After introducing a new technology to help plant trees in the Judean dessert, Rabbi Ari Abramowitz told an Evangelical volunteer farmer in Israel that their assistance in making the dessert bloom is reminiscent of a lesser-known prophecy in the Book of Zechariah.

The technology is called ‘Growboxx.’ It was invented by the Dutch company Grasis. The product is a box placed around a tree preventing evaporation caused by the sun. It also prevents competition from weeds for the plant’s water. The box provides the tree water it needs to blossom for anywhere from several months to a year, .

One of the volunteers is HaYovel’s Nate Waller who said in an impromptu interview with Rabbi Abramowitz that aside from just planting trees, he is “restoring the heartland of Israel. That’s really what’s happening. Bottom line – the heartland is turning into the Garden of Eden.”

Waller sees the restoration of Israel’s dessert as a personal mission and as a form of compensation for the Romans who destroyed the second Temple and caused the exile of the Jewish people saying: “the nations are actually the ones that destroyed it so the nations need to take responsibility and come back and restore it.”