| Next to the sea there was an old olive tree.
This one was especially old. Thousands and thousands of years old. So old that most of the
trunk was dead and rotten and the few branches carried no leaves.
Once this
tree had been young and active, producing olives by the bushel and giving shade. Its
olives had been taken to other countries and some had been used as seeds to grow olive
trees where none had grown before; so that other people could benefit from the olive tree.
The old tree still stood. It had been climbed over. Wood had been cut from it. Lightning
had struck it and fire had burned it, but the tree still stood. Its roots deep, deep in
the earth. As the farmers in the area had not maintained the olive tree, so they also
neglected to maintain the ground nearby.
Then a
farmer brought some of the tree’s descendants back to this piece of land by the sea.
Some of the saplings that he brought were direct seedlings and others were seedlings of
hybrids. This farmer recognized the strength of the tree’s bulk despite its poor
condition and he grafted several of the saplings onto the trunk so that the fresh youth of
the saplings could grow onto the established old root system.
Through
flood, famine and fire nothing had ever damaged the old tree’s roots. So the grafted
saplings took and grew and flourished, producing again olives of such high quality that
other farmers came from everywhere to compare and to wonder. The old tree had been knocked
about and damaged, but it forgave its many attackers. It offers shade again and gives
olives to all who ask. Its beauty is a joy to all. The name of this old Olive tree -
ISRAEL.
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