B"H

THOUGHTS FOR TU B'SHEVAT

Dear Friends:

Tu B'Shevat, the fifteenth day of the month of Shevat, is a day of tremendous significance.  It is not only one of the four "Rosh Hashanas" of the year, but it represents the end of winter, the beginning of the season of Redemption: Purim, Pesach.

This year Tu B'Shevat falls on Shabbos, Parshas Beshalach.  It is no accident, because the theme of Tu B'Shevat is intimately intertwined with the theme of Parshas Beshalach.  Beshalach is the Parsha of Redemption, the portion in which we sing of our liberation from slavery in Egypt.  But it is even more than that.  Parshas Beshalach contains the hint in the Torah of the existence of Techias ha Maisim, the Resurrection of the Dead.  And what is the Season of Spring if not the resurrection of the natural world from the "death" of winter?  This is the theme of our spring holidays, and we awaken to our redemption at the same time as nature is awakening to its redemption.

To illustrate the greatness of this day, I want to tell you a story I heard from a speech made by Rabbi Matisyahu Salomon, Mashgiach of Bais Medrash Govoha in Lakewood, New Jersey. 

After World War II a bedraggled group of survivors of the Nazi Holocaust, made it to the shores of the Holy Land.  They had lost everyone and everything to Hitler's genocide and they arrived in Israel with no possessions, no strength and no hope.  The ship docked in Tel Aviv and their first desire was to find a great rabbi who could infuse them with some hope and strength to rise from the depths of despair and start anew.  They heard that at that time the Belzer Rebbe was in Tel Aviv, himself a survivor of the Inferno who had lost his own family.  They ran to seek a blessing from the Rebbe. 

This is what the Belzer Rebbe said: 

Where do we find in the Torah the reference to the Resurrection of the Dead?  How do we know there is such a thing as what we call "T'chias Ha Maisim"?  We learn it from Parshas Beshalach, because it says "Az yashir Moshe...." [1] which means "Moshe and the Children of Israel WILL sing this song...."

Why "WILL sing"?  Moshe and the Children of Israel DID sing the song by the Red Sea.  Why does the Torah use the word "WILL sing" when the apparent meaning is "DID sing"?

Rashi tells us that "from here is an allusion to the Resurrection of the Dead," in that in the distant future, with the Final Redemption, the Children of Israel WILL once again sing a song of thanksgiving to G-d at our Final Redemption from Exile at the End of History. 

But why, the Belzer Rebbe asked, is the allusion to the Resurrection of the Dead here, of all places in the Torah?  It could have been anywhere.  Why here?

Because at this moment the Ten Plagues of Egypt had just ended.  The Ninth Plague was darkness, and we know that during that plague of darkness four-fifths of the Children of Israel had perished! [2] In other words, every Israelite who stood at the Red Sea was in mourning; every person had lost someone close, a husband, a wife, a father, a mother, a sister, a brother, a child, a cousin or friend.  Every single person in Israel was in a state of mourning.  And yet, this entire nation, numbering over a million people, was now at the shores of the Red Sea singing Shira to G-d, which our rabbis tell us is the highest level of happiness!  How is it possible that an entire nation in mourning can ascend instantaneously from the lowest level of sorrow to the very highest level of happiness?  How is it possible? 

Only because they have discovered that there is such a thing as the Resurrection of the Dead!  To a Jew who clings to Torah and to the Eternal G-d, death has been conquered.  We are a nation beyond death, beyond nature, beyond the power of the Angel of Death!  If we know that, then death has no power over us.

That is why the knowledge of the Resurrection of the Dead had to be imparted to the Children of Israel at that exact moment, so that we could arise from despair and sing Shira to G-d at the parting of the Red Sea and our Redemption from slavery in Egypt.

When the Belzer Rebbe spoke these words, he gave this bedraggled group of Jews the strength to begin their new life in the Holy Land.

These are the lessons of Parshas Beshalach and of Tu B'Shevat.  The winter is over.  Spring is coming, with its new growth and its hope for Purim, Pesach, Shavuos and the Eternal Redemption of the Jewish People.  No matter how deep the winter and no matter how dark the apparent darkness of the world scene, we know that soon, with G-d's help, we WILL SING a new song of Redemption on the day of our Final Redemption from Exile, may we see it soon in our days with the coming of Moshiach ben Dovid.

Roy S. Neuberger