On a brisk February day – Tu B’Shevat 1978 – on a stark biblical hillside under a blowing Israeli flag, HaRav Tzvi Yehuda HaKohen Kook, the 87-year-old head of the Mercaz HaRav Yeshiva, stood up to address a crowd of students and lovers of Eretz Yisrael who had driven out to the site of the first capital of Israel (and home of the Mishkan for 369 years) for the dedication of the new yishuv of Shilo, which was little more than a handful of tents, caravans, and a generator.
He was flanked by former students, now rabbis on their own, Rabbis Moshe Levinger, Dov Lior, Eliezer Waldman, and Hanan Porat, who had led the movement to resettle Gush Etzion and Hevron. Earlier in the day, with the collar of his black overcoat turned up against the cold, the rabbi – the only son of Rav Avraham Yitzhak HaKohen Kook – had planted a sapling to inaugurate the reborn yishuv.
“To Rav Tzvi Yehuda, planting a tree in Eretz Yisrael was far more than a symbolic act of settling the land; it was an exalted cleaving to Hashem,” explains Rav Lior. “Every year in the yeshiva on Tu B’Shevat, he would remind us of the Midrash that explains the Torah’s command to follow Hashem and cleave to Him (Devarim 13:5). Rabbi Yehuda Ben Rabbi Simon asks: How is it possible to cleave to Hashem who is likened to an all-consuming fire?
“The answer is that from the beginning of Creation, Hashem busied Himself with planting, as the Torah relates: ‘And the L-rd G-d planted a garden eastward in Eden.’ Therefore, when you enter Eretz Yisrael, first busy yourselves with planting, as it says: ‘And when you will enter the Land, and shall have planted all manner of trees for food…’ (Vayikra 19:23). Thus, we learn that planting a sapling in Eretz Yisrael is an exalted act of cleaving to Hashem.”
The dedication ceremony came after years of political intrigue. Four years earlier, in 1974, the Gush Emunim settlement movement, without government sanction (but with the approval of HaRav Tzvi Yehuda), sent 200 would-be settlers to the site, but they were evicted by the army. Three more times, Eretz Yisrael activists attempted to begin an “illegal” garin (seed group) at ancient Tel Shilo, and each time the government ordered the army to send them packing.
In 1975, an Israeli Labor government allowed the determined settlers to move into abandoned barracks in the Ofra army camp 10 kilometers down the road. If you diligently search the Internet, you can discover a photograph of Defense Minister Shimon Peres planting a sapling in Ofra along with the settlers. In January 1978, under the pretense of undertaking an archeology dig, settlers returned to Tel Shilo, once again without the government’s permission, but with the encouragement of Minister of Agriculture Ariel Sharon.
Eight families and 40 students took up residence on the site. The action aroused the displeasure of America, which maintained that it interfered with the ongoing peace negotiations between Egypt and Israel. President Carter claimed it violated international law.
Israeli Prime Minister Begin assured Carter that it was merely an archeological excavation in search of the ancient Mishkan’s location. A month later, on Tu B’Shevat, with the arrival of HaRav Tzvi Yehuda, and the backing of the Begin government, the settlement of Shilo became a fait-accompli.
Era Rappaport, Shilo’s first mayor, told The Jewish Press this week, “From a barren hillside, Shilo has grown into a thriving community, stretching from the Shilo Valley to the top of the mountain and surrounding hillsides. From fighting the government of Israel for the right to live here, the government is about to declare Israeli sovereignty over the area. From being a thorn in the eyes of America, the White House has now given us its blessing.
“In the beginning, when our initial attempts to settle the site failed, people told us we were crazy, that it would never be, and that we should give up the struggle. But, baruch Hashem, we are still in Shilo with schools, a yeshiva, a public swimming pool with separate hours, and we don’t have enough available housing to absorb all the people who want to live here.”
Likud Knesset Member Geula Cohen, who recently passed away at the age of 94, also spoke at the dedication ceremony, and her words ring prophetically true still today:
“The endeavors of those who lack roots in this land cannot, and will not, bear fruit, but only thorns. Because of this, no foreign conqueror was able to make the desolate land produce its fruits for 2,000 years – because they didn’t have roots here. The Arabs who live in Judea and Samaria are foreigners in our land, and thus their presence here bears no fruit – only thistles and thorns.
“We call upon the prime minister to join us here, on this ancient Jewish hillside, to proclaim, from here, that there will be no further negotiations regarding plans to take away our Land, but rather increased Jewish settlement, far and wide, over all Eretz Yisrael.”
On that first windy Tu B’Shevat in Shilo, the speakers that had been set up on the hillside crackled when HaRav Tzvi Yehuda recited the Shechyanu Blessing. The large crowd shouted “Amen!”
“We have reached the place of our rest,” he told the gathering. “As the Gemara says, the resting place is Shilo, the inheritance is Jerusalem. Out of the death throes and sufferings of the exile…we arrive here, gradually, gradually, to the place we belong, to the land of our life, to the life of the nation. The present is a part of our glorious past on the hillsides of Shilo and a light to our glorious future throughout the ancient borders of our land.”
Rav Yehuda Hazani, z”l, recorded the speech. In his book, Etz Yehuda, he explains a teaching that Rav Tzvi Yehuda was wont to relate every Tu B’Shevat: In the time of the Talmud, the question arose: Which fruit should be eaten first when a table of different fruits is set before a person? The answer is derived from a verse in the Torah that numerates the seven special fruits of the Land of Israel: “A land (aretz) of wheat, and barley, and grape vines, and fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of olive oil and date honey” (Devarim 8:8).
The Talmud asks: If you have pomegranates and dates before you, which do you eat first? You might think that a pomegranate should be eaten first since it appears in the verse before dates. But, in fact, the date should be eaten first because it is closer to the word “aretz.” Thus, we learn that something that is closer to the Land of Israel has preference. Using this ruling as his base, HaRav Tzvi Yehuda said that his father, Rav Kook, wrote that someone who is closer to Eretz Yisrael and exerts himself more in its building and development is first in blessing and closest to perfection.
“From the Tabernacle of Shilo,” HaRav Tzvi Yehuda continued, “the ‘tent where He made His dwelling among men,’ Hashem will bless His People with peace, true peace, peace on Israel, on the restored settlement here in Shilo, and on all of our increasing settlements and areas of possession and rightful inheritance…. [W]e return to…the inheritance of the Jewish people, and we return to the One who restores His divine presence to Zion, in our days, soon!”