Galilee and Lebanon, though not in the deserts of Judea and the Negev. It can be seen at the following Web site:

http://www3.unileon.es/personal/wwdbvcac/images/Fotos_Plantas/Gimnospermas/Juniperus%20thurifera.jpg

The juniper has one advantage over the tumble thistle as a translation for arar: Its tiny, scale-like leaves are drab and unimpressive, and its foliage is not lush even when the tree is well watered. However, in dry conditions, the foliage is especially sparce, contrasting more clearly than the tumble thistle with the “tree planted by the waters”. These facts lend support to the Jerusalem Bible’s translation. Accepting this translation leads to a different understanding of Jeremiah’s theology: The metaphor contrasts the dismal fate of a juniper in the salt desert and its vigorous growth and reproduction next to a river or stream. The prophet’s moral in this case would be that those who trust in God will flourish and their actions will yield fruit (i.e., success, or perhaps more literally, children). On the other hand, the Creator’s world turns inhospitable to the unfaithful.

The comments of several classic rabbinic authorities provide support for this reading of Jeremiah. Pirke Avot, a Roman-era collection of rabbinic aphorisms, includes a homily (Pirke Avot 3:22) attributed to Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah in which our passage is cited as support for the idea that one whose actions do not measure up to his learning will lack resilience, like a shallow-rooted tree that is easily uprooted and blown away by the wind. Rabbi Elazar’s metaphor contrasts this image with a deep-rooted tree that resists the strongest winds, representing a person whose deeds exceed his scholarship. But how does Jeremiah’s metaphor about water and the ability to withstand drought support a saying about resisting uprooting by wind? The explanation requires an understanding of plant physiology. Roots serve several functions, including anchoring plants in place and absorbing water. These functions are related: The proliferation of roots is stimulated by an adequate supply of water. A deep and extensive root system that provides access to scarce water is one of the adaptations that enable many desert plants to survive. The juniper, however, is not adapted to desert environments, and the growth of its roots would be restricted by such dry growing conditions. Thus, Rabbi Elazar may have intended his metaphor to convey the idea that one who foolishly chooses to trust in man rather than God will be as frail and vulnerable as a juniper that takes root in the desert. On the other hand, it is also possible that Rabbi Elazar understood the arar to be the tumble thistle, which is also “uprooted” by the wind, or more accurately, detached from its roots and blown about by wind. This may explain his vivid description of the wind that “uproots and inverts” the arar (Hebrew “okarto v’hofachto“).

Several of the later commentators support the identification of arar with juniper. Rashi (an acronym for Rabbi Shlomo Yitzhaki), the dean of the medieval Jewish Bible commentators, connects arar with the Hebrew ariri, meaning desolate or ruined. Citing his predecessor, the Hebrew grammarian Menachem ben Seruk, he further sugggests that the phrase “like an arar in the desert” refers to a solitary, stunted member of a forest species “whose name is arar,” presumably a reference to the Arabic name for the juniper. Thus, Rashi seems to understand Jeremiah as saying that faith is as necessary to human welfare as water is to the juniper’s; a man without faith is as hopeless as a juniper in the desert. Rashi develops this idea further in his comment on the phrase “who trusts in man, and makes flesh his arm,” in verse 5. With the example of one who farms during the sabbatical year, in violation of the Biblical commandment, Rashi expresses the same idea as Radak, that people can use their strength and knowledge to help themseleves and one another, but only if they act in accord with God’s will.

The nineteenth-century Russian commentary known as Malbim (an acronym for the author’s Hebrew name, Rabbi Meir Lob ben Yechiel Michael) echoes the medieval commentators. Like Rashi, Malbim relates arar to ariri. Emphasizing the sense of ariri as fruitless, he speaks of the failure of the misplaced lone desert tree to reproduce.

Rashi often points out similarities between words, such as arar and ariri, as evidence of shared word origins, and therefore, of shared meaning as well. When such words are found close together or in similar contexts in the Bible, they can also hint at additional meanings. In particular, the similarity of the Hebrew arur (cursed) in verse 5 to charar (parched) and arar in verse 6 suggested to the eighteenth century commentator Rabbi David Altschuler that the arar is in fact a desert tree. (See his companion Bible commentaries Metzudat David and Metzudat Tzion.) In his remarks on the statement in verse 6 that the arar “will not see when good comes,” he explains that “good” here refers to rain: Just as rain does not fall on the desert plant, so, too, will the faithless man fail to receive God’s blessings.

The association of arur in verse 5 and arar in verse 6 also supports an alternative translation. The Sodom apple (Calotropis procera), known in Arabic as the “cursed lemon,” is common in the arid, salty soils surrounding Jericho and the Dead Sea. This small tree produces a fruit that resembles a large lemon in size, shape, and color. However, it is filled with air and dry seeds that carry silky fibers. A composite photo showing the plant, its flowers, and its fruit can be seen at:

http://faculty.ksu.edu.sa/Al-Rowaily/Pictures%20Library/Rangeland%20Flora%20%D9%86%D8%A8%D8%A7%D8%AA%D8%A7%D8%AA%20%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%B9%D9%8A/Calotropis%20procera.bmp

In 1938, Biblical botanists Hannah and Ephraim HaReuveni published an article identifying Jeremiah’s arar as the Sodom apple. This conclusion relies heavily on folklore concerning this plant among a Bedouin tribe of the Jericho area. The HaReuvenis’ son Nogah summarized this work in his book Desert and Shepherd in Our Biblical Heritage. He describes a Bedouin tradition that the Sodom apple was succulent in ancient times, until it was cursed along with Sodom and Gomorrah. When humanity repents, the Sodom apple will be restored to its former juicy, delicious form. The story is especially intriguing in light of a similar account in the Talmud (Yoma 21b and 39b) of fruit trees planted by Solomon at the time that he constructed the temple. These trees are said to have yielded golden fruits for the support of the priests until the desecration of the temple by the troops of Nebuchadnezzar. At that time, the fruits (or perhaps the trees) withered, but they will return in Messianic times.

The silky tufts of the Sodom apple seeds give the plant its Hebrew name, petillat hamidbar (desert silk). These fibers are listed in the Mishna (Shabbat 2:1) among those that may not be used as a wick for Sabbath lights because they burn unevenly. Another essay on Torahflora.org (Drug-Free Sabbath Candles) explains more about this topic.

Relying on the similarity of the words arur and arar to identify the arar as the “cursed lemon” adds a suggestion of repentance and redemption that is not present in Jeremiah’s bleak vision of the future of those who do not trust in God. Both the ability of the Sodom apple to retain its large, green leaves and produce flowers and fruits under harsh conditions, and the messianic aspect of the tradition quoted by the HaReuvenis conflict with the prophet’s description of a tree that “shall not see when good comes”. For these reasons, we must look elsewhere for the arar.

The ancient (and likely the first) Bible translation known as the Septuagint renders arar into Greek as agriomyrike, a tree known in English as the tamarisk or salt cedar (genus Tamarix). This translation is supported by the Arabic name for the tamarisk, arah.

Like the juniper, the tamarisk has a very bland, unappealing appearance, with small, scale-like leaves and a trunk covered with grayish grains. Its flowers and fruits are also small and unimpressive. The tamarisk is a halophyte, one of the few plants that are able to thrive in salty soils. This ability is partly due to its ability to excrete salt from its leaves, branches, and roots, and its extraordinary effectiveness at absorbing deep groundwater. A tamarisk can easily exhaust the local water supply and concentrate salt in the surrounding soil, making it impossible for other plant species to compete. The photo posted at the following Web site shows two tamarisks growing in the western Negev desert, near Nitzanim, Israel. Note the near absence of other vegetation around the trees:

http://img3.photographersdirect.com/img/13717/wm/pd1108172.jpg

The tamarisk is common in Old World deserts, including the area around the Dead Sea and the Negev desert of southern Israel. Since its importation to the United States in the nineteenth century, it has become an invasive species along rivers and in wet spots within the deserts of the western United States, drying up wet areas and concentrating salt in the soil to the point that native species are eliminated. Because it has become such a problem in the Western US, the Washington State Department of Ecology has collected and published information on the growth and control of tamarisk on a Salt Cedar Web page.

This Web page explains that a tamarisk seedling can grow up to a foot (30 cm) per month in the spring. Its roots also grow rapidly, quickly reaching the groundwater below the soil. Once this happens, the tree is no longer dependent on moisture in the surface soil, and can survive droughts that kill other plants. For the same reason, the tamarisk does not spring to life after a rainfall as other desert plants do, but maintains its dwarf leaves and generally drab, grey-green appearance.

These traits support the suggestion of the late Professor Yehuda Feliks of Bar-Ilan and Tel Aviv Universities that Jeremiah’s arar is the tamarisk. A desert tree that does not respond to rain is a good candidate for the species that “shall not see when good comes”. Unlike the other translations described above, identifying arar as the tamarisk enables us to avoid having to chose between a well-adapted dry-land plant such as the tumble thistle or Sodom apple and one that is not normally found in deserts, such as the juniper. The tamarisk’s ability to monopolize scarce water and inhibit the growth of other plants often results in a solitary growth habit. This isolation and the meager reproduction of the tamarisk are just as Malbim described. If we read Jeremiah with this translation in mind, we see him describing the faithless man as one who has isolated himself from both God and society in the miserable “parched places in the wilderness, a salt land not inhabited”. One could reasonably apply this vision to the alienation and fragmented social relationships experienced by so many in modern secular society.

Some hope is held out for the arar when the word appears in Psalms 102:18. Again, following the Jerusalem Bible:

“He heeds the prayer of the destitute [arar], and does not despise their prayer.”

This translation is based on what may be the root meaning of arar: naked, empty-handed, or childless. (See, for example, Genesis 15:2, Leviticus 20:20-21, and Jeremiah 22:30). The tamarisk may well have been named arar to reflect the meager appearance of its foliage. But how does the metaphor of this psalm reflect the life of the tamarisk? Feliks points out that during a brief period in spring or early summer, the tamarisk produces small white or pink flowers that will eventually yield small seeds. The flowers are not dramatic or impressive, but as the psalm implies, they represent a modest renewal, and as reproductive organs, the possibility of a new generation.

Sigmund Freud is reputed to have said that anatomy is destiny. Perhaps we can paraphrase this famous remark, having shown that sometimes, botany is theology.

Readers of Torah Flora may be aware that the current Hebrew year is a “shmitah,” or sabbatical year. The significance of the shmitah year is described in Leviticus 25:1-7. Briefly, shmitah is the last year of a seven-year cycle. During this year, agricultural operations such as planting and systematic harvesting on Jewish-owned land in Israel are suspended, and the land and its produce are considered temporarily ownerless: Custody of the land of Israel reverts, so to speak, to God. Because no one can claim ownership of any produce that grows spontaneously during this year, it is free to all for the taking. (field operations that ar necessary, for example, for the sake of soil conservation, rather than for crop production, are permitted.)

Observance of the laws of shmitah under modern conditions raises several difficult problems, for which various creative solutions have been found. As increasing numbers of Jews returned to farming the land of Israel in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the problem of feeding the growing population during and after the shmitah year became increasingly pressing. In 1889, Israeli rabbinical authorities began to arrange for the temporary sale of Jewish-owned farmland to non-Jews. Under the terms of the sale, the land, now owned by non-Jews, is exempt from the laws of shmitah, and may be worked as usual. At the end of the year, the original owner then buys the land back, in an arrangement similar to the temporary sale of leavened or potentially leavened foods (chametz) to prevent Jewish ownership of these items during Passover. Other solutions have been developed as well. The essential point of the Biblical verses that describe the commandment of shmitah seems to be to suspend cultivation of the land of Israel, rather than agriculture per se. Therefore, some rabbinic authorities have permitted the growing of vegetables in pots, greenhouses, or liquid hydroponic tanks during the shmitah year, so that the crop does not grow directly from the ground.

If current demographic trends continue, the majority of the Jewish people will be living in Israel within a few years. When that happens, several halakhic requirements will become stricter, making the temporary sale of Israeli land during shmitah increasingly problematic. In addition, some people have questioned the propriety of a system in which the Jewish people observe a Biblical commandment by selling their stake in the land of Israel. As a result of these concerns, another approach to shmitah observance has gained increasing popularity. This approach is based on the principle that any Israeli Jewish framer who wants to consume his own shmitah produce must first publicly offer it free of charge to anyone who wishes to partake of it.

Thus, the farmer must respect the fact that his land has reverted to its Divine owner for the year, and therefore, he has no more right than anyone else to its produce. On the basis of this statement, a system known as Otzar Bet Din (treasury of the rabbinical court) has been instituted. The system is described in more detail by its practitioners at the following Web site:http://www.hashmita.co.il/index.asp?mainpage=prod_enlarge&prodtbl=070000&menuIDcounterID=0-070000-1011

Briefly, the system invites consumers to commit to the purchase of a share of the participating farmers’ future produce in advance of the shmitah year. All planting is completed at least thirty days before the beginning of shmitah on Rosh HaShanah. (For the present shmitah year, Rosh HaShanah fell on September 13, 2007). The land then passes into a sort of receivership administered by the rabbinical court, and the consumer-subscribers receive their produce over the course of the shmitah year, as it is harvested. Because shmitah produce is considered holy, the consumers must agree not to discard it in a disrespectful manner.

The Torah recognizes the fear that refraining for agriculture for a year will lead to food shortages, and assures us in Leviticus 25:20-22 that faithful adherence to this commandment will not bring us to starvation:

If you will say, ‘What will we eat in the seventh year? For we will not sow or harvest our produce,’ I will direct my blessing for you on the sixth year and it will yield the produce of three years. So you will plant for the eighth year and you will eat from the old produce until the ninth year; until its produce arrives, you will eat from the old.

This assurance is particularly striking in light of a recent occurrence in the Negev desert. During the early part of this winter, some 80% of the Israeli potato crop (about 30,000 tons) was destroyed by severe frost. These potatoes were planted around the end of September, as is usual in Israel. However, farmers participating in the Otzar Bet Din plan had to plant by mid-August. As a result, their plants had developed sufficiently by the time of the frost that they were able to withstand these severe conditions, and sustained relatively little damage. The participants were, of course, delighted to see their crops escape with only minor leaf damage. In a February 13 report on these developments by Arutz Sheva (israelnationalnews.com), Rabbi Yehuda Amichai, who supervises the Otzar Bet Din agricultural program, was quoted as saying, “We have merited this year to see G-d’s miracles and how His will guides us in all our ways. I am happy to be a witness to this ‘agricultural miracle’ that proves how G-d ‘pays back’ those who follow His laws. At the same time, we are sorry for the many farmers in Israel whose crops were ruined in the frost…”

In Exodus 26:15 (parshat Terumah), we read that the boards for the wall that surrounded the Mishkan (Tabernacle) were to be made from ”upright acacia trees” (in Hebrew, “atzei shitim omdim”). However, the acacia trees available to the Jewish people at the time were only those that could be found in the Sinai desert. The sparse water supply in the desert limits these species to a short, gnarled growth form that would never have been called upright. To see an example of an Egyptian desert acacia, go to:
http://journalwatch.conservationmagazine.org/2007/02/14/a-burning-issue/

However, the dimensions that are specified for these boards in Exodus are far larger than anything that could be cut from such a tree. The boards are to be 1 x 1.5 x 10 cubits in size. Assuming, as most authors do, that a cubit (Hebrew ‘amah’) is approximately 18 inches, we find that the boards were 18 x 27 inches (45 x 68 cm) in cross-section, and 15 feet (nearly 5 m) long. The difficulty of obtaining such lumber in the desert was obvious to the Torah’s ancient readers, who were intimately familiar with the conditions of life in the various ecosystems of the Middle East. As is often the case, the midrash (collection of homilies) provides an explanation. Midrash Tanchuma, a work attributed to a rabbi of the same name, describes a tradition that the patriarch Jacob collected saplings from a place in the northern Jordan Valley called Migdal Tzava’ya (“The Dyers’ Tower”; the Talmud refers several times to this location as a center of cloth making and dying.) to take with him to Egypt. He is said to have recognized prophetically that his descendants would need these trees centuries later to build the Mishkan. Jacob’s son Joseph rose to high public office in Egypt. The midrash further states that Joseph instructed his own sons Ephraim and Menashe to plant these trees in Egypt, ensuring a ready source of lumber for the future.

Several tantalizing lines of evidence offer support for this tradition. The Jerusalem Talmud (Taanit 1:6) reports a request for a rabbinic ruling on the permissibility of cutting wood from the acacia grove at Migdal Tzava’ya. Rabbi Chananya responded that the longstanding custom to leave these trees unharvested should be respected. Today, Migdal Tzava’ya is located in northwestern Jordan. Remarkably, the local Arab population continues to regard the acacia trees of this site as sacred. But how could such large boards be cut from acacia trees? The acacias of Migdal Tzava’ya are of a different species from the desert acacias. In the moister climate of the Jordan valley, Acacia albida, the white or winterthorn acacia provides a dramatic contrast to the desert acacia. The white acacia is an excellent candidate for the Torah’s term “upright acacia trees.” Its trunk is straight and tall, often exceeding 30 feet in height. A dramatic example of a 52-foot tree at the San Diego Zoo can be seen at
http://www.sandiegozoo.org/CF/plants/species_detail.cfm?ID=206

The original grove at Migdal Tzava’ya has apparently spread since Talmudic times. Acacia albida can now be found on both sides of the Jordan river, in both Jordan and Israel. Today, visitors to the Galilee can view and contemplate trees that may be descendants of the same ones that Jacob collected to carry into exile in Egypt.

A puzzling detail in the story recounted by the Midrash Tanhuma is an apparent indifference to the identity of the ‘shita’ referred to in Exodus 26:15. The midrash shifts back and forth, seemingly at random, between the terms ‘shita’ (acacia) and ‘erez’ (cedar), as if the two were synonymous. Yet even the unfamiliar observer can easily distinguish these unrelated trees, which grow in very different environments. Certainly Rabbi Tanchuma, who lived in much closer proximity to nature than most of us do today, would have recognized this problem, if it really is a problem. But Talmudic classification of living things is a topic for another issue of Torah Flora.

Like any empire, ancient Rome amassed great wealth from the vast territory that it controlled. The upper classes were able to enjoy the local delicacies of subject lands, and epicures prided themselves on their ability to recognize subtle gradations in the quality of these prized imports.

An extensive sea trade involving thousands of ships carried wine, perfume, spices, and other luxury products from throughout the Mediterranean and beyond to ports that served Rome and other imperial cities. Among these products were several members of the lily family, including scallions and shallots. These close relatives of leeks, onions, and garlic were shipped from the port of Ashkelon, and probably grown nearby. Apparently, these Israeli vegetables were quite popular in Rome, because they were named for their port of origin: caepa Ascalonia (“Ashkelon onion”). This Latin name is the root of the English words ‘scallion’ and ‘shallot.’ Shallots are a luxury even today. Indeed, one popular cookbook refers to them as “rich man’s onions.” Ironically, shallots are most often associated today with French cooking, and scallions with Chinese cuisine. Ashkelon, however, is once again a flourishing seaport, though vegetables are no longer a large part of the cargo handled there.

Like the chatzav of the previous article, another recent event brings to mind two plants with an Israeli identity crisis. Before the last US postal rate increase, the Postal Service issued a series of 39-cent stamps with the title “Crops of the Americas.” The stamps, no longer available, featured beautiful, detailed artwork of such native American crops as corn (maize) and sunflowers. As its scientific name suggests, the sunflower (Helianthus annuum) is an annual plant: It grows each year from seed, produces its own seeds, and dies. A close relative of this plant is the Jerusalem artichoke, or sunchoke, The Jerusalem artichoke is a perennial: It lives for more than one year, producing new shoots each spring from its swollen, potato-like root, or tuber, mentioned in its scientific name, Helianthus tuberosum.

How did this American sunflower become known as a Jerusalem artichoke? The French explorer Samuel de Champlain may have been the first European to taste this root on a visit to Cape Cod in 1605. He is reported to have thought they tasted like artichokes, and sent some back to France, where they became popular. In Italy, they were sold as roots of sunflowers, or in Italian, “girasole,” a name that refers to the tendency of the large flower to turn, or gyre, to follow the sun (“sol”) as it moves across the sky each day.

So, the name Jerusalem artichoke is actually a European confusion caused by a Frenchman’s taste in vegetables and an Italian name that sounded like ‘Jerusalem.’ Ironically, seeds of the annual sunflower have become so popular as snacks in Israel that they are referred to simply as ‘garinim’ (seeds).

Stephen Druger wrote to report that the Italian name for Jerusalem is ‘Gerusalemme’, which could easily have been confused with ‘girosolum,’ a descriptive name for this plant that refers to its tendency to track the movement of the sun throughout the day.

An article in Torah Flora no. 1 (“The olive tree, the post-Chanukah period, and Jewish unity”) described Tu b’Av, the fifteenth of the Hebrew month of Av, and its commemorative and religious significance. This day marks the middle of summer and the time when olives in Israel begin to accumulate oil. The ripening of olives is nearly simultaneous throughout Israel’s geographic and climatic regions. In fact, the local Arabs refer to this day as Olive Day. For this reason, and because of several historical events that occurred on Tu b’Av, both the day and the olive tree have become symbols of Jewish unity. This year, Tu b’Av fell on Monday, July 30.

The timing of flowering and ripening in olives are unusual in their relative insensitivity to climate. The white squill (Urginea maritima; in modern Hebrew, chatzav matsui) flowers during the olive ripening. Like the olive, it has accumulated a good deal of lore because it flowers at the same time throughout the land of Israel. This plant grows mostly in dry, sandy soils from its large, onion-like bulb, sending up a single narrow stalk covered by many small, white flowers. An example of this plant can be seen at http://www.tau.ac.il/~ibs/album/urginea.m.html.

The resemblance to onions is not a coincidence. In fact, one of its many English names is sea onion. Most botanists place white squill in the lily family, along with onions, garlic, chives, scallions and shallots. However, some split the lily family in two, placing white squill and some other species in a hyacinth family. Many members of the lily family contain unusual chemical compounds with interesting biological properties. For example, certain sulfur compounds in onions and garlic give them their pungent flavors and irritating effects on the eyes of cooks. White squill is no exception. Its bulb, which can weigh several pounds, contains steroid-like compounds that have been used as rat poisons and heart drugs since ancient times. The effect on the heart is similar to digoxin (found in digitalis extract), though much better and safer heart drugs are available today.

The ability of white squill to regenerate from its bulb after cutting or drought may have inspired its use as a planting to mark property lines. Indeed, the Talmud (Baba Batra 55a) describes this as a common practice, and states that Joshua planted it to delineate the borders of the tribes of Israel after the apportionment of the land (Baba Batra 56a). The toxic compounds in white squill can cause blistering irritation of the skin after handling the plant. This effect would discourage malicious individuals from uprooting the plant to obscure property lines, as forbidden in Deuteronomy 19:14.

The Hebrew name ‘chatzav’ given to this plant has the same root as the words for axe and hewing of wood or rock. This may reflect its ability to force its way into rocky soil by expanding its roots and bulb into small cracks, further breaking up the rocks. An example of this growth habit can be seen in this photo of white squill growing out of a rocky outcrop in the Negev desert: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:UrgineaMaritima.JPG

However, some scholars of Aramaic, including Marcus Jastrow and Immanuel Low, have suggested that the chatzav of the Talmud is not white squill, but an unrelated plant, the rockrose, which also grows on rocky, dry ground. Some support for this idea comes from the homiletic statement that attempts to uproot chatzav that has been planted along a property line are thwarted when it grows back from its deep roots. Rockrose shrubs can produce much longer, deeper root systems than the shallow bulb of white squill.

But if the chatzav of the Talmud and the chatzav of modern Hebrew are not the same plant, how did this confusion arise? The identities of many biblical plants, animals, and rocks are uncertain. When Hebrew returned to use as a daily language in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, these names were assigned to common species in the land of Israel, in some cases with little evidence that the words were being used in their original senses. Chatzav may be one such word. If the fields and borders of Israel were originally marked by a hedgerow of chatzav plants, the ambiguous meaning of this plant name in modern Hebrew becomes a beautiful realization of the metaphor of Song of Songs 7:3, which describes the beloved (homiletically interpreted as the people of Israel) as “a pile of wheat surrounded by shoshanim.” What are shoshanim? This term is variously translated as roses or lilies, so either the rockrose or the white squill would satisfy the language of the verse. Take your pick, but not from your neighbor’s fence row!

While preparing for our annual seder Tu b’Shvat, I received an e-mail from rabbinical student and synagogue youth director Jonny Gordon that included an excerpt from An Angel Among Men, Rabbi Simcha Raz’s biography of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook (1865-1935), the chief rabbi of the land of Israel during the early years of of the modern Jewish return. The passage describes Rabbi Kook’s dramatic religious experience while planting a tree on Tu b’Shvat. I encourage you to read it at the following Web site:
http://www.geocities.com/m_yericho/ravkook/TU_BISHVAT_66.htm

Rabbi Kook’s words are illuminating because they reveal an extraordinary and little-known idea about the religious significance of reforestation programs. He cites a midrash (homily) based on “You shall follow the Lord your God… …and cling to Him.”

The Midrash (Vayikra Rabbah 25:3) asks how a person can cling to the Infinite, and suggests that this verse is to be understood allegorically. We cannot literally cling to God. However, just as God created the world and then planted trees in it (Genesis 2:8: “The Lord God planted a garden in Eden.”), He instructed the Jewish people that when they enter the land of Israel, they should do the same (Leviticus 19:23: “When you enter the land, you shall plant all types of fruit trees.”). When they do so, they approach the Divine Presence (the Shechinah). As Rabbi Kook planted the tree, he was overwhelmed by the feeling that he was touching the Presence of God.

Before the nation of Israel entered their promised land, they were commanded about a number of agricultural practices. One of these is gleaning, or in Hebrew, “leket”. Leviticus 23:22 instructs the Jewish farmers to leave behind for the poor any grain that the harvesters’ sickles have missed. The plot of the book of Ruth hinges on this practice, which seems to have been quite common at that time, particularly during periods of scarcity due to drought or war.

Modern mechanized harvesting and higher standards of living have virtually eliminated gleaning. However, an article by Hillel Fendel in the January 16 issue of Arutz Sheva (israelnationalnews.com) reports a revival of gleaning in modern-day Israel.

A hunger-relief organization called Table to Table (www.tabletotable.org.il) has arranged for volunteers to collect food that is not harvested from farmers’ fields for distribution to the poor, an estimated 24% of Israel’s population, including 738,000 children. The food includes fruit that is missed by harvesting operations, or is considered edible but below market quality, or is simply unprofitable to collect.