Sometimes Systems Change Needs a Children’s Story

Tonight marks Tu Bishvat — the New Year for Trees.

I was at Friday night services this week when our rabbi shared a story that’s been working my brain ever since.

It didn’t feel like a sermon. It felt more like storytime at the Stanislaus County Library when I was a kid — everyone leaning in a little, ready to be taken somewhere else.

The story was Honi and the Carob Tree. It’s often told as a children’s story, and honestly? That feels exactly right. Because sometimes the only way to understand complex, adult-sized realities — like systems change, justice, or community healing — is through a story simple enough for our kids.

Here’s the short version:

Honi sees an old man planting a carob tree. He asks why. The man explains that the tree won’t bear fruit for seventy years. Honi is confused. Why plant something you’ll never benefit from? The man shrugs and says, essentially, “My ancestors planted for me. I’m planting for those who come after.”

That’s it. That’s the whole story.

And sitting there, listening, all I could think was: Oh. This is systems change. This is the work I’m in most days.

So many people talk about systems change like it’s a home reno project: tear out what’s broken, install something better, and voilà. But through my work in complex systems, I’ve come to know it’s more like planting a tree. A very slow tree. A tree that doesn’t care about your timeline, your grant cycle, or your strategic plan.

These systems carry habits, histories, and harms that don’t disappear just because we’re motivated or well-intentioned. And yet, so many of us expect visible results almost immediately. If change doesn’t show up fast enough, we start questioning the work. Or perhaps more painfully, ourselves.

And it’s not just our own impatience. There are real pressures at play. Funding cycles. Deliverables. Community expectations. Urgency. The need to demonstrate “success” as proof that an investment was worth making.

The problem is that the biggest changes rarely show up on schedule. So, maybe out of habit or self-preservation, we end up shrinking the work instead of letting the work be as big as it actually is.

The old man planting the carob tree doesn’t do that. He doesn’t rush. He doesn’t demand proof. He plants anyway.

But the part of the story that stayed with me most wasn’t actually about the tree.

After this exchange, Honi falls asleep. And not just for a nap. He sleeps for seventy years!

And I found myself thinking: Of course he does. I want to sleep, too.

Because how else could a human being survive that kind of waiting?

And it’s not just me.

I spend a lot of time with people who want to quit, too. Smart, committed people who are doing real work and still feel discouraged because they’re not seeing the results they hoped for. They start wondering if they’re doing it wrong, or if the work itself just doesn’t work.

But the truth is, most of the time, nothing is actually wrong. It’s just slow.

In real life, we don’t get to sleep for seventy years. As tempting as that sounds some days, our trees don’t grow on their own. They need tending.

Honi doesn’t have to stand there watching the tree not grow. He doesn’t have to measure progress. He doesn’t have to work through getting discouraged year after year. He doesn’t have to answer to a bunch of people demanding to know when, why, how, how much, and so on.

Honi sleeps. He releases himself from the unbearable task of witnessing every slow, invisible moment.

When he wakes up, the tree is grown. The fruit is being enjoyed by people who don’t know his name.

There’s something quietly devastating - and honest - about that.

And here’s where the story stopped being theoretical for me.

I have to remind myself frequently that the work I do may not bear fruit until I’m gone. That this work is generational in both time frame and scale. That what I’m contributing to may only become visible long after I’ve stepped out of the picture.

And that is so hard.

I want to quit with a frequency that would probably surprise people. I get tired. I get discouraged. I sometimes wish I could just take a very long nap and wake up to things being better - without having to live through all the in-between.

But I stay.

I stay because I was born to do this work. And not alone. I was born to do it with all of you. I stay because something in me knows that planting matters, even when I don’t get to harvest. And I think I needed this story badly.

Which is why I’m sharing it.

Tu Bishvat, the New Year of the Trees, invites us to honor slow growth, deep roots, and what’s happening beneath the surface. It reminds us that just because we can’t see progress doesn’t mean nothing is happening.

The work isn’t to hurry the fruit. The work is to keep planting, to rest when we need to, and to stay.