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From Julia Neuberger, Senior Rabbi at the west London Synagogue:

I ought to be full of the love of nature, and animal love today. But I’m not. A few weeks ago, one of our window boxes outside our kitchen had clearly been dug up by some animal- a fox or a squirrel, I’d guess. Then we found a dead blackbird buried in it, and earth everywhere, and my cyclamen, and bulbs, all chewed up. Patiently, I replanted, we buried the bird, and I hoped the problem would have gone away. Not a bit of it. Now it’s been dug up six more times, with earth everywhere, plants killed, bulbs chewed… and we’ve taken to putting barbed wire around the pot. Love of animals? If I catch the fox or squirrel responsible, it’s more like hatred!

But it’s Tu Bishvat today, the 15th day of the Hebrew month of Shevat, the Jewish New Year for trees. It was once the beginning of an agricultural cycle of work, but nowadays people sometimes have a special service, and plant trees or bushes. It’s a time for ecological awareness and to celebrate nature- and some synagogues are planning to become eco-synagogues, maybe joining with churches, temples, gurdwaras and mosques too. So I’m torn. I’m celebrating nature today, and loving the jasmine being out, and the camellias. But am I allowed to exclude squirrels and urban foxes from this great love in, because they are doing so much damage? It’s a battle I clearly can’t win… but do I have to love the perpetrators too? Judaism teaches us not to cause pain to any living creature, and that God makes a covenant with all animals, just as with humanity. So I can’t harm the squirrels and the foxes, or do anything except deter them... But it’s hard to celebrate this New Year for trees, these signs of spring, when I’m bashing on my window and telling the squirrels to go away.

The answer lies in recognising that animals won’t behave like humans, and that, irritated though I am, I ought to be pleased that London, and other cities around the UK,  is home to so many wild animals. But I do wish they too understood about celebrating the new year for trees, and that it means treating plants with respect, as part of God’s creation...