New York experienced an earthquake today but I didn't feel it. I was part of a group of Trees NY volunteers helping plant some swamp white oaks on Randall's Island. It was my first time planting and, despite the din of the jackhammers clearing a space for us, an easier task than it apparently usually is: our treebeds were full of freshly dumped soil, loamy and easy to shovel. A mini forklift helped with moving the trees. The hardest part was removing the wire cages and burlap from the rootballs.
The trees had been selected, we were told, because they are hardy and long-lived native shade tree, unperturbed by vehicle emissions and dog pee. They can live to three or four hundred years.
Since it was my first tree-planting, I had to think of the constellation of sayings about the significance of this act. The one who plants trees, knowing that he will never sit in their shade, Rabindranath Tagore wrote, has at least started to understand the meaning of life. There are religious ones, too. A Hadith reports that the Prophet said
If the [Day of] Resurrection were established upon one of you,
and in his hand is a sapling, then he should plant it.
In the Mishnah, Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai says something strikingly similar: If you are holding a sapling in your hand and someone tells you, ‘Come quickly, the Messiah is here!’, first finish planting the tree and then go to greet the Messiah. (Source) A kindred sentiment attributed to Martin Luther: If I knew that tomorrow was the end of the world, I would plant an apple tree today! - although this utterance is apparently first cited in the 1940s.
