We often hear about planting a tree in Israel as a form of support to the state, but we may not always understand just how much the planting of a tree can help sustain Israel as a country.

Beyond helping just the farmers, the dedication and planting of a fruit tree is a way of helping to  reclaim land for Israel that would otherwise be illegally appropriated by Palestinians in the Biblical heartland.

One organization in Israel, known as Israel Trees, has dedicated their entire purpose to this endeavour. Whether it is helping support farmers, saving the land of Israel itself from those who would steal it, or simply helping the fulfill the biblical commandment and prophecy of raising fruit trees in Israel, Israel Trees is there.

For the farmers who plant fruit trees and rely on the harvests to sustain their families during the Shemitah (Sabbatical year where the land lies fallow), the year can be a very trying one. The planting and dedication of fruit trees in Israel becomes a challenge that is all the more acute.

With special biblical commandments imposed upon farmers, it often becomes difficult and cost prohibitive to plant fruit trees and to sustain a crop of fruit trees. Many farmers simply give up and plant other crops before the year begins, or ignore the commandments.

Israel Trees helps farmers out financially, with grants and no interest loans, in order to encourage them to keep the commandments and to continue their holy work of making Israel blossom with fruit trees.

The organization has planted more fruit trees than any other in the country, having planted more than 100,000 fruit trees in recent years.

According to Shlomo Walfish, spokesperson for Israel Trees, said, “Fruit trees need a lot of investment on behalf of the farmers. They require more watering and care than other trees and this makes it difficult for farmers to sustain. You can’t just plant it and leave it, like one can do with non deciduous trees, this requires hiring more staff and spending more time on these trees. The price can get prohibitive.”

Walfish outlined the problem in a bit more in-depth in a recent interview with Breaking Israel News.

“Farmers often need to go to the banks and ask for loans in order to maintain their fruit trees, and due to the high expenses that they will incur, the banks often refuse these loans. Often farmers will give up and won’t plant fruit trees since it is a huge investment,” he explained.

This past year was especially tough for farmers. This past summer saw a major conflict in between Israel and Gaza in Operation Protective Edge. The ideal time for planting, according to the Jewish agricultural cycle (before the 15th of the Jewish month of Av, which corresponded to August 10th on the Julian calendar), was right in the middle of the 50-day war, thus preventing many farmers from being able to plant during the peak season.

“We had an interesting summer,” Walfish said. “Wherever we found a hole that was created by a Hamas fired rocket during Operation Protective Edge, we planted a tree and thanked Hamas for doing the digging for us.”

The planting is usually kicked into high gear during the sixth year of the Shemitah cycle since no planting of trees is allowed during the Shemitah year itself. All trees must be planted by the 15th of the Hebrew month of Av.

“We only give money to farmers who keep the biblical commandments of agriculture,” said Walfish. “This encourages more of them to do so, and if they do, according to the Bible, then ‘God will bless the land and its bounty.’”

Many of the biblical agricultural laws pertain to fruit trees, specifically, tithes, special rules and regulations of the fruit in the first four years of the tree’s growth, and others.

The 18th century Rabbinic visionary known as the Vilna Gaon, or Elijah ben Shlomo Zalman Kremer, said that he wished he could “plant fruit trees with my own hands around Yerushalayim in order to fulfill the biblical verse of Leviticus. “

More recently, Rabbi Yosef Efrati, a leading contemporary Rabbinic authority and the head of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Halacha for Agricultural Settlements, made a halachic (Jewish legal) ruling on an the ancient principle of planting fruit trees in Israel. Rabbi Efrati stated that  “anyone who financially supports the settling of the land of Israel, has equal rights in the commandments fulfilled in that land, specifically with the commandment of the Sabbatical year of Shemitah.”

“Any time we plant trees in areas that are not populated, we claim the land,” said Walfish. “We are actually physically claiming the land as Jewish land which fulfill another biblical commandment.”

The idea of claiming the land via planting has been a law in Israel from the time of Ottoman rule over Israel. The laws have been upheld by the Israeli Supreme Court and by the Israel Land Commission over the years.

“There is a lot of land grabbing going on by Arabs and Bedouin building illegally and planting illegally. By planting fruit trees, we are claiming the land for Jews,” Walfish continued. “The farmers are the the unsung soldiers, and heroes of the land of Israel.”

Walfish also compared the act of planting fruit trees to an ancient Jewish parable about helping to feed the hungry. “If a person helps a man fish, he has fed him one meal. If he teaches a man to fish he has fed him for his lifetime. We are doing the same thing with fruit trees. When we help someone plant a fruit tree in Israel we feed them for generations. In addition we are also helping the economy and creating jobs for those who need to take care of the trees as well. We give the farmers the trees and the tools to get them going. Then they can help their entire community.”

Israel Trees is “literally planting the seeds of Israel’s future,” Walfish added.

Around springtime, there is a biblical commandment to recite a blessing of thanks on the budding fruit trees during the Hebrew month of Nissan, which falls out every year during the spring.

“During this month in which the Jews were redeemed from slavery, we give thanks for new beginnings, new hope and our livelihood, which continue to grow right before our eyes in the fruit trees that we plant in the land of Israel. No matter where you are in the world, you too can participate in this blessing. Even if you don’t donate to us, you can recite the blessing and take part in this biblical miracle unfolding all around us.”