During the month of Shevat, we celebrate Tu B'Shevat, the holiday of the trees. By the 15^th of this month, the fruit trees in the Land of Israel are beginning to blossom. Nature is waking up, and the whole world seems to be filled with a wonderful potential.

A seed is the epitome of potential. Hidden within the seed is every root, branch and leaf of the tree it will one day give birth to. Also within the seed is every fruit it will bring into the world - hundreds and hundreds of them.

Yet when you're hungry, you can't eat a seed and be satisfied with it. When you're thirsty, you can't squeeze the seed and get some juice. And when it's hot outside, you can't sit under a seed and get some shade.

A seed in the state of potential may be a miracle, but it is a small one. It is only when the seed wakes up from its slumber and dares to become a tree - when we see what a mighty creation sprang forth from such a small beginning - that we realize how great the miracle is.

We recite Psalm 126 before we say Bircat Hamazon (Grace After Meals) on Shabbat and holidays. On these special days, which are meeting places in time with God, we are aware that we are living on two different planes of existence.

On the one hand, these days are times of oneg (enjoyment) where we enjoy, in the here and now, both physical and spiritual pleasures: fine food and wine, Torah study, good company and song. Yet despite the pleasure we receive from these days, we know it is nothing like the pleasure we will experience when God ends our "captivity" and brings about the final Redemption.

We can try to imagine what those days will be like, but we know that when the Redemption finally happens, we will realize that everything that came before was like a dream. We will wonder how we were ever satisfied with just a "taste" of the World to Come; and how we ever managed to quench our thirst for Torah in a world without the Beis Mikdash (Temple).

Laughter is a response to the unexpected. When we can guess beforehand the punch line to a joke, we just smile at the joke's ending or maybe give a polite chuckle. When the joke takes us completely by surprise, however, we break out into laughter. Why then does the psalmist not only say that we will laugh when the Redemption occurs, but that our mouths will be filled with laughter? Haven't we been waiting 2,000 years for this very event to occur? Where is the surprise?

The "nations" may, one day, be surprised to learn that God, indeed, has fulfilled His promise to the Jewish People, and we will certainly be filled with joy and song when the Exile comes to an end. But the biggest surprise of all for us will be when we look back at the past and realize that "we were happy" - during all those years of waiting and longing for the Redemption to come, our happiness was real.

To what can this be compared? When a person starts a new business, the beginning years are often tough. The owner has to put in long hours. There are often problems with cash flow, as the owner tries to build up a client base, negotiate better terms with suppliers and gradually expand. Even when the business matures, there are still causes for concern: new competitors, a changed economic climate, finding and keeping good staff.

Success is never a guaranteed result of effort, and at any moment the business can fail - taking with it, as it goes under, many hard years of work. All the long hours, all the dreams - it can seem like putting so much time, money and effort into this business was a colossal waste of time. And this can lead a person to despair and bitter regret.

But when the owner is about to retire and she sees that her business has been a tremendous success, she is not just happy at what her current balance sheet shows her. She takes pleasure in all the work she did along the way. She realizes that she was right to put in so much effort in the beginning to make the venture a success. She can see there was, indeed, a reward for all the headaches and sleepless nights. Now that she has reached the destination, she knows for sure that she was on the right track. She knows that the happiness she felt when she was just beginning was not an illusion - a fool's paradise. Her happiness was rooted in something solid. It was real.

So, too, with us. Not only will we be happy at the moment the Redemption occurs, we will look back at the 2,000 years of Exile and finally be able to fully enjoy the efforts we made, as a people, to make this Redemption happen. When we see that our prayers and tears and songs did have meaning - and that not a single one of them was lost or a waste of time - we will laugh with the joy of complete happiness.

One might think that the psalmist would end his psalm with a plea for an end to the Exile, and concentrate on all the good things that God will do for us in the future. Instead, he ends with a plea for transformation.

The word "return" has within it the word "turn," and turning has a very different meaning than ending something. An overflowing spring does not make the tract of land disappear. Instead, the spring's waters reveal the potential that was hidden inside the parched desert landscape as it transforms the land into a verdant oasis. Yet the desert also gives the spring something - it gives the spring's waters meaning.

An alien from a different galaxy might look at water and think it has no purpose - after all, water has no color or taste. It is only when we see how water gives life to all living things that we realize what a miraculous substance it is. Without the spring, there would be no oasis, and the very presence of the oasis gives honor to the spring.

And so it will be with the final Redemption. Even as we enjoy the bounty of that time, we will acknowledge that this bounty would not have been possible without those who planted the seeds of the Redemption through their performance of mitzvot (commandments) and chessed (kind deeds).

The Redemption will not be a complete break with the past and the creation of something totally new. It will be a transformation of potential - a dream of Redemption - into actuality. This transformation will occur because of our efforts as a people ("Those" who sow), and also because of each individual's efforts ("He" who walks) to bring the Redemption one step closer.

When the final Redemption occurs, we will give honor to all the seeds that were planted by a little prayer here and a few tears there. And we will be amazed that these seeds grew into such a great tree bearing such wondrous fruit.