“If you walk in My chukim and keep My mitzvos…. I will give your rains in their time… and the tree… will give its fruit.” (Vayikra 26:3-4)

There are two common questions asked about these pesukim. First, there’s no reward for mitzvos in This World. So why does it seem that if we do mitzvos, we’ll receive rain and fruit? Second, why does the Torah say “walk in My chukim,” instead of perform the mitzvos? (Rav Shalom Noach Berezovsky, Nesivos Shalom)

We’ve been doing a lot of gardening lately. There’s something about enforced confinement that makes you long for open blue skies, that makes you want to dig deep into the moist dirt and imagine you can get all the way to the other side of the world (except maybe not China). Our garden isn’t very exotic. We’ve got some vines, roses, flowers, and of course, our cantankerous Mr. Cherry Tree.

The Midrash explains that the word chukim here comes from the root chakak, to carve or engrave. Hashem established and carved out laws and boundaries for every part of nature, for rain, fruit. All these laws of nature are dependent on Bnei Yisrael. If we keep the laws of the Torah, then the laws of creation and nature will also be kept. Thus, when we receive rain, it’s not as a reward for doing mitzvos; it’s a consequence of the laws with which Hashem created the natural world.

When we first planned our garden, I knew I wanted a pink flowering cherry tree. I’d grown up with such a tree spreading its rosy blossoms every spring outside my bedroom window, and I longed to replicate those memories.

I stared dubiously at the little twig offered in the nursery. “Are you sure it’s a pink cherry tree?” I asked the salesman. “Looks like a toothpick to me.”

He reassured me and promised to take the toothpick back if it never grew up, so I bought it and planted it right in the front of our garden.

It did grow and eventually it blossomed. But the blossoms were white, not pink! I was so disappointed I wanted to pull the cherry tree up by its roots and march it back to the nursery. The tree must’ve felt my disapproval, as it summarily refused to produce any cherries. Year after year those white blossoms bloomed to spite me, with no fruit.

Finally, after seven years, the temperamental tree produced its first fruit. How the kids’ eyes glowed as they made shehecheyanu on their own cherries. Their enjoyment was enough for me to forgive the tree its color.

Apparently though, trees hold grudges. That was the last of its cherries for many more years.

The Midrash divides the creation into three parts. The Heavens above the sun and moon; the face of the world — the sea and sand; and the tehom — the depths beneath the world.

These correspond to the three levels in man. The brain is, above all, like the Heavens, and contains Man’s knowledge and hashkafos. The heart, in the middle, hosts man’s wills and desires. The limbs, which carry out action, are the lowest level, like the tehom. Just as all of the parts of nature follow Hashem’s rules, so too man must use everything he was created with in service of Hashem’s.

That’s why the pasuk uses the word “walk” in His chukim. All the “levels” of man must walk together to do the will of Hashem.

This year I decided to call a truce. As I weeded the area around its trunk, I explained to the cherry tree that crisis makes strange bedfellows, and I needed its help this Nissan, as we couldn’t leave the house to make a brachah on a fruit tree.

Incidentally, my municipality rose to the occasion with Yiddishe chochmah, with a truck driving through the streets carrying several fruit trees on a flatbed, a loudspeaker inviting all to make the brachah from their homes. However, we didn’t live facing the street, so I was dependent on the capriciousness of Mr. Cherry. It waved its white flowers gaily and refused to commit.

But by the end of Nissan, the tree relented. How the kids’ eyes glowed as we stood together and made the once-a-year brachah. I viewed it as a gift showing us that despite the chaos around us, Hashem was providing all our needs — right down to a bowl o’ cherries.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 692)