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These are the times for which Tu B'Shevat was created. The rabbis who envisioned this holiday were prophetic: They knew we would need to be reminded on a regular basis about howimportant trees are to our lives. And trees have never been more important to our survival than they are today.
"We're all healing -- emotionally, psychologically, ecologically," said Paul M. Ginsberg, director of the Forest Department in the Northern Region Office of Keren Kayemeth Leisrael (KKL), the Israeli arm of the Jewish National Fund. He stood on a hillside looking over the Hula Valley, north of the Sea of Galilee. At his back was a hillside forest of trees, many of them charred from last summer's rocket fire.
When I was a kid in Hebrew school, all we did to celebrate Tu B'Shevat was send some money to Israel to plant a tree.
Not unimportant, but hardly a High Holiday.