The lesson of a cactus
My sturdy, flourishing plant has a great deal to teach about the Jewish spirit
My remarkable 31-year-old Arizona cactus, which measures over three feet tall, sits comfortably in the corner of my kitchen counter, near a large window that feels the warmth of the afternoon sun.
I call it my Mom’s cactus, and my grandchildren refer to it as Boubie I’s cactus — my mother’s name was Ida — even though my mother has not lived with me for more than 20 years. She died in November 2011, but this special plant will always be hers.
The cactus began as a tiny little thing that we bought for my then 15-year-old son on a short family trip to Arizona in 1992. Once we got back home, I was really not surprised that my son rarely tended to his plant, as a teenage boy has so many far more important things on his plate.
Fortunately, a cactus, as all of us know, is a tough, stubborn sort of plant that can survive despite very little tending. After all, no one in the Arizona desert was watching over it, other than the Almighty.
My mother came to live with us a few months after our Arizona trip; she took one long look at that little, sad, essentially abandoned plant and claimed it as her own. If that cactus could walk and talk, it would likely have jumped up and down shouting: “Hooray! I am saved!”
Now my mother was a green-thumb kind of person who loved plants. I remember when I was a teenager, she had many plants warming themselves near her living room window, including a large plant that actually resembled a bush, called the Ficus benjamina, also referred to as the weeping fig. But it really didn’t matter to my mom if a plant was beautiful or simple, thin or voluminous, colorful or plain. She loved them all and was, in a manner of speaking, blind to their differences.
And no matter what, she was always comfortable and confident in how she cared for them, although it was highly unlikely that she ever read a book on the care of plants, and her own mother most certainly never related to such a hobby.
But caring for people and things was part of my mother’s soul, as it should be. She was drawn to projects that improved the lives of people, of Jewish students who wanted but could not afford a Jewish education, of those who were needy, and yes, of needy living things like plants. So she repotted my son’s cactus a number of times, talked to it, watered it sparingly, loved it fully and joyfully.
And voila! It grew and grew and thrived and seemed to smile, if ever a plant could. And by the time my mother was no longer living with us 11 years later, that little thing had grown to be over two feet tall. In Genesis Rabba 10:7, Rabbi Simon said: “There is no plant without an angel in Heaven tending it and telling it, ‘Grow!’” Perhaps there was an angel in Heaven helping our cactus, but without question my mother was its angel on earth.
Unlike my mother, I am not a green-thumb kind of person. In fact, when assessing how many plants did not survive in my care over many years, my husband would laugh and suggest that I had a brown thumb. Yes, there were mannerisms and personality traits that my mother and I shared, but phytophilia (a new word I learned that means the love of plants) was not one of them. Yet in my mother’s absence I felt a powerful responsibility and connection to her cactus. “I must help you stay alive and thrive,” I would mumble out loud while carefully watering it. It became my mission; my mother would expect it. And after she died, I was certain she was watching from Heaven.
Under my care and determination – and perhaps a newfound kind of love — the cactus grew outward and upward, so much so that after a good number of years, I worried what to do when it became clear it was in danger of hitting the kitchen ceiling. Following instructions from the plant store, I cut off approximately six inches of the top arm and firmly set the baby in a small pot of dirt right next to its mother.
Shocked by being cut off from its mama, I am convinced that little six-inch baby sat a bit comatose and did not grow at all for over a year. And then suddenly, inexplicably, without any changes in my behavior, it chose to grow. And grow. And grow. It grew taller, and thicker, and in time, arms sprouted forth and little arms grew from the bigger ones.
Now I must admit that I have become quite protective of my two plants. I rarely allow anyone else to move the mother cactus. She is quite heavy, and whenever my window washer needs to clean that window, I always move the heavy plant myself. During one of my recent trips to Israel, my painter was completing work on my den and my kitchen. I cautioned him more than once about being very, very careful when he had to move the large cactus. I made him so crazy that he actually sent me a photo of the plant sitting happily back in its usual spot after the painting was completed.
Occasionally, I have tried to grow other plants at that window; some thrive for a time but ultimately end up in the garbage. My husband would have insisted it’s that darn brown thumb that rears its ugly head. But somehow Boubie I’s cactus and its offspring are different. It is interesting to me that nothing ever grew again from the point where I cut the arm. But that one painful cut did not prevent all the other arms from sprouting out and up and continuing to grow. Nor did the baby plant that was torn from its momma wither and die. On the contrary, it sat quietly, taking its time, hurt perhaps but undeterred, and then slowly but surely, when the moment was right, it began to thrive again.
Why does all this matter so much to me, I wonder. Me, who is absolutely not a plant person, despite my own two beloved cacti? I have often asked that question of myself, searching for some hidden message. And I believe I have found my answer.
As I move through these days of reflection around Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, I wonder if perhaps my mother’s cactus is sending me a message after this frightful year following October 7. Yes, Israel’s Jews have been dealt painful blows felt throughout the Jewish world, but they are tough and resilient, like my prickly yet remarkable cactus, and always ultimately find the path to continue to grow and blossom.
Rabbi Dr. Jonathan Sacks wrote the following about the Jewish people: “The people that can know the full darkness of history and yet rejoice is a people whose spirit no power on earth can ever break.”
I smile every time I look at my momma cactus, standing proudly and majestically next to her ever-growing beautiful child, and I know my mother continues to be the angel watching over them. So it is with the Jewish people in Israel. Despite the grief and loss and hurt, they will never be defeated. They are a society of majesty, of toughness, of determination, of beauty, and of kindness. A society in which many of its citizens dream of its neighbors being blind to the differences and more interested in the similarities, as my mother was to her plants. A society that loves its children. A society determined to grow and thrive. A society that chooses life rather than death, joy rather than grief, goodness over evil.
And I believe with all my heart that the Almighty watches over them forever.
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