A Passover lesson from some uninvited flowers

When had my sister developed a green thumb?

That was a question I asked myself one day when visiting my sister in a Houston suburb last year.

Looking out the back window of her ranch house, I noticed in the backyard some rows of pitcher-shaped orange-and-yellow flowers on stalks against the back fence, a series of wooden planks that separate her property from a neighbor’s on the opposite street. Straight rows of flowers, running the length of the fence, about 15 yards across, each green stalk a few inches from each other, arranged artistically, the tallest row in the rear, each row in front of it progressively shorter.

My sister, an accountant by training, had never shown much inclination for horticulture.

With Sandwich Generation responsibilities — caring for an aging mother who lived 20 minutes away in assisted living, and spending time with her nearby grown children who still looked to their mother for occasional physical and emotional assistance — when had she had time to plant and trim the flowers, or to water them?

She hadn’t.

She hadn’t planted the flowers, which I later learned were calla lilies. “Orange Pitcher” calla lilies to be exact, their glowing blooms perched atop unusually tall, about four-feet high, leafy stalks.

And my sister hadn’t trimmed ‘em. Or watered them. Or invited them into her yard.

They simply had begun showing up every year when the weather turned warm – which in southeast Texas is by late spring. Nature, in hurricane-prone Houston, takes care of the watering.

The flowers, also known as Zantedeschia aethiopica, were until 2011 the national flower of the island nation of Saint Helena.

They are known as an invasive species, spreading like a weed, but much prettier. So my sister does not object to their presence at her back fence, occupying a once-empty, rectangle-shaped patch of dirt.

Whence came the calla lilies?

From her neighbor’s yard.

Her neighbor’s yard, my sister tells me (I did not venture into a stranger’s space to express my curiosity) harbors a sizable collection of calla lilies. Near his side of the fence.

At some point, their roots and stems made the underground journey from his yard to my sister’s. And, finding some hospitable soil, they started poking out of the ground, apparently one row at a time. Arranging themselves by height, the tallest rows in back. A trained gardener couldn’t make the setup more attractive or aesthetic.

Most visitors, I assume, take it for granted, as I did, that the calla lilies, and their artistry, are my sister’s work.

The flowers did it all by themselves.

How had the flowers, dozens and dozens of ‘em, accomplished this feat?

Apparently, this is in their collective botanical DNA.

I wondered, as someone impressed by nature, and as a religious Jew who looks for patterns – or significance – where none is readily apparent, what lesson the calla lilies were teaching.

Some of my answers:

• If nature abhors a vacuum, that applies to some square-feet of dirt.
• And it will not fill that void randomly. In the case of a garden, the nearest eligible plants will assume that task.
• The hand of Man is not always required, when the products of the third day of creation, are given a free reign.
• Don’t assume that something that is gone for a while is gone forever. Hence, perennials like calla lilies.
• No permission is needed; the calla lilies simply crossed from backyard to backyard in a silent underground trek.
• Recognize other’s turf. The calla lilies did not sprout in the part of my sister’s backyard already occupied by grass.
• Put yourself in a situation where you can excel. Heshy Friedman, a friend in New York State’s Rockland County, suggested that “the flowers closest to the fence were more in the shade, so needed to use their instinct to grow more towards the sun.” The moral: “When we are in a darker area, we need to work harder to strive above the darkness.”
• Competition for recognition is not necessary. The rows of calla lilies closest to my sister’s house do not grow to a height to block the view of those behind them.
• And the universe supports a sense of order. Even among G-d’s creations that lack the ability to determine their own actions, or relations to each other. Otherwise, the calla lilies should have blossomed in a purely random fashion in my sister’s backyard.

Jewish thought teaches that creations are a proof of a Creator. So, order (seder in Hebrew) indicates the existence of an Orderer.

The calla lilies silently announce this.

Technically, horticulturists say, callas aren’t lilies, but aroids, part of the Araceae family, closer to caladiums and philodendrons. Hardy and frost-resistant, they are native to South Africa, where they are known as Varkoor. They have reached every continent, besides Antarctica.

Their English name comes from the Greek word for beauty.

Freud saw them as a symbol of sexuality. In ancient Egypt, they were a symbol of the afterlife. In Christian circles, they are associated with the Virgin Mary or with Jesus’ resurrection. In various cultures, they represent purity, or faithfulness, or devotion, or admiration, or fertility, or joy, or holiness. The peoplesflowers.com website says they would make a good Rosh HaShanah gift. Or, says Google, “a sophisticated choice for Ramadan.”

Because of their various symbolic and religious meanings, they are a popular choice at both weddings and funerals. On anniversaries and Valentine’s Day. (I should suggest that my sister, recently retired, open a calla lily sales business.)

Calla lilies, states the bouqs.com website, “grow best in groups” — as my sister’s backyard attests. “They can grow pretty much anywhere.” Perennials, they keep coming back – no matter the weather or environment.

Calla lilies, in short, are a mute symbol of the Jewish people. Who flourish when together.

Like the moon, a better-known Jewish symbol, which waxes and wanes on a regular cycle, disappearing from the sky then reappearing again, the flowers represent hope – that what, or whom, is not seen now, may well be seen again in the future.

This is one of the themes of Passover – the seder celebrates the birth and continuity of the Jewish nation, and reminds participants that “in every generation” enemies have “risen up” with genocidal intentions, and the Jewish people have triumphed and survived, returning after nearly disappearing.

My sister, on Pesach this week, won’t have to open a Haggadah to be reminded of this. She can just look out her back window.