Zelig Golden is the co-found of Wilderness Torah, a Bay Area based organization that awakens and celebrates the earth-based roots of Judaism to nourish the connections between self, earth, community and Spirit. Zelig’s greatest passion is connecting people to their highest purpose through facilitating their connections to Nature and Spirit. A community Maggid, vision quest guide, and environmental educator and attorney, Zelig brings ten years of visionary leadership to the Jewish environmental community. He brings earth-based Jewish spirituality to the Bay Area by developing and guiding programs such as the Jewish Vision Quest, the B’nai Mitzvah Nature-Mentoring program, and Wilderness Torah’s annual cycle of land-based pilgrimage festivals. To help build the national Jewish Food Movement, Zelig is a member of the Hazon Board of Directors and co-chaired Hazon’s 2008 Food Conference. He is also active in the Jewish farm movement as an adviser and educator for the Jewish Farm School. Zelig derives much inspiration from his 2006 season farming, teaching and pickling at the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center’s Adamah program; as well as his years as a Colorado Outward Bound instructor, an Alaskan backcountry park ranger and a life-long explorer of wild places. Zelig got his start in the Jewish environmental movement in 1998 as the first program director of the COEJL-affiliated Northwest Jewish Environmental Project. Until recently, he worked as an environmental attorney for the Center for Food Safety to protect our food and farms.
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In Va-Yechi, our creation story culminates with Jacob on his deathbed blessing his sons. (Gen. 49.) He highlights characteristics that are unique to each of his twelve sons, the fathers of our twelve tribes. According to Rashi, five of these blessings focus on the agricultural specificity of each tribe’s territory in the Land of Israel.
For Zevulun, Jacob promises that he “shall dwell at the edge of the sea. His will be a shore for ships…” (Gen. 49:13.) The Talmud Megillah tells how the beaches of Zevulun were home to the molluscs from which techelet dye (for the blue tallis thread) could be extracted. (Talmud Bavli Megillah 6b.) His territory was agriculturally poor but a lucrative resource for snail-farming.
Jacob’s blessing of Judah describes a land of vines and garments dyed with wines. (Gen. 49: 11.) For Issachar, “He saw a resting place, that it was good, and the land that it was pleasant,” (Gen. 49:15.) Rashi writes, “He saw that his part of the land was blessed and would produce good fruit.” (Rashi, Gen. 49:15, s.v. vayar minucha ki tov) Issachar, whose tribe’s destiny was immersion in Torah learning, was bestowed a place where fruits grew in abundance, making the food life easy and devotion to study practical.
In this month of Tammuz, we confront a great paradox. The sun is passing through its highest point in the sky. Flowers are blooming, tomatoes are just starting to burst from the vine, and berries – mmm, the berries – this is the time of greatest abundance. Dipping into cool waters at this time is one of life’s greatest joys.
Yet in our tradition, we are moving through a time of deep reflection and mourning for loss. On the 9th of Tammuz, the first exile of the Jews began as the Judean King abandoned the Temple and the Babylonians breached the outer walls of the Temple. (Babylonian Talmud, Ta’anit 26a-b.) Today, on the 17th of Tamuz, Jews traditionally fast from sun-up to sun-down, mourning the destruction of the Temple. This is also recognized as the day when Moses dashed the first set of Tablets from Sinai in response to our worship of the Golden calf. (Exodus 32:19.)
