The Tree Of The Field (Part II)

The custom of holding a “Seder” on Tu B’Shvat can be traced to the practice of the Arizal, but our sources for this attribution are anecdotal. This is not surprising in light of the fact that there are no extant writings attributable to the Arizal (apart from some liturgical poems), and that virtually everything we know about the Arizal, his teachings, and his practices comes from the testimony of his students.

The primary source for the Seder of Tu B’Shvat is the book Chemdat Yamim, a compendium of Jewish customs and prayers published in the early eighteenth century, and so separated from the disciples of the Arizal by more than a century. The book and its practices were held to be dubious for hundreds of years, and many Jewish scholars considered it to be a Sabbatean work, thus unsuitable for practitioners of normative Torah Judaism. In more recent years, the scholarly consensus on this text has formed around its authentic ties to the legacy of the Arizal, with certain Sabbatean interpolations that were almost certainly added after the original manuscript was written.

(This is also not surprising, as much of the reputation of the Arizal – and, for that matter, the Zohar – was established by the efforts of the followers of Shabtai Tzvi. Naturally, this must not be understood as a nefarious influence on these wellsprings of the Jewish esoteric tradition, as they predated Shabtai Tzvi by a considerable time. Nevertheless, particularly in Ashkenazi circles, the centrality of Zoharic and Lurianic teachings in the Sabbatean customs led to these sources and customs being viewed with great skepticism in later generations.)

Separately, we have additional anecdotal evidence for the Arizal’s performance of a Seder on Tu B’Shvat, and there are texts of greater antiquity than Chemdat Yamim that were clearly designated as counterparts to such a practice, so it is reasonable to conclude that the accounts are accurate. We do not have any clear and reliable source for how this ritual was conducted. It is necessary to glean information from the various sources available to us in order to come up with an actual “seder,” i.e., order of rituals and accompanying prayers. There have been a few attempts in recent years to produce such a document, including by this author. The text referenced in last week’s column, Seder Sulam Rafael, is a notable effort to provide supporting and framing texts without presenting an actual manual to direct the practice.

The overarching texts and principles that guide the Seder Tu B’Shvat are the two trees that were created in the Garden of Eden and the biblical passage stating that “the human being is a tree of the field” (Devarim 20:19). From these sources the Arizal was able to conclude two spiritual principles intrinsic to the holiday of Tu B’Shvat, and he designed and observed a ritual to impact positively on the spiritual state of the universe. The Arizal taught that when the Sages established this holiday to be a new year for the trees, they were also alluding to a power in the day to rectify the “trees” of the human soul and the collective soul of the human race. Just as a tree grows out of a seed that is planted in the earth until eventually it delivers fruit if it is cultivated properly, and just as the tree must also be guarded against physical and spiritual pests and must not be harvested for the first three years (counting from Tu b’Shvat), so do human beings grow in “the field” of the material world out of the seeds that were planted by our parents in cooperation with the Creator.

Adam and Chava were banished from Eden because they violated the Divine command and ate from the Tree of Knowledge, instead of from the Tree of Life as had been intended for them. The Arizal saw Tu B’Shvat as a unique opportunity, coming round once every year, to undo the damage caused in that action and thereby to initiate the process of return to our ideal state. In the Garden of Eden man ate from the tree and was driven down through worlds of increasing corruption and disharmony until he found himself trapped in the material world most familiar to us, his descendants. The Arizal believed that by eating fruits with proper intention and recitation of blessings and biblical texts, it was possible to ascend the tree again, to return to the garden and to access the Tree of Life. The Arizal’s custom was to eat thirty different species of fruit on Tu B’Shvat, ascending higher and higher on the strength of each fruit so blessed and consumed.

The taste of the fruit, as with any physical pleasure, can draw us down into the world of transient pleasure and animalistic instincts, and this is what befell our ancestors when they were tempted by the serpent. However, the Arizal believed that the taste of each fruit could also become a spiritual catalyst for elevating one’s consciousness and rising higher above the level of a mortal being altogether. This is the paradox of the Tu B’Shvat Seder, and it is consistent with the broader teachings of the Arizal, many of which have come to permeate our central rituals, including the Pesach Seder (and not only through the agency of Shabbtai Tzvi!). The goal is to encounter our physical existence, although it is a consequence of the moral failure of the first humans, as an opportunity and not as a burden to be cast off.

On Tu B’Shvat, we use our physical appetites to transcend our physical natures, so that we might bloom and flourish and raise our leaves to the eternal light that emanates from the Infinite.