More Tu Bishvat Secrets

The Tree of The Baal Shem Tov

January, 2021

Rav Yaakov Teitelbaum (d. 1968), the beloved mara d’Asra of Kahal Adas Yereim for twenty years, held the shul’s biggest annual seudah on, of all days, Tu BiShvat.

“This was his ‘State of the Union,’” Rabbi Paysach Krohn recently shared with me. “Even the counselors at Camp Agudah, where Rav Teitelbaum served as the rav in the summers, schlepped all the way to Queens on Tu BiShvat to hear this important drashah.”

The date chosen for this “State of the Union” address might have seemed odd to some, but I have a theory about why he chose it. Allow me to give some quick background first.

Rav Teitelbaum was a tremendous talmid chacham. Rav Heschel Greenberg, who has served as a rav in Buffalo for the past 45 years, told me that he has fond memories of Rav Yaakov coming often to Crown Heights from Queens to farher the Lubavitch bachurim. This was a major event, and a stressful one, for the bachurim.

In fact, when I recently spoke to Rav Yosef Teitelbaum, one of Rav Yaakov’s sons, he said that the Lubavitcher Rebbe used to call his father in because he wanted an outsider, an unbiased participant, to gauge how the bachurim were doing in learning.

Many readers may be more familiar with Rav Yaakov Teitelbaum’s son Rav Eli Teitelbaum (d. 2008), an early developer of technology for the sake of Torah (among his projects was Dial-A-Daf, and today his organization is still active as Torah Communications).

Their father was born in 1897 in Husyatin, Galicia. When World War I broke out, he was only seventeen. His family, along with many others, fled to Vienna, where he became a student of the illustrious posek Rav Meir Arik (d. 1925), from whom he received semichah.

Rav Yaakov went on to publish a sefer titled Kol Yaakov. In this sefer I discovered a story that may explain his enchantment with Tu BiShvat. It is a story that he heard from his rebbe, Rav Meir Arik.

Most people are aware that in Europe communal custom was sacrosanct. For example, when the great tzaddik and gaon Rav Nosson Adler, who lived in Frankfurt, adopted a nusach Sephard siddur and Sephardi pronunciation—a practice that was considered odd to the German Jews of the city—he was famously put in cherem for his “strange” behavior.

Something similar occurred to the Baal Shem Tov. When he was twenty years old, he moved to the city of Brody, where he became a melamed.

One year in Brody, he longed to have new fruit for Tu BiShvat (see Magen Avraham 131:16), but there was none to be had. Before refrigeration and ease of shipping, fresh fruit on which to make a Shehecheyanu during the winter was rare.

At that time, the kloiz of Brody, headed by the gaon Rav Chaim Rappaport, heard rumors about this new melamed, who taught unique concepts and had his own way of doing things. He demanded that the melamed come to the beis din of Brody to explain his actions.

The day the Baal Shem Tov was supposed to meet with the beis din was Tu BiShvat. Rav Rappaport’s brother-in-law, the esteemed Rav Zev Volf Kitzem, came upon the Baal Shem Tov on his way to the beis din and watched as he took a route through a snowy forest.

Suddenly, the young Baal Shem Tov stopped by a barren tree and cried out words from the Yom Kippur davening: “V’yeida kal pa’ul ki Atah pe’alto, v’yavin kal yatzur ki Atah yetzarto—all of Your offshoots know that You are their Maker, and all of Your creations know that You are their Creator.”

Suddenly, to Rav Kitzem’s astonishment, dates appeared on the tree, as if out of nowhere!

The Baal Shem Tov, he observed, was giddy with joy. He watched as he made a Shehecheyanu with great intent.

(The question of whether Ha’eitz or Shehecheyanu should be recited first is a serous debate in halachah, and one must speak to his rav about what to do. See Be’er Heitev 225:6; Pri Megadim #7; Magen Avraham 225:9; shu”t Kesav Sofer Ohr Hachaim siman 25; shu”t Avnei Nezer 250:6.)

Rav Kitzem gathered some of the dates in his basket as soon as the Baal Shem Tov was out of sight and ran to the beis din so that he could offer clear proof that the young melamed was a person of remarkable holiness and should be left alone.

As he entered the beis din, they were in the midst of interviewing the melamed. Rav Volf Kitzem interjected, “You won’t believe this! This man should be left alone as he is a real baal mofes—a miracle worker!”

He opened his basket to show the members of the beis din the miraculous fruits that had appeared on the tree; but alas, all that he found inside was snow!

The Baal Shem Tov turned to him and said, “One should not try to gain victory in a beis din through miracles. Even in Shamayim they do not desire such an outcome. There are other ways to triumph.”

I shared with Rav Yosef Teitelbaum, Rav Yaakov’s son, my hypothesis for why his father had chosen Tu BiShvat for the shul’s main dinner each year—that he wanted to celebrate his rebbe’s story about how the Baal Shem Tov was matzliach on this day.

Rav Yosef considered it but was not entirely convinced.

“Perhaps,” he responded. “But there is another explanation. In my father’s sefer, in his drashah for the 1951 Tu BiShvat shul event, he spoke about the significance of this date. He mentioned that twenty years earlier, on February 2, 1931 (15 Shevat 5691), the very first Siyum HaShas for the Daf Yomi took place. My father may have felt that Tu BiShvat was special due to this more recent event.”

That Tu BiShvat, some 89 years ago, was indeed special. The major venue for the Siyum HaShas was the newly opened Yeshiva Chachmei Lublin, and Rav Meir Shapiro opened the siyum by having his yeshivah choir sing his newly composed (and now famous) song “Kad Yasvin Yisrael.”

In America, there were smaller celebrations that took place in Philadelphia and Baltimore.

Either explanation for Rav Yaakov Teitelbaum’s minhag is fascinating!

Let us hope that this Tu Bishvat we can see the realization of both of these theories: a growth in the klal’s learning, and, our own vindication in the beis din shel maaleh.l