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January 2001 Issue

Two For Tubee

By Ted Roberts

WHAT'S FEBRUARY WITHOUT TU B'SHEVAT!

Tu B'Shevat, Tu B'Shevat
You ain't in the Humash
Or the Tanach
But I like you a lot
Tu B'Shevat, Tu B'Shevat.

February is not a Jewish month. The only thing Jewish about February is maybe Tu B'Shevat--a minor league event compared to say--Awesome Yom Kippur. Tu B'Shevat is a holiday like an onion slice is an entree at your shabbus supper.

I don't even know how Tubee (as my good friend, Herb, calls it) made holiday status.

The other day after services I asked my Rabbi. "Rabbi," I said, "why do we observe Tu B'Shevat?" "We do?" he declared.

"Sure, Rabbi, Tu B'Shevat is early February, you know."

"Oh yeah," he said. "Uh, Tubee what? How do you spell it?"

Our difficulty proved to be a simple communication problem. I was working on a large mouthful of lox and bagel and he simply couldn't understand me. That's what he said.

Once I described it with a mouth dedicated to speech and cleared of lox and bagel he knew all about it. It's the fifteenth day of Shevat and it's sort of a celebration of trees. A New Year celebration for trees, as it's described in the Jewish encyclopedia.

And even though it doesn't rank up there with Rosh Hashanah or Chanukah or even your nephew, Danny's, bar mitzvah, I'm sort of fond of Tu B'Shevat. There's not a lot of rules--there's not even the obligatory food item.

It's a mix and match holiday. You like bean and barley soup? Have a bowl for breakfast on the morning of Tubee. You like to dip a nice slice of buttered rye in your soup? Fine. Anything goes on Tubee.

Ceremonially, tree planting is the traditional thing to do. The kids love it. In fact, you can begin your Tubee ceremony in October by collecting acorns.

"Why are we putting acorns in that bag?" says little Ezra.

"I'm getting ready for Tu B'Shevat."

Here, Ezra does a great imitation of my rabbi. "Tubee what?"

This is your cue to give him the standard explanation, plus a treatise on the wonders of the Creator's universe--how a 5-gram acorn will turn into a 50-ton Oak with the blessings of rain and earth and time.

Then tell him you're gathering these seeds to plant on the big day in February. And when February 23rd rolls around, you and Ezra, armed with a hand digger, find a sunny spot in the back yard and plant your acorns.

Remember that nature extravagantly provides the mama Salmon with 100,000 eggs so she'll have five or six kids to gladden her old age. Its the same with oak trees. So, plant a bunch of acorns. Maybe two or three will sprout in Spring.

If you've properly educated Ezra, he'll sit by the den window and watch for the seedlings like poverty-stricken writers wait for the mailman--with the check from the New Yorker.

Then one day in Spring, when you least expect it, a few green shoots will come up to tentatively explore their new world. Go get Ezra. I promise you his eyes will pop wider than the time you uncrated his new video game.

After a little watering and weeding, you and him go and have a bowl of bean and barley soup. It's all a part of Tu B'Shevat. Anything goes.

TU B'SHEVAT

Tu B'Shevat, Tu B'Shevat,
follows costly Chanukah.
How nice no gifts are necessary
for Betty or Veronica.

My lovely daughter--ex Tasmanian Devil, but now the apple of her father's eye--is all grown up. She lives in a fancy schmancy house of her own instead of the corner bedroom, upstairs.

Daughters have three incarnations: lovable little girls, adolescent Jezebels, and lovely ladies who honor their father (and mama, too).

Naturally, like her semi-pious father, my ex Tasmanian Devil loves all the Jewish holidays. Especially Tu B'Shevat.

"Why Tu B'Shevat?" I question. "I mean, it's nice to honor trees, but--"

She interrupts.

"No gifts," she shouts. "And no cooking. A nice relaxing holiday."

Well, I like Tu B'Shevat, too--because I like trees. Just the other day I'm driving down the street thinking about the wide range of community service options open to a public spirited geezer like me. I'm sorta daydreaming about maybe volunteering to serve as mayor for a week: free coffee, lotsa speeches, plenty of meetings with free doughnuts. Oops, suddenly reality returns. Hey, here's a red light. Better stop. AND THEN I SEE IT.

On my left is a tree. A primeval tree that Stephen Spielberg would have filled the earth with, had the Lord licensed him that first week of creation. A tree that had to come out of Jurassic Park. Brawny trunk, big limbs plastered with huge green leaves. And lighted like a candelabra with big, showy clusters of white blossoms.

My brain, still lingering in the Mayor's office, wordlessly stated, "I gotta have that tree."

So, as the four cylinders of my 12 year-old Honda hummed at the stop sign, so did my brain, seeking the best strategy to approach the homeowner.

I mean, I could't buy it or rent it, this immobile green skyscraper. Waitaminute, I thought. I could photograph it, like we capture the rare, quadruple-horned rhinoceros on film, instead of taking its life, ripping it out of its natural habitat and shipping its big gray head 8000 miles to clash with your cerulean blue den wall.

Then I reflected. Nah. Not good enough. A 3x5 glossy won't shade the house or tantalize your nose with those honeyed blossoms. And you can't hang a swing from a photo. I needed the real thing.

So, I just traipsed up to the door and knocked gently. A kindly man with a low voice--the kind of man central casting would pick for a forest ranger, answered. I explained to the ranger that I admired his magnificent tree. My name, I told him, was Ted Roberts.

"What's his name?" I pointed to the leafy castle. It was, he announced with pride, a Catalpa Tree.

"Come on," he said, "we'll find you a seedling."

His response was in the best Old Testament tradition of befriending the stranger. I couldn't believe it. The best I had dared hope for was some seeds or blossoms; whatever falls off the tree and does the three-decade long cloning miracle that populates the world with trees. My benefactor, by now, was scrambling around the yard looking for Catalpa juniors.

What a nice man, I thought. A modern Johnny Appleseed right here in Huntsville, Alabama. And he had great eyesight, too--probably bestowed upon him by the creator ofmen and Catalpa Trees as a reward for his generous nature.

This good Samaritan peeking under bushes and among flowering petunias detected infant Catalpas that I only saw as sturdy weeds. I ran home like a kid at the beach to get my little shovel and pail. Quickly, with my benefactor assisting, I scooped up five miniatures.

So, now, five Catalpa seedlings sit on my patio expectantly in green, plastic pots--almost humming with energy--waiting to deflect the rain, temper the sun, and with those showy blossoms announce Spring to the neighborhood.

And next month I'm taking one to my kid in Memphis. I like to plant stuff in his back yard. He's too busy nourishing his family to wonder at the trees outside his den window. But one day many years hence he'll look up from his desk, take a deep breath, and say, "Hey, what the heck is that Green Giant doing in my yard? Oh yeah, Pop did it back in 2001."

Ted is a syndicated Jewish Humorist whose work appears frequently in the Jewish Press as well as the Wall St Journal, Readers Digest, and Disney mag. He lives serenely in Huntsville, AL. with his tolerant wife who loves his stories (says Ted).

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