Planting for the future

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March 11th, First Friday in Lent

11 March, 2022

The Old Testament Talmud is a book which records the ancient history and traditions of the old Jewish teachers. It speaks of a holy man named Onias, a High Priest during the Second Temple period of Judaism who had just watched an elderly man planting some ‘carob trees’, on which grow the popular locust beans.

Onias asked him how long it would be before the trees would bear fruit.
‘About 70 years’ replied the old man.
You are an old man, why bother to plant them now?‘ asked Onias.
‘When I was a boy’, said the elderly man ‘there were carob trees all about which my grandfather and father planted’. It is now my turn to provide for those who come after me.’

Nobody remembers the elderly man’s name but all gratefully remember his ‘old cabot fruit trees’ This got me thinking what inheritance am I leaving behind me when I return to dust?

André Paul