Did you know that trees are natural carbon capture and storage machines, absorbing carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere through photosynthesis then locking it up for centuries?
It's why planting trees in the right way is considered to be a huge tool in impacting the climate around us in a positive way.
Trees also provide so many other benefits, ranging from their making the air around you cleaner, to providing beautiful fruit, to being used as a source of wood for homes, furniture and so much more, shade and even cooling the air around us.
Obviously another huge component of trees is their ability to provide seeds to plant even more trees.
In a few days we will be celebrating Tu B'Shevat, the Jewish New Year for the trees. The Talmud gives us several reasons as to why we celebrate it specifically now in the middle of the Winter.
This holiday which was also used to effect the timing and calculation of certain tithes that we were to be taken each year from one's crops, is also a time when we stop and acknowledge the specific gifts of trees to mankind and the world.
Many have a tradition of eating from the seven fruits that the Land of Israel is blessed with, on Tu B'Shevat, and we try to say a Shehechiyanu on a new fruit.
In addition to all of this, there is also the powerful idea that the Torah teaches us, that the human is compared to a tree. This means that we too, need to have strong roots, make sure we have the right irrigation and nurture, are growing in a healthy environment and are hopefully producing fruits on good deeds which will yield even more blessings.
If growing healthy trees is something so positive for the environment, then certainly working on cultivating healthy human beings and especially children, and making sure that they are getting the spiritual and moral nutrients that they need, getting the warmth and love that they need to grow, and growing up in a healthy atmosphere, will certainly be good for our world in a way that is far more profound and impactful than we can even imagine.
This Tu B'Shevat may the world get all the blessings that it needs for the Trees and all they provide to humanity and the environment, and also to each one of us, the human trees, that we too grow as we should and provide the world with the amazing potential that is inherently part of our design.
Please join us this evening at 6pm for First Fridays Kabbalat Shabbat.
Following the Services, there will be a pre Tu B'Shevat Shabbat Dinner for those who have reserved.
Shabbat Shalom
Yisroel