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TU BISHV A T READING
TU BISHVAT READING

Rabbi Avigdor Nebenzahl

MITZVOT HATLUYOT BAARETZ NETA REVAI AND ORLAH

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You’ll Get There

hen you shall come to fourth year, the fruit must either be Some have a custom of not cutting a
the Land and you shall taken to Yerushalayim to be eaten, or child’s hair until he is three years old
“Wplant any food tree, you redeemed, with the money received to (and often on Lag BaOmer). The
shall treat its fruit as forbidden; for be taken to Yerushalayim. custom is derived from the mitzvah
three years they shall be forbidden to of orlah, waiting for three years to
you, they shall not be eaten” (Vayikra The Torah is teaching us the quality eat the fruits of the tree, as described
19:23). of patience. The Torah promises above. When the child reaches the
The Gemara explains that this us a reward for being patient and age of three, we begin to teach him
observing this mitzvah: “And in the
mitzvah, the mitzvah of orlah, refutes fifth year you may eat its fruit, so that the letters of the alef-bet. He slowly
those who require instant gratification it will increase its crop for you” (ibid. learns how to read with vowels, and
in their seeking of worldly pleasures. 25) – there will be a surplus. begins to read the siddur and the
Here, the Torah is commanding man chumash. At this point of course, we
to wait three years before eating the The Gemara tells a story of an old do not yet anticipate he will become
fruits, and if one wishes to eat them man who was planting a carob tree. the Gadol HaDor, the Torah giant of
in the fourth year, they must either be Choni HaMe’agel asked him how long his generation. Seeing the fruits of our
redeemed or brought to Yerushalayim it would take for the tree to produce toil – and his – takes time.
to be eaten (neta revai). fruits. “70 years,” the man answered.
When Choni asked him whether Similarly, the Land of Israel. G-d’s
Through this mitzvah, the Torah is he would live for 70 years, the man gift to us can only continue to
teaching us to restrain our desires. answered that when he came into this exist through the merit of learning
Even through natural means, when world there were carob trees. In other Torah. We received the Land of
one desires fruits, they are not words, just as his ancestors planted Israel so there should be a Land for
available for immediate consumption. carob trees so that he may benefit worshipping G-d, learning Torah, and
The tree must first take root, which from them, so too he is now planting performing mitzvot. And with G-d’s
at times takes as much as 14 days. them for his descendants. Later, the help, may the entire Jewish nation
The early development is performed Gemara relates how Choni saw a man be able to live in its Land and eat the
under the ground, invisible to us. picking carobs off the tree. The man delicious fruits that grow here, both
When the plant begins to appear it is told him he was the grandson of the physical and spiritual.
new and still weak until finally there man who had planted the tree. We see
is a tree that is capable of producing from here that one does not see the
fruits. After all the time that has fruits of one’s labor immediately; one
elapsed from when the seeds were is required to wait.
planted until the fruits are ripe, the Rabbi Avigdor Nebenzahl is the former
Torah tells us to wait an additional We can compare the development of Chief Rabbi of the Old City of Jerusalem
three years before partaking of the a tree to the development of a person. and Rabbi of the Ramban Synagogue in
the Old City. He is considered by many
fruits of the tree. There are even A person is born a small baby. It takes to be the leading student of Rav Shlomo
limitations on the way the fruits may years of time and effort though for Zalman Auerbach as well as his chavruta
be consumed in the fourth year. In the him to grow into a talmid chacham. for over forty years.

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