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Our role as custodians and stewards of God’s earth is to protect and preserve the ecology and environment as best we can.

In this moment of transition, we will celebrate a different kind of new beginning: Tu BiSh’vat, the new year for trees. Tu BiSh’vat is an opportunity to celebrate the earth and to recommit ourselves, for another year, to environmental action.

Tu BiShvat is an opportunity to celebrate the earth and to recommit ourselves, for another year, to environmental action.

Tu BiShvat (Jewish Arbor Day) is the time of year when Israeli schoolchildren plant trees. Perhaps it’s no coincidence that a teacher instituted the tree-planting custom.

When a wildfire leveled my home when I was 20, I fell into a deep depression. Later, when I began to re-engage, I started to associate my emergence with Tu BiShvat.

This year, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Tu Bishvat (the Jewish "New Year of the Trees") both occur on January 21, 2019, and the 15^th of Shvat 5779.

Miraculously, a delicate network of threads is emerging amongst us, linking us heart to heart.

The sukkah is a symbol of fragility. We build the temporary structure each year and know that it is only meant to last for the week-long holiday. It sways in the breeze. The raindrops land inside. The animals nibble at our decor. We know it could come crashing down on us.