SHVAT 5779 JANUARY 2019 ISRAEL EDITION RABBI HERSHEL SCHACHTER ט"ו בשבט שמח! on the special sanctity of Eretz Yisrael PAGE 6 RABBANIT SHANI Happy Tu BiShvat! TARAGIN pens a song of milk and honey PAGE 5 RABBI JONATHAN SACKS challenges us to look after our world PAGE 32 RABBANIT YEMIMA MIZRACHI with a crash course in Jewish eating with A Fruity Conundrum PAGE 39 ORDINARY HEROES RABBI YOSEF ZVI AN INSPIRING RIMON INTERVIEW on buying Israeli WITH THE fruits overseas PARENTS OF PAGE 10 ARI FULD PAGE 8 PHIL CHERNOFSKY with a fruity conundrum in memory of ז"ל PAGE 17 ari fuld lover and defender of israel • lynn & joel mael and family • Rabbi Andrew Shaw ARI FULD A TREE OF STRENGTH elcome to another edition When I saw the shocking footage of In Parashat Shoftim, the Torah ִּכי ָה ָאָדם :of HaMizrachi – this his death, I was horrified yet inspired. discusses the laws of warfare Is the tree of the field a“ – ֵעץ ַהָּׂשֶדה one to coincide with the A cowardly terrorist stabs a man in Wupcoming festival of Tu BiShvat. the back. The man is bleeding to man” – that it should enter the siege 1 death and the terrorist runs off with a before you According to Rashi, the It is also in memory of Ari Fuld zt”l, 30-inch knife ready to kill more Jews simple understanding is that we can whose murder in Israel shocked the in the mall. attack the enemy’s soldiers but a tree Jewish world just after Yom Kippur is not a soldier, so why should Jews Remarkably, the dying man gets up. this year. feel the need to deprive anyone of the He doesn’t think about himself. tree’s fruit? I knew Ari. He was in the year below He makes a choice. me in Yeshivat HaKotel. He was a The Maharal of Prague explains the remarkable human being, a fighter The decision to do something. Now. verse in terms of an actual comparison for Israel, a hero, defending us against To save others from his fate. of trees to people. Just as trees must our enemies across the internet world, grow branches, twigs, flowers and standing up for Israel on Facebook, You watch as he staggers to his feet, fruit to fulfill their purpose, so too are Twitter and inspiring thousands of runs, jumps over a wall, aims, fires, we put on this earth to be productive young Jews of all backgrounds. stops the terrorist and collapses, only and produce moral, intellectual to die later from his wounds. and spiritual ‘fruit’ – the results of Sadly, like many of the killings in authentic human growth. Israel, one tries to make sense of the Ari Fuld made bold choices in life, murder and you ask yourself why? dedicating his time and talents to Ari Fuld was a tree cut down in his Torah, Israel and the Jewish people. prime, but the fruits he produced in As Rav Soloveitchik tells us in his just 45 years are disproportionate to He made an even more courageous seminal Kol Dodi Dofek, you can his short life. Just read the interview choice in death. Saving others in the never answer the question Why did with his parents on page 8. this happen? We are not G-d. We do process. In the merit of hero Ari Fuld may not understand why these things All of his choices – including that last we have the strength to carry on happen, but the Rav stresses that there one – were geared towards goodness; is another question we can answer: towards making sure good triumphed his mission of Torah, of Religious What do I do now? over evil. To making sure that Jews Zionism, of defending Israel and all over the world knew about their actively loving the Land and the Ari was a What do I do now person. heritage, their people and their Land. people of Israel. And – as Ari would Always doing. Always helping. have wanted – may we build ourselves Always fighting for his beloved Israel, When you read through this magazine up individually and as a nation to his beloved Torah and his beloved you too will be reminded of the show ourselves and our enemies who Judaism. He was on the front lines. miracle of our return to Eretz Yisrael the Jewish people really are. For us. and the marvel of the rebirth of the Land itself, producing forests, vines, However, what I learn from him is flowers and fruits in celebration of its 1 Deuteronomy 20:19. this. And if you understand not just children returning home. how he lived, but how he died, you Rabbi Andrew Shaw is Chief Executive too can learn a tremendous lesson. Ari Fuld was one of those children. of Mizrachi UK [email protected] 2 Torat HaMizrachi Rabbi Doron Perez TWAIN, LOWDERMILK, AND THE LOYAL, LOVING LAND he story of the regeneration less and less like Transjordan, Syria destroyed and desolate, until her of the Land of Israel – its soil and Iraq and more like Denmark, fledglings return.” and shrubs, plants and trees, Holland and part of the United 2 There is a reciprocal relationship Tflora and fruits, is one of the greatest States.” stories of human accomplishment. An between the Jewish people and the ecological marvel. Lowdermilk was so impacted that he Land; an inexplicable love affair and his wife settled in Israel in the between a people and a place, Indeed, two great American gentiles 1950s, contributed to the building of unparalleled in the annals of human attest to that very fact – Mark Twain Israel’s national water carrier, and a history. Just as the Jewish people have and Walter Clay Lowdermilk, a soil Technion department is named after never forgotten the Land, so the Land conservation expert. In 1867, 11 years him. A true lover of Zion. has never abandoned its children. It before the first modern agricultural remained loyal, never allowing others settlement in Palestine, Twain visited What would Lowdermilk say today? to cultivate her soil. the Land and was deeply shaken by the Israel has done the seemingly great desolation: impossible – transforming a water- Tu BiShvat is the time to celebrate scarce country into an abundant oasis that ongoing miracle. “There was hardly a tree or shrub through cloud seeding, desalination, anywhere. Even the olive and the I conclude with more Lowdermilk drip irrigation and water recycling; cactus, those fast friends of worthless wisdom: “If we were interested in converting the once-barren soil into soil, had almost deserted the country. the regeneration of man, let all the a lush fruit-yielding area despite No landscape that exists that is righteous forces on earth support the arid climate; changing a treeless more tiresome to the eye than that these settlements in Palestine country into forest-full landscapes by which bounds the approaches to as a wholesome example for the 1 planting over 250 million trees over Jerusalem…” backward Near East, and indeed for the last 120 years… all who seek to work out a permanent 5 About 70 years later, in 1939, adjustment of people to their lands.” Lowdermilk arrived in Palestine How can we explain this phenomenal searching for soil and climates similar transformation? The answer evidently to the California Dust Bowl he was lies less in the rational, physical 1 Innocents Abroad, Mark Twain, 1868. realm, and more in the mystical and aiming to develop. Nothing prepared 2 The Promised Land, Lowdermilk, 1944. metaphysical. The Torah repeatedly him for what he saw. A miracle 3 Genesis 17:8, as part of the covenant of refers to the promise of the Land as wrought by the Jewish pioneers 3 Brit Mila (circumcision): “I will give to you, of Palestine who had little or no “an everlasting possession.” How can and to your seed after you, the land of your background in agriculture: it be everlasting if we have spent so sojournings, all the Land of Canaan for an many long centuries outside it? everlasting possession and I will be your “Streams across the coastal plain G-d.” 4 would choke with erosional debris Rabbeinu Bechayei, on that verse, 4 Bahya ben Asher ibn Halawa, 1255-1340. from the hills to form pestilential answers: “This is great sign for Israel 5 See Footnote 1. marshes infested with dreaded that from the day they were exiled malaria... this state of decadence is not from it, no other nation has been able Rabbi Doron Perez is Head of the normal... rural Palestine is becoming to inhabit and settle it, but it remains Mizrachi World Movement HaMizrachi seeks to spread Torat Eretz Yisrael throughout the world. HaMizrachi also contains articles, opinion pieces and advertisements that 54 King George Street Chairman represent the diversity Editor-in-Chief Production & Advertising Manager Jerusalem Mr. Harvey Blitz of views and interests in Daniel Verbov Meyer Sterman our communities. These [email protected] [email protected] 02 620 9000 do not necessarily reflect Chief Executive Rabbi Doron Perez any official position of Creative Director Design www.mizrachi.org Mizrachi or its branches. Jonny Lipczer Hadas Peretz Follow us c d f l Mizrachi Educators Rabbi Reuven Taragin Rabbanit Shani Taragin Celebrating A FRUITFUL RETURN t first glance, Tu BiShvat, In the Al HaMichya blessing we say Indeed, the Yerushalmi asserts that the new year for trees and after eating grain products or one of anyone who settles in Israel, speaks 1 fruit, seems to be of merely Israel’s seven species, we ask G-d to Hebrew, eats Israel’s fruit in a state of technicalA significance; the calendar return us to the Land where we will purity, and recites the Shema twice marker pertaining to fruit-oriented be able to eat its fruit and be satiated daily is guaranteed a place in Olam 2 14 yearly mitzvot.