c. 2000 Religion News Service

(Rabbi Rudin is the national interreligious affairs director of the American Jewish Committee.)

UNDATED _ As a sixth-grade student, I was forced to memorize the famous Joyce Kilmer poem”Trees.”When the teacher told us Kilmer, a World War I hero from New Jersey, was a man, the unbelieving 11-year-olds in the class broke into peals of laughter because all the”Joyces”we knew were girls.

The laughter intensified when we read aloud the well-known line:”I think that I shall never see a poem as lovely as a tree.”I wondered why anyone would write verses about such a commonplace object as a tree.

But now, a few decades beyond the sixth grade, I am much more appreciative of Kilmer’s sentiments, even though I still find his poetry a bit dorky.

I’ll be thinking of Kilmer on Saturday, Jan. 22, when the Jewish people throughout the world celebrates Tu B’Shevat, the”New Year of the Trees.”The Hebrew term means the 15th day of the month of Shevat, and its place in the cycle of religious holidays is an annual reminder of biblical times when the ancient Israelites lovingly tended their myriad of trees. As part of the Tu B’Shevat festivities, Israeli schoolchildren will plant many new young trees.

The ancient Jewish love of trees was so deep that some trees are used in the Bible as religious symbols for tranquillity:”Every man shall sit under his vine and under his fig tree, and none shall make him afraid.” In modern times Tu B’Shevat has taken on added meaning with the rebirth of modern Israel and the massive reforestation of the land. Indeed, whenever I lead a group of Christian visitors to Israel, they are always impressed, even astonished, by the millions of trees that have been planted in the Jewish state.

A highlight of any trip to Israel is to personally plant a young seedling in one of the country’s many forests, especially those named for President John F. Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Visitors frequently mark the exact locations of the plantings and visit the spots each time they return to Israel to check on the growth of”their trees.”Trees have become a visible, loving link with the land.

But there is a special grove of trees in Jerusalem that attracts millions of visitors each year. Just outside Yad Vashem, the Israeli Holocaust museum and memorial, is a tree-lined pedestrian mall called the Avenue of the Righteous Gentiles. Every tree on this walkway is marked with a plaque containing the name and country of a person who saved Jews during the Holocaust.

But before a tree can be planted, a committee of historians thoroughly investigates each case to make certain that, indeed, the candidate did save a Jew from death at the hands of the Nazis. Israelis believe a living, growing tree is a far better symbol of tribute than a”dead”set of stones or metal.

Although each tree recounts a moment of courage and heroism, perhaps the most famous tree on Israel’s Avenue of the Righteous Gentiles is the one honoring Oskar Schindler, who has been immortalized by the novel and film”Schindler’s List.”I am sure that an emotional highlight of Pope John Paul II’s religious pilgrimage to Israel in March will be his visit to Yad Vashem and the Avenue of the Righteous Gentiles, many of whom were Polish Catholics.

As we become more aware of the fragile ecology of our tiny planet, the ancient wisdom of the Jewish New Year of the Trees takes on special relevance. The holiday teaches that while trees are sources of shade, soil conservation and food, they also represent aesthetic beauty, physical continuity and spiritual imagery.

The sacred Torah scrolls, the central focus of every synagogue, contain the original Hebrew of the first five books of the Bible written on sheepskin. The scroll itself is wound around two wooden rollers that hold the Torah together. The rollers and the Torah itself are aptly called in Hebrew”Aytz Hayim,”a”tree of life.” Happily, a growing number of religious groups keenly recognize the vital importance of both preserving and planting trees. Ecology is a leading item on synagogue and church agendas, and many American governmental bodies specifically forbid destroying a single tree without first obtaining legal permission.

As a sixth-grader, I was bored with trees, whether real or in poetry, but all that has changed with the accelerating loss of trees everywhere. Thank you Tu B’Shevat and yes, thank you Joyce Kilmer for reminding us of the preciousness of trees.

DEA END RUDIN