During these 15 days, we find ourselves in a very interesting period of the Jewish year – between Rosh Chodesh Shvat and Tu B’Shvat.

Why is this period so interesting?

There is a debate in the Talmud (Rosh Hasahanah 2a) as to which date is the “Rosh Hasahana l’Ilanot – New Year for the Trees” Beit Shamai maintains that it is Rosh Chodesh Shvat and Beit Hillel maintains the date as the 15th of Shvat or “Tu B’Shvat”. This debate is more intrinsic than it may appear on the surface, as the Gemura explains later on, the debate between Beit Shamai and Beit Hillel is not about dates for the the holiday, but about what counts as “newness” – Beit Hillel says that trees need to have buds, which appear on or around Tu B’Shvat, in order to be considered “new”; whereas Beit Hillel says that the trees merely need to have adequate sap or nutrients inside them in order to produce buds, which happens earlier, on Rosh Chodesh Shvat.

Why is this significant?

According to Beit Shamai, potential defines reality – if something is able to be something we count it as if it is. According to Beit Hillel, this is not true – potential is important, but it is not the arbiter of reality.

At this period in the Jewish calendar, on these days between Rosh Chodesh and Tu B’Shvat, we are in a period in which potential is being actualized. We are going from merely having enough sap, or potential, to actually sprouting forth and becoming something – this is a tremendous time of year! It is a time of revival, a time of  renewal and a time of actualizing our potential. Each and every one of us needs to be sensitive to this fact and look into ourselves to identify our sap and our nutrients – those things within us that are waiting to be actualized, waiting to sprout forth, and actualize them. Maybe it is our mind, waiting to delve deeper in Torah study; maybe it is our heart, waiting to experience a real meditative davening; maybe it is our body, waiting to do good for someone else; whatever it is, now is the time. Now is the time to actualize, to revive, to bring ourselves from יכול to פועל – from potential to actual.

But there is more to the story.

We are taught that although we hold like Beit Hillel nowadays, we will in the time of Mashiach hold like Beit Shamai. From our perspective, actuality is everything – but from God’s perspective, the true objective perspective, potential is what defines us.

As far as God is concerned, we are our potential.

In the future, when the world is perfected and we are living in that world, we will understand that our potential defines us deeply. We will see ourselves and others the way God sees us, for everything that we can be. Things will be so clear to us that there won’t even be a distinction between what we can be and what we are – because the world will be perfected as soon as we notice that we have the potential to do something we won’t hesitate to actualize that potential and it will immediately become who we are. Unfortunately, in the current reality, we set up all kinds of barriers for ourselves and it takes great effort to actualize our potential, so we hold like Beit Hillel – we only consider the actualization and not the potential. What is important to take from this is that although from our perspective the journey is challenging and there are many barriers to success, from God’s perspective there are no barriers and there is no distinction between between potential and actual. He believes in us, that we will become fully actualized and the we will perfect ourselves to the highest level.

As I mentioned earlier, we are in an amazing period in the Jewish year, a time between potential and actualization. We are also in an amazing period in Jewish history, a time of revival, of moving from potential to actual, a time in which we can finally see the actualization and coming to fruition of  thousands of years of Jewish history, of prophecy and of hidden light being revealed. This period in Jewish history is parallel to our current period in the Jewish calendar – it is an amazing time to live. Each and every one of us has the ability and responsibility to realize the potential of the Jewish people, to help actualize it and to revive and rebuild our nation. As with our personal growth, we have the responsibility to look at our nation and look into ourselves to figure out what is needed, what we our potential is and how we can actualize this potential. Whether this be in the area of teaching Torah, in the area of helping other, or in the areas of spirituality, or other areas, we have an obligation to participate in this national actualization as well as our own personal one.

In an interesting paradox, moving toward actualization (in this case) actually means, from one perspective, moving toward a higher sensitivity to potential and seeing that potential as having no barriers to actualization. Seeing the world as God sees it. What does this mean for us, who live in this unique period of history? It means that we have to strive to look at the people around us and see their potential as who they are – to treat them as the person they can be and not as the person that they are. When it comes to others, we must look at each person in the best light possible and view them as God sees them. However, when it comes to ourselves, we must recognize that mere potential is not yet enough, that we must constantly strive and push ourselves for more and more personal growth – we must actualize our potential, because in this reality it takes tremendous work to do so.

On a national level we must also be sensitive to this paradox. We need to recognize the potential of the Jewish people and never let boundaries get in the way of actualizing this potential. Through the guidance of our teachers and mentors we can learn to be sensitive to this potential and, because of the unique period in history in which we have been placed, push through barriers as if they do not exist. This brings to mind a story about Rav Yosef Shlomo Kahaneman, a great Torah leader in Europe and Israel during the first half of the 1900s, and Rosh Yeshiva of the Ponevezh Yeshiva in Israel.

Rav Kahaneman traveled all around the world in his quest to rebuild Torah and the Jewish people after the destruction of the Holocaust. On one of his trips, he found himself in Rome and asked that the person who was driving him take him to the Arch of Titus.

In ancient Roman times, when a general returned to Rome after winning a battle there would be a big parade and an arch would be constructed to commemorate the victory. The Arch of Titus was build to commemorate the defeat of the Jewish people and the destruction of the temple – it is engraved with images of Roman soldiers carrying of Jewish people as slaves and the vessels of the Beit Hamikdash, the Menorah among them, as booty to Rome.

When Rav Kahaneman reached the arch it was pouring rain. He got out of the car, without an umbrella, and walked over to the arch. Imagine the scene: a rabbi, with a big beard, standing in the pouring rain, in the middle of the street in Rome juxtaposed against a massive, ancient, stone arch with images of his ancestors being carried away into slavery engraved on it. When he reached the arch, soaking wet, he began to scream: “TITUS! Where are you now?! You thought you could destroy us! You thought you could make us slaves! You thought by destroying our temple and kicking us out of our land that we would be finished! YOU WERE WRONG! We are back! We never left! After thousands of years, Jews all over the world are still learning Torah, still keeping Judaism alive, still connecting with God! You couldn’t beat us and now we are back! We are back in our land, learning Torah and being Jews…and where are you?! There isn’t a trace of you left except this arch! But the Jewish people are still here and are still strong! AM YISRAEL CHAI!”

With that he got back in the car and returned to his life’s work of rebuilding the Jewish nation.

Rav Kahaneman built the Ponevezh Yeshiva in Israel to be the biggest Yeshiva of its time, with thousands of students and thousands upon thousands of alumni who went on to be rabbis, teachers and good Jews all over the world – all this on the heels of the greatest destruction in recent Jewish history.

How did he do it?

Rav Kahaneman knew this secret, the secret of the Jewish people – potential. He didn’t see us as a broken nation, smoldering from our recent destruction, rather he saw us as God sees us, for what we can be.

Each and every one of us has to look at the world through these eyes, to see the world the way Rav Kahaneman, and countless other great Jewish leaders, saw it – the way God sees it – for its potential and for what it should and can be.

If we do this, there is nothing we can’t accomplish, we can truly change the world in order to see a true and complete actualization of potential with our ultimate and complete redemption.