by Rabbi Katy Z. Allen
Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu v’elohei avoteinu, elohei Avraham....
Blessed are You, Lord our God, God of our ancestors, God of Abraham....
My teacher, Rabbi
Shohama Weiner, instructed the class: “As you meditate
on this prayer, focus on one of your ancestors, either familial or Biblical. Then wait and listen; you may receive a message from him or her.”
I focused on my father,
at that time already gone for 27 years, who had been on my mind much of
late. Thoughts of him filled my mind, and then,
suddenly, powerfully, I felt a message
coming from him, “Plant peach trees.”
Peach trees. Not a
tree; trees.
Later, I told my teacher about it. “Perhaps they are
figurative trees,” she suggested.
But I knew my father.
He was a gardener—he’d planted a vineyard and a whole orchard of fruit
trees on our rural home in southwestern Wisconsin. No, I knew, these were real trees.
It was November, and not
tree-planting time, but the next month,
I—far from the gardener my father had been—searched the Internet until I found a nursery that felt comfortable to me, and I ordered two dwarf peach trees, one Alberta and one Red
Haven.
It was a long, snowy
winter, but spring
and my two little peach trees finally
arrived. I planted
them at the edge of the
small meadow that rimmed our back yard. I put a concrete
block near the two trees for a seat and in that spot I felt my father’s
presence and I felt peace. All spring my
father hovered in that space, and I often sat beside the trees to recite Mincha,
the afternoon prayers.
When I told my mother
about the fruit trees, she gave me a Chinese painting of peaches done by our
long-time family friend and neighbor, Karl Lee. She also told me a story I
didn't remember. When we had lived in Madison, my parents had a whole extra lot
so that my father could have a large vegetable garden, and on that lot he had
planted several fruit trees—including a peach tree, its origins lost now to
memory, that had borne extra-delicious, sweet and juicy peaches. When my parents
decided to move to the country, my
father saved pits from the
peaches of that tree. It was the only peach tree around,
so, as my mother explained, it must have been self-pollinating and true-breeding. My father
gave the pits cold treatment and then planted them in the greenhouse at the University, where he was on the faculty of the Botany Department. Once the trees became large enough, my father and Karl poured over garden catalogs,
searching for the hardiest
peach trees they could find, peach
trees that would survive the harsh Wisconsin winters. They ordered the trees, and planted them. Once these
commercial trees were well established, the two friends
grafted branches that grew from the seeds of the tree in
our yard onto the hardy trees they had ordered.
I began to try to connect
my experience with peaches
to Jewish texts and tradition. I searched
and searched for something
about afarsakim—peaches—that touched me, but in vain.
Nothing spoke to me. I began
to despair.
But as time went by, I began to think I was asking the wrong question. Maybe this wasn’t a story about peaches.
Maybe this was a story about friendship.
I thought about my father.
He was raised in poverty
on a New England farm, the only one of six siblings to get a college
education; he
became a college professor and
lived in an entirely different
world than the rest of his family. His friend, Karl Lee, was born in China,
became a leading member of the Third Party, and was forced to flee his native country after the revolution;
he lived the remainder of his life in a foreign
country. Both men loved the land. Karl, with his gardens, his chicken
hutches, and his falcon pens, recreated a tiny corner of China on the Wisconsin landscape. I pictured
the two of them, hunching over
garden catalogs, grafting and planting
peach trees, pruning the trees, and eventually harvesting plump tawny
fruit. The earth brought
them together, these two displaced persons, and nourished them. Friendship grew even as the trees grew.
This wasn’t about peach trees.
It was about friendship. Friendship and healing, nourished by trees.
Etz chayim hei l’makazikim ba. It [the Torah] is
a tree of life to those who
hold fast to it.
Friendship. It flows now between my mother and I. But I was only 25 when my father died—too young for mature friendship. The message was to plant trees—one is not enough;
two are needed for friendship.
My mentor, Sheila Goldberg,
reminded me of the story of Honi. Honi, as an old man, planted a carob tree, not for
himself, but for future generations.
My father grew trees and friendship
with Karl Lee.
Now, I, too, have
trees, and through them,
I, too, have grown a friendship, with my father. The trees and the friendship are
for me, but the fruits will only be
fully appreciated in the next generation, for only by becoming friends with my father will I be able to be friends
with my sons.
After many months, I received a translation of the Chinese
words on Karl’s painting: "Paul, older
brother, is deceased. Younger brother
Ya and my wife Lan Sun, daughter
Shi Ling , grandson
Li Ming, granddaughter Li
Ling, all together mourn.
November, 1976.”
November 1976: that was when my father died. My father was the younger of the two men. I assumed
that Karl meant his words as a
sign of honor to my father.
I called my mother.
She told me that Karl had painted
this picture when my father died. At the memorial
service, Karl’s painting
stood in full view for
all to see as they entered.
I was right. The
peaches were about friendship.
The next spring, I discovered that one of my peach trees had not survived. The
cold winter that year had killed it.
But
it was only the peach tree that died. I was fine. When the spring garden catalog arrived, I discovered a peach tree bred in New Hampshire—surely it would be hardy enough to survive in Massachusetts. I quickly ordered the tree and planted it, and in doing so I learned that the peach trees had done their work. My heart and my soul
were in a different place.
My father and I were friends
at last.
Today is Day 40, which is five weeks and five days of the Omer.
Today is Day 40, which is five weeks and five days of the journey from bondage to revelation.
"Peach Trees" is Excerpted from Loss and Transformation: One Woman's Journey Out of Grief to Opportunity, by Rabbi Katy Z. Allen, © Katy Z. Allen, 2015.
Rabbi Katy Allen is a board certified chaplain and serves as a Nature Chaplain and the Facilitator of One Earth Collaborative, a program of Open Spirit. She is the founder and rabbi of Ma'yan Tikvah - A Wellspring of Hope, which holds services outdoors all year long. She is a co-convener and coordinator of the Boston-based Jewish Climate Action Network.
