There is a famous statement from our rabbis, איזהו חכם? הרואה את הנולד – a “wise” person is somebody who anticipates and looks ahead to the future, and plans accordingly. Planning to raise and educate a child should occur already before the child is born. We should be anticipating what will unfold ahead of time, to whatever extent possible, and plan in advance, because the earlier a head start, we get, the better the outcome will be.
The story is told of a man whose wife delivered their first child, and that very day he rushed to meet with a certain tzadik and ask his advice for educating the child.
“How old is your child?” the tzadik asked.
“He was just born today!” the father exuberantly replied. “I came already now so I can get a head start on educating him properly.”
“A head start?” the Rabbi said. “You’re already late. You need to begin preparing for your children’s education well before they are born.”
The importance of advanced planning and preparation can be learned from the day of Tu BeShvat, which is called ראש השנה לאילנות – “the new year for trees.” The significance of Tu BeShvat can be understood by way of analogy to the concept of a “fiscal year” in tax law. When determining tax liability, one calculates his earnings and deductions by a certain date. Income received after that date is not taxable for that year, and expenses paid after that date cannot be deducted from one’s tax obligation for that year. This is, essentially, what Tu BeShvat is. Certain percentages of one’s produce grown in Eretz Yisrael must be distributed to various groups of people (kohanim, Leviyim, the poor, etc.), and the ‘fiscal year” for these obligations as they apply to fruits begins and ends on Tu BeShvat. Fruits that began to bud before Tu BeShvat must be tithed with the previous year’s produce, whereas fruits that began to bud after this date fall under the next year’s tithing obligations.
Why is Tu BeShvat the cutoff point? What is unique about this particular point of the year that makes it the beginning and end of the “fiscal year” for fruits?
The Gemara explains that by Tu BeShvat, which falls in the latter part of the winter season, the rains that fell during the previous months have already begun affecting the fruit tree, such that the sap has started rising up the tree in preparation to produce fruit. Although no signs of fruit can as yet be detected, nevertheless, the process is already unfolding by virtue of the winter rains which have produced sap that is now in its preparatory stages for forming fruit.
This is an enlightening example of הרואה את הנולד. On Tu BeShvat, the fruit trees are bare. There is no discernible sign of fruit. And yet, our Sages tell us to take a deeper look and realize that the fruit is on its way. Already at this very early stage of the fruit’s development – when the sap is rising in the tree –we consider the new year of fruit to have begun.
The Torah tells us in the Book of Devarim, כי האדם עץ השדה – people are compared to trees. My father-in-law, Rabbi Nosson Scherman, explained that a child’s preschool and elementary school years parallel the period when the sap is rising up the tree. We cannot see a finished product, the child has not yet began achieving, but the process has been put into motion. The “fruit” appears when the child is grown and has reached adulthood, when he begins to achieve and succeed as a devoted husband and father, and as a committed Torah Jew. Everything that preceded that stage, even the stage of the “sap,” when this outstanding adult was just a young child, contributed to this final product. A child’s entire education helps form the “fruits” that we see in adulthood, much as the earliest stages of a fruit’s development play a vital and indispensable role in its coming into existence. Indeed, it is said in the name of righteous tzadikim that if a child has an elementary school teacher with genuine יראת שמיים (fear of G-d), this experience has a profound impact upon the child even in adulthood. So much so, that even if the child at one point leaves the path of Torah observance, the impact of the יראת שמיים imbibed during his childhood will eventually lead him back. The earliest stages of development have a profound effect on the final product.
The maharal explains man is a tree means he is an upside tree. His head is rooted in the heavans and his body branches out. We are supposed to be rooted in our intellect and our thoughts influence our deeds. Just as the tree trunk is in the ground and share the minerals and nutrients with the branches and fruit. Whenever we talk about Emunah and Bitachon with our children the sap of Emunah is going through their branches. We cant see it now but it will impact them later.
Let us internalize and implement this lesson of Tu BeShvat, and always remember the value of advanced preparation. The more we invest in preparing for Shabbos and for the other mitzvos we perform, the more meaningful they will be and the greater an impact they will have.
