Finding the Balance Between Nature and the Divine

In this week’s Torah portion, Shoftim, we find two commandments about trees.  (1) Do not cut down a fruit tree even in war, and (2) Do not plant  an ashera trees near the altar.

The commandment not to cut down a tree is a warning against wanton destruction which in jewish law is forbidden by extension to all things.

The mitzvah of not planting a tree near the temple is strange though.   While it is true that trees were worshipped, this mitzvah extends not only to an ashera, a worshipped tree, but to any treee planted near the temple.  Wouldn’t planting a tree on the Temple Mount beautify the area without tempting us to worship it?   What is wrong with planting a tree near the altar?

Perhaps an answer  can be found in the following mishna in Pirkey Avot:

“Rabbi Simon said: One who is walking and speaking about Torah and interrupts their Torah study to admire a tree and say, “how beautiful is this tree”…it is as if they are obligated for their own life.”

What is wrong with interrupting one’s study to admire a tree?  Indeed Maimonides writes that through appreciating the world one comes to be in are of God.  We even make  a blessing on a beautiful tree.

Perhaps the answer is the importance of context.  The Torah  and the altar give us a theological structure, a pathway within which to conceive of the Divine and relate to God.  Physical beauty itself is fleeting and can often be superficial.  It is the larger godly worldview  through which we view the tree and everything else in the world that helps us to sanctify it.   We should not reject the tree or the world, but we must first have the spiritual foundation with which to see it in a larger holy context so it does not become an idol itself.