Kedoshim (Holy)

Higher Than Sky
For 3 years the fruit shall be forbidden to you, they shall not be eaten. In the 4^th year, all its fruit shall be holy to praise God. And in the 5^th year, you may eat its fruit and thus increase your crop. (Leviticus 19:23-25)  שלוש שנים יהיה לכם ערלים לא יאכל ובשנה הרביעת יהיה כל פריו קדש הלולים ליהוה ובשנה החמישת תאכלו את פריו להוסיף לכם תבואתו

While in Crete, we studied the Lubavitcher Rebbe's explanation that the fruit of a tree's first 4 years correspond to 4 worlds of being:

From the material world of Action, affective world of Formation, cognitive world of Creation, up to the holy spiritual world of Emanation.

However, the 5^th year when the fruit can be eaten anywhere by anyone is the highest level, higher than holiness that transcends the world.

The fruit of the 5^th year are most precious because they bring holiness down into the very midst of a world-affirming life.

Action (Asiyah) is our everyday world of ice-cream delivery trucks, motor scooters and merry-go-round horses. (We took all 6 photos in Crete.) 

Formation (Yetzirah) is the world of our feelings and emotions that manipulate our strings like many dangling Pinocchio marionettes.

Creation (Beriah) is the creative world of mind, of fresh insights, of deepening understanding, and of growing knowledge.

Emanation (Atzilut) is a holistic world in which divine light is revealed in transcendent realms.

The highest level is when we draw divine light down into our everyday world creating delicious deserts from the 5^th year fruit.

 A traveler on horseback arrived in the days between high holidays. He joined morning services in a Hasidic synagogue, the only one in town.

This skeptic heard the Hasidim telling of their rebbe's ascent to heaven to plead the case of humanity in a face-to-face encounter with God.

When he saw the rebbe disappear, he ran out of the synagogue and discreetly trailed him as he swiftly walked home.

He saw him emerge from his home in workman's clothes with an ax in his belt and a rope draped over his shoulder.

The rebbe chopped down a small tree, cut off its branches and tied them in a bundle that he brought into a shack at edge of the village.

Peering in a window, the skeptic saw a frail old woman.  The rebbe put wood in her stove, cooked up a pot of stew and scrubbed the floor.

He spied the rebbe walk back home, change into his black brocade coat with a white woolen tallit, and slip back into the synagogue.

When he heard the Hasidim talking ecstatically about their rebbe's return from heaven, the skeptic added, "If not higher than that!"