I have been at war for 42 years. This is not a metaphor for fights with the neighbors some such. It’s a war with weapons, which, if used correctly, are lethal. I say 42 years because it was in December, 1983, that we moved into our home. Do the math. It’s 42 years.
The good news is that the war is seasonal, and it’s wintertime now, as the war awaits the spring and summer. Good thing, too. I know I couldn’t write about war with equanimity as the war rages.
Come spring, some summer, come fall, and I’m out there wielding my weapons. You see, when we moved in back in 1983, we selected a spot in the backyard for a sukkah. But there was a problem. A tree was partially in the way.
The tree would need a radical trimming for the sukkah to fit. OK, no big deal. I had the tree trimmed and we had the sukkah built.
End of story.
End of naivete, actually.
After the first Sukkot, the tree grew back with a vengeance. What is “vengeance” for a tree? It’s growing vertically and growing horizontally — both. As the tree grew upward, the branches sloped over the sukkah. That would disqualify the sukkah. Its covering (“schach”) must be detached from the ground.
So I would need to become a branch detatcher.
No big deal, I thought.
Was I wrong! I was at war. Get a ladder. Climb high. Bring out the most lethal weapon — the saw — and detach away. These branches enjoyed excellent health. They reached some 15 feet high, which meant that at their lower point where I was committed to decapitating them, they were already thick. Tough to saw.
All right. One year at war. Not so bad.
But the next year before Sukkot, there they were again, just as if I hadn’t strained myself to cut them down the year before. I had to do it over again.
Same thing, the next year.
And the next.
And the next.
A perpetual war.
I haven’t even gotten into how this vengeful tree grew horizontally, too. The branches started poking themselves through the lovely cross-levered wooden walls of the sukkah. OK, here I didn’t need a ladder, but I did need the saw as well as the less dangereous clippers (which duly wore out every few years; I’m on my sixth set now).
So I rewrote the rules of war. Instead of only sawing off the branches high up — just so they wouldn’t overreach the sukkah — I figured I’d also lop off some of the much thicker, much tougher branches whence they sprouted.
I’d finally discovered the path to victory in this war. If a thick branch had no more face after I’d cut it off, then there was no place on the branch whence smaller ones could grow again!
It was was exponentially harder to saw through a regular five-inch thick branch rather than the half-inch thick sapling-like branchs that grew out of them.
Picture it this way: There is the smaller branch that shoots high. It shoots out of a lower, thicker branch on the body of the tree. I’d go for the body blow. I’d cut down the thicker branches, sawing them off flat, figuring that no new sapling-types, upward reaching, could grow from them.
Was I wrong!
It didn’t matter how deeper I cut into the body of the tree, it just kept spouting branches upward — not from the lopped off end of the branch, but from their sides, on which no previous sign of even the smallest branch could be detected.
Well, I figured, at least these stubborn new branchs couldn’t grow so high since they were starting from a lower, lopped off, thicker branch to start with. That was true — but it didn’t matter. For as the branches grew to a slightly lower height, I was getting older. The offending branches were lower, so was my strength. The war remained as taxing as ever.
Don’t think this war was waged in only one seasonal battle. O no. There was — actually, there still is — the end of June battle. The beginning of August battle. The end of August battle. The just before Sukkot battle. No matter how successful the first battle in season is, it’s as if it never happened. The branches just keep growing higher. The rain just keeps falling.
So, you might ask, why not skip the early battles and just wage war on the wicked tree right before Sukkot? Can’t do it. If you wait that long, the branches are too thick and too numerous to cut. It takes four battles to thin out the enemy troops, only then closing in for the coup de grace.
Not to mention, there’s a lot of other things to do before Sukkot. Even in wartime, life goes on.
So here we are. It’s December. It’s calm. I’m reflecting on the 42-years war with a measure of detachments (the cerebral kind). Even after more than half a century of war; I’m reflecting on my battles and my weapons (I’m on the sixth saw, too).
Just thought I’d let you know that we’re still keeping the sukkah, still in the same place — and still obeying the Torah’s command not to cut down a fruit-bearing tree.
© IJN 2025
