Trees Rerooted, Dry Bones Revived and the Elephant in the Room

A plant’s root can become a stem,
and vice versa.
Though a human being’s terminus ad quem
is not his precursor,

his roots enable him to be at first
a sturdy branch,
and then the many stems that burst,
an avalanche

beneath which lie like slopes the years
it took to grow
the stems from hidden pioneers,
the roots below.

Though most humans do bear fruit,
they surely can’t
transform their stems into a root,
unlike a plant,

though possibly a mammoth may
become transplanted,
and in a neologistic way
re-elephanted.

Like hostages who’ve not survived,
Like bones once dry
we’ll be, as prophesied, revived,
rerooted, but won’t die,

and thanks to new routes we are taking,
will rebirth Israel,
uncompromised, not by mistaking
surrender-as-victory, and thus fail.

Jews, whom nations vilely doom
in the post-October 7 era,
are elephants in earth’s huge room,
who wish the world were fairer,

as God was to the Pharaoh whose
lust for Jews’ death wasn’t pardoned,
drowned in the Sea, unlike the Jews,
since his heart to the Jews had hardened.

A midrash though quite strangely claims
God saved him from this fate:
he lives on in holocaustic aims,
presaging Hamas’ hate.

In “Scientists Create Elephant Stem Cells in the Lab: The results could shed light on why the animals rarely get cancer. But the researchers’ ultimate goal of bringing back woolly mammoths is still aspirational,” NYT Science Times, 3/12/24, Carl Zimmer describes how, with the help of scientists like Eriona Hysollli at Harvad University, iPSCs (presomitic mesoderm cells) may enable the production of mammoths by transforming mature elephant cells into stem cells:…..

Eriona Hysolli, the head of biological sciences at Colossal, said that the cells could help protect living elephants. For example, researchers could create an abundant supply of elephant eggs for breeding programs. “Being able to derive a lot of them in a dish is important,” she said…….

In “Parashah and Politics Shoftim, September 7, 2024, Tikvah, Meir Soloveichik discusses Deut. 20:19-20:

כִּֽי־תָצ֣וּר אֶל־עִיר֩ יָמִ֨ים רַבִּ֜ים לְֽהִלָּחֵ֧ם עָלֶ֣יהָ לְתׇפְשָׂ֗הּ לֹֽא־תַשְׁחִ֤ית אֶת־עֵצָהּ֙ לִנְדֹּ֤חַ עָלָיו֙ גַּרְזֶ֔ן כִּ֚י מִמֶּ֣נּוּ תֹאכֵ֔ל וְאֹת֖וֹ לֹ֣א תִכְרֹ֑ת כִּ֤י הָֽאָדָם֙ עֵ֣ץ הַשָּׂדֶ֔ה לָבֹ֥א מִפָּנֶ֖יךָ בַּמָּצֽוֹר׃

When in your war against a city you have to besiege it a long time in order to capture it, you must not destroy its trees, wielding the ax against them. You may eat of them, but you must not cut them down. Are trees of the field human to withdraw before you into the besieged city?

רַ֞ק עֵ֣ץ אֲשֶׁר־תֵּדַ֗ע כִּֽי־לֹא־עֵ֤ץ מַאֲכָל֙ ה֔וּא אֹת֥וֹ תַשְׁחִ֖ית וְכָרָ֑תָּ וּבָנִ֣יתָ מָצ֗וֹר עַל־הָעִיר֙ אֲשֶׁר־הִ֨וא עֹשָׂ֧ה עִמְּךָ֛ מִלְחָמָ֖ה עַ֥ד רִדְתָּֽהּ׃ {פ}

Only trees that you know do not yield food may be destroyed; you may cut them down for constructing siegeworks against the city that is waging war on you, until it has been reduced.

Discussing Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik’s explanation of the prohibition of destroying  fruit trees  during the course of warfare, Rabbi Meir Soloveichik, his nephew, writes:

We are presented with an ambiguous verse, with the Torah not making clear what it means. …. Either man is nothing like a tree, or man is exactly like one……  On the one hand, a human being is nothing like a tree, for human beings are mobile and possess the urge to explore.

Man is cosmic through his mobility. Man is a mobile being. He can easily detach himself from native surroundings and adapt himself to new environs. His adaptability to new conditions transcends that of the plant and the animal. The verse in Deuteronomy . . . contains a rhetorical question: “Is man like the tree of the field?” Is the tree as mobile as man? Certainly not! Man’s greatness and distinctiveness find expression in his ceaseless mobility. The tree is inseparable from the soil. Man can, and does, move away from home.

And yet, Rabbi Soloveitchik argues, we are also very much like trees: rooted to our origins, to our families, to places that give us meaning. The urge to explore notwithstanding, the formation of bonds, of roots, is essential to a flourishing life, and this too is built into our own nature. As he put it:

Man may roam along the charted and uncharted lanes of the universe, he may reach for the skies. Yet the traveler, the adventurer out to conquer infinity, will surely return home….  …. “Home is the sailor, home from the sea, and the hunter home from the hill”: these beautiful lines by Robert Louis Stevenson contain more than a nostalgic note.

For this aspect of humankind, there is a rootedness to our nature, and from this perspective, the verse seeks not to contrast human beings to fruit trees, but rather to compare them. Rabbi Soloveitchik adds:

Man is indeed like the tree in the field. In this context, the verse should be interpreted as an affirmative statement, not a rhetorical question. Man is indeed a rooted being, attached and committed to a homestead—no matter how far he may have traveled.