Beneath the Surface:
Tu BiShvat, Esther, and the Blossoming Voice of Shir HaShirim and Women’s Torah Study
BY RABBANIT SHANI TARAGIN
Tu BiShvat, the New Year of Trees, celebrates invisible beginnings. While winter holds the Land, Chazal teach that the sap begins to rise, signaling growth beneath the surface and a future harvest in the making. Tu BiShvat honors not fruition, but potential – the faith that renewal begins long before it is visible.
This lens helps reflect on hidden yet transformative growth in Jewish history, particularly the rise of women’s Torah learning today. Like the trees of Tu BiShvat, this growth has been patient, rooted, and often concealed, until its fruits begin to emerge.
The Torah compares humanity to a tree: “For man is a tree of the field” (Devarim 20:19). Chazal expand this metaphor to emphasize rootedness, continuity, and moral responsibility. This imagery is also applied to Torah in Mishlei: “It is a tree of life to those who hold fast to it” (Mishlei 3:18). Once Torah is understood as the eitz chayim, growth and fruitfulness become aspirational. Trees and vines no longer symbolize life alone, but Torah-infused life.
In this context, Tehillim uses botanical imagery for the woman in the covenantal home: “Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine in the inner chambers of your house; your children like olive saplings around your table” (Tehillim 128:3).
The vine is not wild growth. It must be cultivated, supported, and pruned. Its strength lies in enduring fruitfulness, not in size or display. Chazal note its blessing unfolds and improves over time (Berachot 35b), with care, nourishment, and patience. The vine’s fertility is sanctified through responsibility. The Eishet Chayil echoes this: “Give her of the fruit of her hands, and let her deeds praise her in the gates” (Mishlei 31:31). Her “fruit” is moral, spiritual, and communal, visible because it has been nurtured inwardly.
This contrasts with the Torah’s rejection of the asherah, the pagan fertility tree. The Torah doesn’t deny the instinct linking trees, growth, and feminine creativity; it redirects it toward covenant, Torah, and moral responsibility. Growth is affirmed when disciplined by yirat shamayim; creativity is honored – but humanized.
This transformation reaches its peak in Megillat Esther. Chazal focus on Esther’s dual name: “He [Mordechai] was raising Hadassah – she is Esther” (Esther 2:7). The Gemara explains she was called Hadassah because she was righteous, like the myrtle whose fragrance is quiet yet pervasive (Megillah 13a). The myrtle doesn’t dominate; its power lies in subtlety.
Kabbalistic tradition links Esther to the shoshanah (lily) in Shir HaShirim: “Like a lily among thorns, so is my beloved among the daughters” (Shir HaShirim 2:2). The gematria of shoshanah and Esther is identical (661), suggesting a shared essence of concealed vitality and redemptive emergence.
Esther’s life follows this botanical logic. She enters the Megillah hidden – “Esther did not reveal her people or her lineage” (Esther 2:10). Yet this concealment is not weakness; it is gestation. Like the trees of Tu BiShvat, her growth happens beneath the surface. At the crucial moment, her inner vitality rises: “If I perish, I perish” (Esther 4:16). Like the lily among thorns or the myrtle releasing fragrance under pressure, Esther’s greatness emerges when pressed.
Chazal anchor this imagery historically. On the verse “Under the apple tree I aroused you” (Shir HaShirim 8:5), the Gemara explains this refers to the righteous women of Israel in Egypt (Sotah 11b–12a). Crushed by slavery, the men were overwhelmed by present hardships. The women, however, refused to let suffering erase the future. With reflective mirrors, they aroused their husbands beneath the apple trees, giving life to the next generation. Growth doesn’t wait for ideal conditions. Redemption begins not with power, but with nurture; not with noise, but with faith in dark times. The ra’aya (female persona) of Shir HaShirim is not passive, but an active agent of geulah.
Reflecting on the female arboreal imagery in Tehillim, Esther, and Shir HaShirim on Tu BiShvat offers a coherent theology of growth. Renewal begins invisibly. Fertility is sanctified by covenant. Redemption unfolds through women who cultivate continuity, wisdom, and faith across generations.
It is no coincidence that in our generation – particularly in Eretz Yisrael – we are witnessing the blossoming of women’s Torah learning. Batei midrash and learning communities have taken root through years of dedication and humility. Their fruits – intellectual depth, spiritual leadership, and responsibility for the future – are increasingly visible.
Ultimately, all genuine growth – whether of trees, Torah, or people – demands emunah (Shabbat 31a). Those privileged to nurture spaces of Torah learning know that this work resembles tending a vineyard more than erecting a monument. It requires patience, attentiveness, and faith in processes that cannot be rushed. Tu BiShvat teaches us to honor beginnings before results. Esther charts the trajectory from concealment to blossom, and Shir HaShirim provides poetic voice, assuring us that even among thorns, lilies will bloom. Chazal remind us through fruitful imagery that when women engage deeply in Torah lessons and values, the fruit that emerges nourishes not only the present, but the future of Am Yisrael.
Rabbanit Shani Taragin is Educational Director of Mizrachi, Mizrachi Lapidot and Matan Eshkolot Programs for Educators, and the Rosh Beit Midrash of Mizrachi-Tzemach David Women’s Learning Hub, Mizrachi Lapidot and Yeshiva University in Israel Women’s Torah Studies Program.