Rabbi Daniel Siegel – Head of Jewish Life

New Years

This Thursday past marked the beginning of our new school year as well as Tu BiShevat, the New Year of the Trees.

We could say that the coinciding of these two new years reminds us that we are like trees. Just as trees need nurturing and tending to grow, develop and mature, so do we need caring and guidance to become knowledgeable, thoughtful and sensitive human beings.

We care about the environment, we call ourselves environmentalists and “Environmentalism” has become the celebrated core of Tu BiShevat, our New Year of Trees.

This is a quote from a well known Jewish website:

‘For environmentalists, Tu B’Shevat is an ancient and authentic Jewish connection to contemporary ecological issues…Tu B’Shevat is an opportunity to raise awareness about and to care for the environment through the teaching of Jewish sources celebrating nature. It is also a day to focus on the environmental sensitivity of the Jewish tradition.’

Tu BiShevat, however, is not about environmentalism. In fact, Judaism rejects environmentalism.

Environmentalism, from the word “environ”, speaks about the world that is “around” us, our environment. This is antithetical to Jewish teachings and to our understanding of the world.

From the very start, as noted in the Biblical creation story, we have seen ourselves as one with, not surrounded by or separate from, nature.

The first human, Adam, derives his name and being from adamah, the earth. He originates from and returns to the earth, his life being is never divorced from it, it is not around him, it is him. We are all Adam – “earth beings”.

The term human derives from humanus, meaning both human and earth (as humus means earth).

The first woman, presented in the Bible, is Chavah, which means אם כל חי/eim kol chai – “The Mother of All Life”.

According to Judaism, all of us, like our primordial ancestors, are akin with nature. The natural world is not our environment, we are one and the same in our being and our becoming.

I would like to share a midrash, a Rabbinic teaching, which you might have heard.

When God created Adam, the primordial earth-being, he took him and walked him through all the trees of the Garden of Eden. And, he said to him: See how beautiful and praiseworthy this world is. Be always cognisant not to corrupt and destroy this world, for if you do so, there will be no one to repair it after you.

There will be no one to repair our destruction not because once gone our natural world cannot be brought back. But, in destroying our natural world we destroy ourselves.

We could say we are like trees, we need caring and nurturing. But, beyond being like trees, as this midrash teaches, we are trees and trees are us. We flourish or perish together. It is not our environment, it is who we are.

As we start a new school year, this Tu BiShevat, may we be blessed to grow and flourish, being ever mindful that to do so we must bestow the same blessing upon our natural world of which we are and, hopefully, will always be a part.