the greening of the trees

f you have ever sat in the shade of an old olive tree, you know its like being embraced by an elder or even an ancestor. Ancient olive trees are known for their twisted, gnarly trunks and silvery leaves. The first time I encountered olive trees that were hundreds of years old was in the West Bank of Palestine. I placed my hand on the tree’s limb and was instantly transported into the arms of my nana, who used to gently scratch my forearms with her knobby fingers, joints gnarled from years of arthritis, skin paper thin. 

It says in the Torah that when you go to war (why must we go to war?!), you are not to cut down the fruit trees. Consider them like human beings, consider them civilians, says Torah. I thought of this verse earlier this week when I read that 48% of all of the trees in Gaza have been destroyed, most of them fruit trees, many of them ancestral. It will take generations for the earth to regenerate. 

This week marks six months since October 7. Six months of kaddish for the 1200 Israelis who were murdered. Six months of relentless siege displacing 2 million civilians in Gaza, killing more than 32,000, and starving the rest of them. I do not know the words to describe the horror of this genocide. 

This week also marks the beginning of the month of Nisan and the coming of Spring. There is a special blessing that can only be recited under the moon of Nisan called Birkat Ilanot, the blessing of the trees. It is specifically designated that we should bless the flowering of fruit trees in Nisan: Blessed are You, Source of all Life, whose world lacks nothing and who made wondrous creations and beautiful trees for human beings to enjoy.

With the cherry blossoms popping off and their flowers frosting the sidewalk, I feel called to gratitude, wonder and delight. And also to disgust and disgrace and despair. What is the blessing for a felled fruit tree? What is the blessing for fertile ground turned to “sand, shit and decomposing flesh”? 

Every year at this time, at the same time as I seek out trees to bless, I return to words of Ada Limón, in her poem, Instructions on not giving up,

“More than the fuchsia funnels breaking out
of the crabapple tree, more than the neighbor’s
almost obscene display of cherry limbs shoving
their cotton candy-colored blossoms to the slate
sky of Spring rains, it’s the greening of the trees
that really gets to me. When all the shock of white
and taffy, the world’s baubles and trinkets, leave
the pavement strewn with the confetti of aftermath,
the leaves come. Patient, plodding, a green skin
growing over whatever winter did to us, a return
to the strange idea of continuous living despite
the mess of us, the hurt, the empty. Fine then,
I’ll take it, the tree seems to say, a new slick leaf
unfurling like a fist to an open palm, I’ll take it all.”

This year I need these words more than ever. Despite the mess of us, we must find courage and endurance in the slick leaves unfurling all around us, green skin growing over what this winter has done to us, and to mother earth herself. 

Join me, let the greening of the trees really get to you. Find the strength to bless this brutal, beautiful world. Today and everyday.