Truncated: A fitting symbol

October 9, 2006 - 2:28 PM by

We Jews are big tree planters.  This is especially true since the early 20th century when, for the first time in almost 2000 years, it looked like we might actually have a shot at having our own country again. 

Since then, we have admittedly become a bit obsessed with planting trees.

Long before the state was actually established, the little blue JNF (Jewish National Fund) ‘pushkes’ had already become the symbol of our longing to replant the roots of Jewish sovereignty over the Land of Israel.

Pushkes

[Photo: © Jewish National Fund]

In the 30s and 40s, school kids would go door to door and even stand on street corners with these JNF boxes collecting funds to plant trees in every corner of what was then referred to as Palestine. 

And as the forests spread, the act of planting a tree continued to be associated with building the state.  There was even a time when the JNF certificate (“A tree has been planted in Israel in your name...”) was almost as ubiquitous a Bar/Bat Mitzvah gift as the fountain pen.

Yet this obsession with trees isn’t new. 

Trees have always featured in Jewish symbolism and theology.  Take for example the Tree of Knowledge (“… of good and evil.”) in the Garden of Eden.  There is also the Tree of Life… a common euphemism for the Torah (Eitz Haim He L’Machazikim Bah – “It is a Tree of Life for those who cling to it….”).

But in my opinion, there are few uses of the tree in Jewish symbolism more poignant than Jewish gravestones hewn in the shape of (or featuring the image of) a tree trunk with it’s branches cut off.  This expresses the very essence of ‘being cut down’ in the prime of life… of having one’s life truncated.

Those of you who’ve been reading me for a bit know that this line of thought is leading somewhere.  I may ramble… but I rarely do so without a destination in mind.

Every morning I drive to work through the south Hevron hills.  Many of my friends consider this a bit foolhardy considering the route takes me through many Arab villages and past areas where countless attacks have taken place. 

I don’t really have an answer for them other than to point out that even after having taken the same college-level statistics course a record three times before passing (with an abysmally low grade, I might add), I still know enough to recognize that I am no more likely to be involved in a terror attack than a shopper in a Natanya mall or someone sipping coffee in a Tel Aviv cafe.   

You see, statistically, terror attacks are as random as they are rare.  To say to oneself “I won’t go there (or there or there), and am therefore safe from attack” is a fool’s game which, if taken to it’s logical conclusion, ends with Israel as a nation of house-bound agoraphobes.  Many people who have made a study of terrorism as a tool believe that this is actually one of its primary goals.

Coming abruptly back to my original point… trees are sometimes used to mark the site of terror attacks, and there are several such monuments to terror victims along my commute. 

About a year and a half ago I wrote a post describing one of these monuments at the site of an ambush where several Israelis – most of them members of the same family – were gunned down just a few hours before Shabbat.  The picture I took was cropped, but near the stone marker is a small stand of trees planted by the survivors of the attack and lovingly tended by them throughout the year.

Just before Hanukkah last year an Israeli man… Yossi Shok, a husband and father of five children (ranging in age from one month to nine years old)… was driving home with two sisters (hitchhikers) along the same road I travel to work.  Terrorists in a passing car sprayed his vehicle with bullets fatally injuring him in front of his passengers.

When I heard about this tragedy, I knew that before long a monument to Yossi Shok would appear near the site of the shooting… and I didn’t have long to wait.  It is a large, rough-hewn block of Jerusalem stone surrounded by a small area of colored gravel sitting on the shoulder of the road where his car came to rest after the attack. 

And of course, a couple of trees were planted nearby as well. 

However, almost immediately the new saplings were uprooted… presumably by local villagers.  So the family had a couple of mature trees brought to the site and planted near the monument… and they set a schedule to come to water them and tend to the memorial.

Within a few weeks another act of vandalism had taken place at the memorial and both of the mature trees had been cut down to small stumps:

Stone_and_tree1

Notice the ground around the trunk shows signs of having been recently watered.  As I stopped to take these pictures the Arab women (who can be seen just to the right of the monument in the second photo) started pointing at me and screaming something over and over.  The Arabic word for ‘Jew’  (‘Yahud’) featured prominently in the chant:

Stone_and_tree3

As I stood there looking at this memorial a few thoughts crossed my mind.  First came the more obvious observation: ‘But for the grace of G-d (or luck, statistics, karma, etc.) that could easily have been my name on the stone’.

But then I began to look closely at the trees with their sawed branches drying in the mud nearby… and I realized that the Arab vandals had inadvertently evoked an even more powerful image for the memorial.  As I mentioned earlier, few things symbolize a life cut short more aptly than a tree trunk with it’s branches removed.

As I walked back to my car in the early morning chill, I had to smile just a bit thinking how Yossi Shok’s family and friends could have easily prevented these acts of vandalism had they only made clear to the Arabs the appropriateness of the result.

The irony is that in their ignorance and blind hatred of Jews, the Arabs who cut down these trees unwittingly created the perfect Jewish symbol of a truncated life.

Crossposted to treppenwitz

Tags: • Category: General 

Comments

3 Comments on Truncated: A fitting symbol

  1. David on Mon, Oct 9th 2006 11:56 PM

    2. The biggest mistake ever made by Israel following the Six Day War was not forcing every single Arab out of Yehudah and Shomron. We are paying the price.

  2. jack on Tue, Oct 10th 2006 3:25 AM

    3. ‘The Tree of Knowledge’ yet my english (Canadian) translations; ‘Tree of Wisdom’ subtle difference yet to my english translations connect to ‘Understanding & Wisdom’ references. My concepts of such a ‘Tree’ would have the same brain running through the center of the ‘Tree’ as we have inside our skulls. The part of this Unique Tree allows for longer life and if the Christian Book Of Revelation allows for ‘Substantial Imagination’. In the west coast of British Columbia Canada are majestic trees that if filled in their ‘Hearts’ with brain material allowed to live for thousand years or more could develope a lot of thought especially if such amazing life form communed with the Universal as our Hope resides. Research in DNA suggests a similarity of our DNA to that of trees. Amazing and comforting life form to have as neighbors especially out side our patios or inside our yards.
    jack O’Tolmie

  3. David Bogner on Tue, Oct 10th 2006 12:38 PM

    4. David… What you are suggesting is called ethnic cleansing. I happen to agree that it would have been a convenient solution, but an illegal one according to the international community. A population swap like the Indian/Pakistani model would have been preferable, but sadly we had no neighboring country willing to accept them.

    Jack… Thank you for that thoughtful insight into the language… I had never considered that. Cheers.

Leave a Comment





© 2012 ISRAELITY | Sitemap