Jewish community of Cairns celebrated the New Year for Trees by volunteering for the council
Cairns Jewish Community has celebrated the ecological new year for trees by planting trees for the council to enhance the beauty of the city.
Enthusiastic helper
Both young and old from all walks of life got their hands dirty with their shovels and soil as part of the Tu B’Shevat holiday marking the New Year for Trees.
Tree planting is part of the traditional celebrations of the holiday and will be repeated in hundreds of communities throughout the world. According to Rabbi Ari Rubin, “We humans can also celebrate along with the trees. After all, the Torah says ‘Man is a tree of the field’ we are nurtured by our deep roots, as far back as Abraham and Sarah; We reach upwards to the heavens with our feet firmly in the ground; and when we do good deeds we produce fruits to benefit the world – namely, our good deeds.”
Tu B’Shevat is the 15th day of the Jewish month of Shevat and marks the beginning of a new year for trees and plant life. Customarily, a tree is considered to have aged one year every Tu BiShevat. The age of trees is important because Jewish Tradition mandates that fruits grown in Israel cannot be eaten for the first few years of the tree’s life. Often people celebrate TuBiShevat by eating a new fruit, planting a tree, or collecting money for trees and Israel.
