Bless the Trees, Whatever They Are

I sat on my porch saying my morning prayers and looked up at the palm tree in my front yard, towering high above my house. A whole bushel of dates is hanging from the very top. (Do dates come in bushels?)

We're going to have gorgeous dates, IY"H, from this giant tree.

I should be happy, right? I guess I am.

The only thing is: we didn't buy a date palm tree when we built our house. We bought a coconut palm. The gardener said, "You'll have the cutest coconut palm. It doesn't grow too tall, but it's a very beautiful tree."

That sounded great to us. We ordered it immediately and waited through the years for it to develop its coconut-y personality.

Well, grow it did, but it grew as a date palm!!

At first we were traumatized, but we have since learned to love it, and be proud at the arrival of every new branch and every new date.

Funny thing, the same thing happened to us when we decided to add a tree to our side yard. We wanted an almond tree. Everyone's always singing about them (in a popular Hebrew children's song) that we figured an almond tree would be a perfect addition to our yard - with its magnificent blossoms and later on, it's fun and yummy nuts.

For many years the tree just refused to bloom, and then suddenly two years ago - loooooooong after we first planted it - it budded and then blossomed and then its fruit pushed forward. And lo and behold, the almonds looked kind of strange. "Hmmm," we wondered, scratching our heads. "Those sure are funny-looking almonds."

"They're so funny," our gardener said, "They're peaches!!" So, we were had once again.

Our coconut palm ended up growing into a date palm.

And our almond tree wound up bedecked with little peaches on its branches.

We've learned to live with all this. We love our trees, every one of them - no matter what sort they are.

So, bless the trees - the green and fir-y, the tall and leafy, the small and flowery. We love them all, whatever they are. Happy spring.