Forever in the Garden of Eden

Everything has an appointed season, and there is a time for every matter under the heaven. A time to give birth and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to uproot that which is planted. (Kohelet 3:1-2) 

“This is another proof of Hashem.” My wife points at the almond tree.  

“You can put ten almond seeds in the ground. You can plant a hundred or a thousand. You can use all the best types of plant food or fertilizer, or you can let Hashem rain down on the plants when He sees fit.” 

“Of all the days of the year, for two weeks at the end of winter, they all show their light pink flowery leaves together. Does one tree tell another to start? Does it matter if these trees to the left were planted in March while the ones to the right started emerging from the earth in September? They all bud their fruit at the same time.” 

“That’s how you know all of creation is guided by its One Creator.” 

Are We Like the Plants 

For all of us, our life runs in cycles.  

There is a time when we are up. We have money. We have assets. We have work. Then, it goes down. We lose a job or our business goes dry for a while. For a spell, we struggle. After that spell, things perk up and we start rising all over again.  

Are we like these plants?  

We are enjoying a good run at a successful job. We buy a car for our family. Everyone is dressed in nice clothes. Each Shabbat, we purchase the finest wine and the choicest meat.  

That’s the harvest.  

It’s when our trees are bearing abundant fruit. We take as much as we can while it’s on the branches.  

Then, things change. The harvest is finished. There is no more fruit to be taken. The business stops producing income. The job is no longer there.  

This is the sowing stage. It’s where we plant new seeds or when the tree lies barren.  

What do we do? We take the time to improve. We take the opportunity to investigate our lives and find out where we are deficient in serving Hashem.  

We pray with the minyan. We increase our Torah learning. We are more careful with how we use our bodies. We focus on the words we use to express ourselves.  

We also learn new professional skills. We improve the ones we have. We look for new opportunities.  

Our situation is still buried in the dirt. It’s like a bare tree, waiting for the rains to come. We keep at it, waiting for it all to bear fruit.  

Then, we get a new job. We find a new client. Things get “back to normal,” as we start to see our seeds penetrate the ground. Our trees are producing again.  

Harvest season has come.  

The time we spent tilling the ground, planting the seeds, and fertilizing the earth receives Hashem’s blessing.  

What Makes us Different 

If we go through the same cycle as the plants, what makes us different? 

The blessing of emunah (faith).

Every plant knows its season.  

They know when they will emerge from the earth. They know when they will give off fruit for the first time. They know, each year, when they will reproduce their bounty for all to enjoy.  

If Hashem blesses the world with rain during wintertime, an almond tree knows its petals will emerge in winter, and its almonds in the summer. 

Like the plants, Hashem guarantees we will have fruit. Unlike the plants, Hashem doesn’t tell us when.  

That’s the blessing.  

We don’t know when we will be planted. We don’t know when the seed of our next mission will break free from the earth and emerge. We don’t know when we will bear fruit, nor for how long.  

We don’t know when we will stop bearing fruit and it’s time to start again with a new seed for a new season. 

For some, the seasons comes quickly. For others, every season is much longer. For all of us, the physical turning of winter into spring and of summer into autumn has no bearing on how the internal seasons that Hashem assigns each of us independently will change.  

The only guarantee is that they will change. King Solomon tells us this too shall pass. 

That’s the faith.  

Every day that we lack something is merely a time when we are a small seed struggling to burst beyond the surface. Every time we see others having more is a reminder that our season is still the winter and we have to keep pushing until Hashem blesses our life with springtime.  

This is a fundamental of faith:  

• At every point in our lives, we are living in a certain season.  
• That season will inevitably give way to the next season.  
• The season that we’re in is necessary for us to do something to be ready for the next season.  

When we understand this, we can see clearly how: 

• Everything in life is good.  
• Everything comes from Hashem.  
• Everything is for our benefit.  

Especially if we live our entire lifetime sowing. 

We know, with absolute certainty, that our great harvest will not be in this transient and seasonal world. 

It will be forever in the Garden of Eden.  

*** 

David Ben Horin lives in Afula with his family, millions of sunflowers, and Matilda, our local camel. David‘s Israeli startup, Center Stage Marketing, is a lean marketing agency for startups and small businesses that creates and promotes SEO optimized ROI-driven to the right audience on LinkedIn to make your business the star of the show.