Papal Visit Purim Millennium Snow in Jer. Traveling abroad this week spared me the tyranny of small differences - the need to find some subtle distinction from the rest of the punditry busy reading the entrails of this week's election. Fortuitously for me, and perhaps for readers spared yet one more election commentary, this was not just election week. Tu Bishvat provides an opportunity to examine our Sages' understanding of the general purpose of life.
Fruits are man's soul food.
In the original plan of Creation, fruit was to be the exclusive food for mankind. Every time a person eats of the fruit tree, says the Vilna Gaon, he absorbs a power that lies in the potential within the fruit and is capable of being realized by man. The Torah specifically tells us that there is a connection between man and a fruit tree, and it is this connection that makes fruits uniquely suited to sustain man. The Creator imbued man with the power to himself be a creator, to be a partner with God in creation, and it is that power of creativity which is represented by the fruit tree. Fruits bear a relation to the tree that produces them which is different from everything else produced by living plants or animals.