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From Harvey Belovski, Rabbi at Golders Green United Synagogue:

I was in Windsor last week and I went running along the path by the river, with calm water, gliding swans and lovely trees.听 It鈥檚 one of my very favourite places to get some exercise, enjoy the surroundings and even devise my next sermon, or Pause for Thought.听

It won鈥檛 surprise anyone that I鈥檓 not an graceful runner.听 In fact, the sight of a middle-aged rabbi in shorts panting along the river may well have frightened the swans.听 But at least I didn鈥檛 meet anyone from my community.

I think it鈥檚 great to see real trees.听 I once read a fascinating book by a former advertising executive called Jerry Mander.听 He became disillusioned with aspects of modern life and wrote passionately about a return to small, local experiences.听

Mander says that since the invention of television, people have tended to experience nature indirectly, through images or movies rather than the real thing.听 A TV 鈥� or internet 鈥� tree might look real, but it isn鈥檛; it鈥檚 presented through someone else鈥檚 eyes 鈥� you can鈥檛 touch, smell or hear a tree on a screen.听

And its size, angle, colouring, even which parts of it you can see and which you can鈥檛 are decided by someone else.听Mander calls this a mediated experience 鈥� not a real one.听 He urges us to abandon mediated TV trees and return to real ones.

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There are many layers to this story, but I love the idea that the first recorded human experiences take place surrounded by trees.听 It鈥檚 true that it goes badly wrong 鈥� Adam and Eve eat the forbidden fruit and are expelled from paradise.听

But I believe that the need to connect directly with nature, especially trees, will have remained with them 鈥� and, by extension, all of us.听 It鈥檚 a deep-seated need, one that all of us can achieve with a walk in the park, a visit to the country or even a rather inelegant early-morning jog along the Thames.