Shuvoo Sights & Sites

Journeys Through Photo & Word

People & Places from the Past and the Present by Ashirah Yosefah

Issue No. 6, July 6^th, 2006

LESSONS FROM NATURE

Olives ripening on the branch in Jerusalem.

© Ashirah Yosefah Photo

There are many places in Tanach where analogies are made between Israel and the olive tree. Olives are now forming on the silvery green branches of thousands of olive trees here in Eretz Yisrael. Olives produce valuable oil, as well as food to eat, but as with all things in nature, Hashem has packed a few lessons on life into this spectacular plant as well.

Early in the growing season, the fruit of the olive tree is green and immature. After a period of time, exposure to the heat of the sun causes the olives to ripen. As they mature, the fruit turns purplish, then black. Some olives produce oil and are edible, and others are simply edible. Whether immature or mature, when you pick an olive off the branch and attempt to eat it, you quickly discover that in its natural state the fruit of the olive tree is very bitter and quite unlike the delicious array of olives available in stores and delicatessens.

An olive must be marinated in brine and seasoned in order to become edible. This process takes time and, in some cases, a prolonged period of time.

Oil-producing olives must be forcibly crushed and ground into a pulp in order to extract the rich and fragrant oil. The oil has many uses for illumination, food, cooking, beauty, and health. Pure olive oil was used to light the Menorah in the Mishkan and the Beit HaMikdash, and it was used to anoint the High Priest and King of Israel.

The Creator is revealed within all of His creation. He inspired His prophets of old to make clear analogies between the olive tree and Israel. What lessons can we learn from this?

The Olive Oil Source, a website providing technical data on the propagation of olive trees, contains some interesting facts about olives:

“Growing an olive tree from fresh olives is usually a frustrating experience as very few germinate, but a tree dropping thousands of olives over hundreds of years will produce seedlings.  Trees grown from seeds have some interesting characteristics.   The tap root goes straight down so the tree is very drought resistant.  That also means that it cannot take advantage of surface irrigation so typically grows slowly and produces fruit much later than trees grown by other means.  … Oddly, the tree and fruit which grow from the seed will not always resemble the tree it came from.  Olive pollen can drift for hundreds of miles and olives easily hybridize with other varieties.  To get an exact replica of an olive tree, you must use cuttings or [root] truncheons. … The truncheon system is used as a low-tech system for olive tree propagation. Limbs 3 or 4 inches in diameter are removed from trees and cut into 12 inch pieces, and then planted horizontally in soft, well tilled friable soil. Usually several shoots with an accompanying root system will grow. They can be separated, and grown for another year before being planted in the orchard. … Finally, suckers with a small piece of root can be removed from the trunk of the tree in the spring and grown in the nursery for a year before planting into the orchard.” 

In summary, the process of natural seeding requires thousands of ‘seeds’ and hundreds of years to eventually produce olive trees. With human cultivation, olive pits or seeds can take up to two years or more to germinate and the resulting tree and fruit can be quite dissimilar from its source! The longer the time of germination, that time of sleep-like ‘darkness’ in the ground, the greater the potential for dissimilarities.

Olive pollen can drift for hundreds of miles ~ it can be ‘dispersed’ and ‘scattered’.

Olives easily hybridize; perhaps you could say that olives ‘assimilate’ well.

Olives can be grown by grafting in stem cuttings, but the fastest and surest way to reproduce a true-to-source olive tree and fruit is to propagate by root cuttings or root suckers (little saplings that spring from the roots). A strong and healthy root is the best guarantee to reproduce the olive species.

I think the analogies which might be drawn between the above natural characteristics of the olive tree and the Jewish people, the children of Israel, are obvious. Needless to say, the same holds true for the olive fruit.

The fruit of the olive tree is firm but malleable. Oil-bearing olives must be pulverized to bring forth their hidden bounty. This illustrates the human predicament. Rarely do we achieve our full potential without the challenges of life. Rebbe Nachman of Breslov taught that before every ascent there is a descent, a valley comes before a mountain. Moshe Rabbeinu taught the Children of Israel that Hashem allows the hardships in life to test us and to teach us:

“Remember the entire path along which G-D, your G-d, has led you these forty years in the wilderness, in order to have you come to know what is in your heart, whether you will keep His commandments of not.” (Devarim 8:2)

David haMelek obviously recognized the merit of this concept in his heartfelt proclamation of teshuvah in Tehillim 51:

“The slaughterings of G-d are a broken spirit, a heart broken and crushed, O G-d, these You do not despise.” (Tehillim 51:17)

The Prophet Hoshea foretold that Hashem would eventually bring Israel back into Covenant with Him by way of distress and troubles and a ‘wilderness’ experience:

“Therefore, behold, I will seduce her [the Congregation of Israel] and I will lead her to the desert and I will speak to her heart. And I will give her her vineyards from there, and [make] the Valley of Achor (Troubling) into a portal of hope; she will dwell there as in the days of her youth, and as on the day of her ascent from the land of Egypt. And it shall be on that day – the word of HASHEM – that you will call [Me] Ishi (my husband) and you will no longer call Me Baali (my master). I will remove the names of the Baalim from her mouth and they will not be mentioned again by their name.” (Hoshea 2:16-19)

Olives ripen at different times, even on the same tree. Until late in the season both immature (green) and mature (black) olives can be found on the same branch, as well as olives that are a bit of both. Whether green, black or a bit of both, straight from the tree the fruit is acridly bitter. It is only once the olives have been processed and seasoned that they are fit for consumption. Their rich and fragrant oil requires that the olives be crushed to a pulp and then filtered. The lesson to be learned? Unless we allow Hashem’s loving discipline, tests and trials to soften our hardened hearts and stiff-necks, the fruit of our lives will remain, at best, only partially consumable. This lesson is true for both Israel and the nations:

“O HASHEM, my strength and my stronghold and my refuge, in the day of distress, the gentiles shall come to You from the ends of the earth and say, ‘Our fathers have inherited only falsehood, futility, and there is no value in them. Would a man make mighty ones for himself, which are not mighty ones?” (Yirmeyahu 16:19-20)

In Nehemiah 8:15, Ezra the Scribe instructed the Levites at the time of Sukkot to command the people to “Go out to the mountain, and bring olive branches (alei zayit), branches of oil trees (alei etz shemen)…” In Hebrew, this is understood to refer to two types of olive trees, those which produce oil and those which do not. Similarly, in life there are people whose lives produce the fruit of loving obedience to the commandments of G-d, exercising discipline in their lives and extending justice and mercy towards others. There are others whose lives produce the fruit of good works, but these works are accomplished by the motivation of the intellect and the arm of the flesh more than the circumcision of the heart. No act of justice, charity and mercy is overlooked by Hashem, but Torah makes it clear that G-d seeks the heart and mind that desires to cleave to Him and strives to observe His commandments in joy and gratitude.

“Since you did not serve Hashem your G-d with joy and gladness of heart, by reason of abundance in all things…” (Devarim 27:47)

May it be that we hearken to the lessons of Creation that declare G-d’s praise and give forth knowledge and wisdom. It was Avraham’s diligence in studying Creation that brought him to wholehearted faith in the One True G-d and merited that he should be called G-d’s friend and the father of many nations.

“You must be wholehearted with Hashem your G-d.” (Devarim 18:13)