Balancing Grief And Growth This Tu BiShvat After California's Eaton Fire

Tu BiShvat is known as the Jewish New Year for Trees. Previously, I understood this holiday through a social justice lens. Tu BiShvat readily lends itself to environmental justice, raising questions about who has access to nature, how our actions impact nature, and how we as individuals and within our communities take time to preserve the world we live in. This year, my relationship to the holiday feels much different. While still parsing through these larger questions, I am also deeply grounded in my own personal relationship with a local green space—the Eaton Canyon Nature Reserve and the grief I feel for them. 

Just over a year ago, the mountains where I hiked and the homes where I spent time with friends were reduced to toxic ash during the January 7, 2025, Eaton Fire. At the time, I interviewed fellow survivors—each variously impacted by the fires—yet they, like me, were in many ways stuck in the rawness of the recent disaster. It is difficult to describe what a community looks like after a disaster of that magnitude. In part, because so much is missing. 31 of my community members died in the fires that night. Over 18,000 homes and buildings were burnt to the ground, including the Pasadena Jewish Center. Driving through my community now, I feel the emptiness. There is no way to ignore the absence of what used to be, to look past the dirt lots that used to hold houses or the trees with blackened branches. 

The mountains reinforce this difference. 

The San Gabriel Mountains have always made me feel safe. I grew up with their ridges, and their looming presence has always brought warmth to the community; a shared love of nature amongst friends, a sense of being part of something larger than just us. The mountain almost seemed to smile down at us, usually covered in dark green tufts of various plant-life, with trees lining the top of the ridge. These pines stood straight up, reminding me in some ways of the spines on a stegosaurus, as if this mountain were also a gentle giant in our backyard. 

The mountains changed after the fire, no longer patched with scruffy bushes, but instead the greens have transformed into shriveled black remains of vegetation. The ridges along the mountainside, usually softened by the blending of beige and greenish hues, appear to me now sharper. 

This Tu BiShvat, I cannot help but consider my beloved natural area, the trees lining the mountain ridge, and the disaster that unfolded over a year ago. Moving up the mountain, so little survived from the initial burn. Yet pockets of survival peek through the oak and pine trees that managed to evade the flames. And thanks to an abundance of rainfall this December, the ridge lines have softened in appearance, filled out by tentative new growth. 

It’s hard to balance grief with new beginnings. The mountains remind me of this, present as they are every day in Altadena. No matter how the mountain life regrows and reemerges, it will be different. No matter how my community is rebuilt, it too will never be the same. 

Tu BiShvat reminds me of the importance of holding space for that growth and that difficulty. The holiday’s origins, created to help Jewish farmers mark the passage of time, are grounded in the Torah quote that “When you enter the land [of Israel] and plant any tree for food, you shall regard its fruit as forbidden. Three years it shall be forbidden for you, not to be eaten.” 

Eaton Canyon, a beautiful hiking area I have cherished since childhood, is closed and will continue to be for the foreseeable future. Forbidden, just as the fruits of a young tree. Returning to normal, or even the appearance of normal, is also restricted—not by law, but rather by the fact that this event will take time to heal from and build around. Families remain displaced from lead-filled homes, plots of land remain empty while building permits are negotiated or decisions are made about staying or leaving, and memories of the fire remain present in the daily lives of so many in our community. Rather than pushing that away, reflecting on Tu BiShvat makes me feel connected to a wider history of renewal and the pain that is associated with it. There is beauty amidst the difficulty of regrowth, and it is that knowledge I hope to keep with me for the renewal ahead.