Standing on the Roots of Those Who Came Before Us
Even though they’re dead, they are not gone — they continue to find a way to help others out postmortem. These fallen giants provide “generational facilitation” in the afterlife, they continue to offer safety, nurture, love and protection from outside unhealthy influences, thus nurturing and making way for the new generation.
You must think I'm getting sentimental as we enter into the month of Elul and a time of introspection before the start of the New Year. Well you aren't wrong but you aren't completely correct either.
I'm actually talking first about Nurse Logs. These fascinating trees that my family and I were fortunate to observe on a recent family trip.
Here is a ChatGPT abbreviated version: A fallen tree becomes a nurse log, slowly decomposing into a sponge-like bed rich in moisture and nutrients that provides the perfect place for moss, fungi, and young seedlings to grow. As the new trees mature, their roots extend down around the decaying log until they reach the forest floor, and when the original log finally disappears, the trees are left standing on dramatic stilt-like roots. This remarkable process is one of nature's greatest examples of renewal, where the death of one tree literally gives life to the next generation of the forest.
Spending time with family, a younger generation now raising their own children is a journey between recognizing that the nurse logs that came before us nurtured and continue to nurture us even as they've created space for us to create new life, learn a new path, make our own mistakes, and learn from them.
I'm filled with gratitude to those that came before us!
I have also learned or rather continue to learn, that while we are very much a living nurse log we also must make space to our former saplings, the next generation of mature trees to take from what they've learned and nurtured from us, and then watch with love as they nurture their own saplings.
What I found so fascinating about the nurse logs evolution is two things.
1. Nothing goes to waste - even in their afterlife.
2. The new trees often end up with stilt-like legs (the empty space beneath their legs, being the space of the nurse log after its decay).
As we enter into this month of Elul - blessed from this Shabbos, I am reminded that we have our ancestors all the way back to our patriarchs and matriarchs and the other greats that have come before us. We never go at it alone. There is profound compassion in this idea.
While it may feel we are standing on our own and alone at times, we are reminded that these legs were built on the foundation of those greats, we are never alone.
If we are all connected in this massive ecological system of Torah and Jewish History then we can enter into this month of Elul, regardless and perhaps because of the ups and downs of the year that has passed. We are empowered to embrace the New Year with a refreshed spirit and vigor.
To help get you into the upbeat spirit of the new month, please join me for the last of our summer series of 2nd Fridays, uplifting spirited Shabbat service followed by kiddush and delicious light refreshments.
Blessings of Shana Tova and Good Shabbos!
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