From the Sources by Eliezer Segal: We Are the Tree (?)

By Eliezer Segal

(AJNews) – In discussions about Jewish attitudes toward nature, the most widely quoted biblical text is probably a passage in Deuteronomy that sets guidelines for the treatment of trees when laying siege to an enemy town.

The Torah teaches there that although it is permissible to eat fruits from those trees, it is forbidden to cut them down. This restriction applies only to fruit trees. As for those that do not bear fruit, the Torah voices no objection to felling them to erect fortifications. Some commentators mention additional valid grounds for destroying trees, such as to prevent the enemy from acquiring lumber or using groves as hiding places.

As the rationale for the prohibition against harming fruit-trees, the Torah offers an enigmatic statement, standardly translated as “Is the tree of the field a man, to go into the siege before you?” That is to say, the text is read as a rhetorical question, rejecting any equation of humans and trees or their produce.

This approach was favoured by Rashi, who understood it in the sense of: “Is a tree of the field really comparable to a human, so that it might be classified as an inhabitant of the besieged town whom you are driving inside the town to share the tribulations of hunger and thirst with the townspeople?”

The vagaries of Hebrew grammar allow for an alternative interpretation of the scriptural text—reading it as a declarative sentence that comes to equate humans and trees. Thus, the ancient midrash Sifré explained it as a positive assertion that we should refrain from damaging the tree “because human life stems from the tree.” It is out of respect for our dependence on botanical sustenance that the Torah urges us to refrain from destroying trees even in wartime when such considerations are often neglected.

This interpretation was favoured by Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra. He was convinced that employing rhetorical sentences to express negation is not a feature of Hebrew grammar precisely because it lends itself to misunderstandings; it would have been more straightforward to simply formulate the idea with the negative particle: “for the tree of the field is not a man.” There is no need for scripture to state the obvious fact that trees should not be confused with human enemies who are trying to flee from our forces. At any rate, the restriction is not an absolute one, as evidenced by the fact that it allows exceptions when utilizing wood from non-fruit trees for essential military purposes.

Nahmanides favoured Ibn Ezra’s explanation, from which he inferred that we must hold back entirely from the  gratuitous destruction of trees in recognition of our reliance on them for sustaining human life. Despoiling fruit-trees is never permitted, and exceptions are allowed only for those that do not bear edible fruit.

Nahmanides realized that his understanding differed from the approach of the talmudic sages. They had ruled that even fruit-trees may be destroyed for strategic purposes, and what the Torah is  telling us is only that we should not resort to that option as long as non-fruit trees are available.

Based on this Torah passage, Rabbi Bahya ben Asher derived a broad appreciation of the Jewish perspective on nature, observing that “it is not the way of a wise and understanding nation to needlessly destroy such a valuable resource. Therefore you should not labour to cut down a tree of the field; rather you should protect it from destruction and damage, and derive benefits from it.” When scripture states “for you may eat from them,” it means that such destruction would be counterproductive, depriving us of their precious benefits.

The nineteenth-century Italian scholar S. D. Luzzatto cited several Jewish and non-Jewish commentators who explained the prohibition in terms of expediency, since our besieging soldiers might require the fruit either during the campaign or after successfully occupying the town. Luzzatto himself dismissed such pragmatic calculations, arguing that it is not the Torah’s purpose to advise people about obvious matters of self-interest. Quite the contrary, it comes to instruct us in ethical values. It encourages altruism by urging us to forgo our immediate gratification in order to cultivate compassion and stave off tendencies to cruelty. Furthermore, by forbidding needless destruction of trees whose fruits we have enjoyed, even after their usefulness has expired, it is instilling a valuable lesson about gratitude in our interpersonal relationships.

Israeli popular music produced a thoughtful exposition of our biblical text in a 1983 composition by poet Natan Zach that achieved success in a musical arrangement by Shalom Hanoch. Zach read the Torah’s wording as a declarative sentence, and pondered how apparent similarities between the human and botanic spheres can also reveal crucial contrasts: Yes, like trees we are subject to growth and upward striving; both species thirst for water and are vulnerable to axes and fires. Yet the same earth that nurtures the tree’s life is allotted for burial of humans.

The song concludes enigmatically: “And I don’t know where I’ve been and where I’ll be, like the tree of the field.”

Two thousand years ago, Philo of Alexandria interpreted the Torah’s classification of trees as an allegory about moral education and the ideal curriculum for training souls. In keeping with his general pedagogical theory, Philo explained that science is being symbolized as a field of trees and plants, with moral virtues as their fruits. Logical reasoning and theoretical disciplines, although they may not provide tangible benefits, are likened to a hedge or bulwark surrounding a field, which protects the essential fruits of rational education from the forces of ignorance that threaten to destroy them. In this way, the study of logical thinking offers protection to moral virtues and science by safeguarding them against specious and deceptive arguments.

Philo’s intellectual ideals are exemplified by the generations of scholarly debate about the meaning of the difficult biblical text. His allegorical interpretation might contain useful lessons for withstanding the present-day assaults against truth and reason.