On this day, we ask a lot of questions. Not like Passover, when we sit and eat, laugh and make jokes, and drink our wine. On Tisha B’av we mourn our loss, as Jews, and Humans, and as Pieces of an Ecosystem. This Holiday is not meant to prod us to ask questions, but yet, when we mourn we can do almost nothing but ask, “why?” I won’t try to answer any”why?” questions, but the next question that I heard today moved me. We were discussing what it means to be mourning for the human loss, and not just the loss, and asking what we can do. What can we do, to give our lamentation meaning that lasts beyond the day of official, enforced mourning.
To the question of “what can we do?”, the only answer that I can think of is to empower ourselves, and to empower those around us. Every day, we make choices in our live that impact our world, both close to home and far away. The things we do as we attempt to feed and clothes those dear to us have ramifications that go beyond the spiritual work of mourning and have the power to uplift lives everywhere. In our workplace, we can recognize the links that we play in a global or local chain of goods and services and seek to purchase true “economic goods.” I’m not talking about a washing machine that lasts for ten years, I’m talking about a washing machine that is good for me because it uses less water to wash my clothes, it’s good for the manufacturer because she uses recycled parts, it’s good for my brother in Bangladesh because it uses a fraction of the electricity that most machines use and doesn’t raise the sea level outside his field.
On a day when I choose not to eat (freeing up about 3 hours), I have time to reflect on the deep impact of my food choices on the world around me. Buy the tomato that’s really “good”. Food doesn’t have to be a commodity. Buy a tomato from a farmer who cares; it’s not just better for you, it really makes a difference.
This is from Jeff Yoskowitz, one of the Adamah Fellows (see previous Adamah posts). We are blessed to live in a community that includes Jews, vegetables and animals — and we are learning that the cycles of life and death are sometimes surprising, always awe-inspiring.PLEASE NOTE: This post contains graphic description and images of animal slaughter.
Today one of Aitan’s goats died (Aitan is a part-staff member of Adamah who also has a pasture down the road). The kid was a female named D’vash, which means honey in Hebrew. Apparently she was eating out of the grain feeder and somehow had her head get caught on fencing and her neck snapped. Aitan and I suspect that one of the other kids playfully pushed her as happens a lot, and her poor positioning trapped her neck and led to her death.
Read more »
It’s that time of year – the zucchini time of year. Recall Forest Gump: Zucchini pancakes, zucchini tarts, fried zucchini, sautéed zucchini, baked zucchini, zucchini frittatas….
Thing is, after so much zucchini, it still sometimes seems that there aren’t enough things to do with it. I crave it all winter long, and then wham! four weeks of zucchini madness. I have a few zucchini posts coming up in the next few days, with some of my favorite zucchini recipes, and I’d love it if you’d share yours too! To start things off, though, a few thoughts about harvesting, and the exodus from Egypt.
Read more »
Rabbi Ben Bag-Bag used to say of the Torah: “Turn it and turn it again, for everything is in it. Pore over it, and wax gray and old over it. Stir not from it for you can have no better rule than it” - Pirke Avot 14:25, Sayings of Our Fathers.
Whether we stir or not, though it definitely helps to stir, compost happens. We are all witness to the irrefutable process of decay in varying degrees of time, as benign as the gradual whither of a solitary banana left in the fruit bowl too long (alright already you know who you are: you cannot continue to ignore that mealy brown banana in your kitchen any longer…it’s bordering on neglect now…time to make a decision…turn brown ‘nanas into ‘nanabread!), or perhaps more tragically, the swift demise of those raspberries that hosted a mold convention—several different molds—within a day of being washed and refrigerated (I have a strict policy of having no “wounded soldiers” by eating any berries I buy on the way home).
Read more »
It’s U-Pick time! This weekend I had the great pleasure of going berry-picking — blueberries and cherries — and I am feeling overwhelmed and in awe of the shefa, abundance, of the earth’s produce.
It’s true, I’m working on a farm this summer, and I have my fill abundance right here. We’re just starting to reap the most amazing gifts from the Sadeh: basil, tomatoes, cabbages, kale, collards, swiss chard, beets, daikons, cucumbers, zucchini, summer squash — and today, for the first time, garlic!
And on Shabbat last week we had several dishes that were made mostly or entirely from food that we had grown, or made from our animal products. Tzatziki from our cucumbers, garlic scapes and yogurt we made from our goat milk (if anyone has any ideas for local replacements to lemon juice, let me know!) A zucchini-carrot caserole with eggs from our chickens, and our own squash and onions. My favorite creation is a garlic scape pesto: finely chopped garlic scapes, olive oil, kosher salt and red chili flakes makes a tasty sauce for just about anything.
But this didn’t keep me from going out this weekend to pursue even more of the season’s delights: FRUIT.
Read more »
Our Chief Pickler at Adamah, Josh Rosenstein, went on vacation for two weeks — just as the first succession of cucumbers was ripening and ready for harvest. I have stepped in to manage operations while he’s gone. What an unexpected and delightful realm of food learning this has opened up!
Many wisdom traditions teach that each person has within them all the tools they need to live their life. Bernie Glassman suggests in his Zen Buddhist “Instructions to the Cook” that each of us has all the necessary ingredients to cook the perfect meal. And Moses reassures us from Deuteronomy, “Lo ba-shamayim hi” — the truth of the Torah is not in heaven, some far off place which we cannot access; rather, it is right here in our midst. With pickles I am learning this simple and beautiful truth all over again.
Read more »
So I got up at 5am yesterday — as has become my routine on Fridays — to bake a massive batch of challah with Julie, Freedman’s bread and cake baker extraordinaire. Challah for 100 people — the risen dough fills a bowl you could take a bath in!
Except this time — the dough didn’t rise. After three hours in the hot kitchen (proofing oven? who needs a proofing oven? the whole kitchen is like a giant proofing oven!) and no dough action, despair set in, a hasty trip to the store for more flour was made, and we started over.
But the dough was still tasty sweet egg bread dough, and I was loathe to throw it all out. So I saved some, and this morning I made cinnamon twists. Kind of a cross between breadsticks and cinnamon buns, this was a very sweet way to salvage the unrisen dough.
Here’s how: Read more »
By Jeff Yoskowitz, Adamah Fellow
Today is the 17th of Tammuz. It’s a Jewish fast day commemorating many calamities that befell the Jewish people and begins a three week period of mourning leading up to Tisha B’Av. Among other events, this day commemorates when Moses descended from Mt. Sinai with the tablets and found the Israelites worshiping the golden calf, when the priests in the First Temple Period ceased to make sacrifices due to the beginning of the siege on Jerusalem and when the Romans publicly burned the Torah and laid the groundwork for their siege on Jerusalem in 70 CE.
I spent this holy fast day in the hot sun working on the tomatoes. I’ve been made “the tomato guy” here at Adamah and have enjoyed my work suckering and stringing the many different varieties of tomatoes. “Suckering” is cutting off new growth points which direct energy away from the main stem. By removing them, the main stem retains most of the plant’s energy and its fruits grow much bigger. It also feels nice to give the plant a haircut. Stringing the tomatoes helps them to grow tall and strong.
Since the harvest is just beginning, for the past few days I’ve ended my work with a little treat from one of the few ripe tomatoes — usually a yellow tomato. Today was a bit different than usual, though…
Read more
Abby with one of our goat kids
Every two weeks we have a different chore to do. This rotation, I’m milking goats.
We milk & feed our goats before breakfast –- it’s a mitzvah to take care of your animals before yourself in the morning. And it’s an odd kind of pressure, to wake up, especially on the weekend when I *could* sleep in if I wanted, knowing that there are two beautiful she-goats with full udders, who will be more and more uncomfortable every time I press snooze. We are grateful to our animals, and we appreciate eating their eggs and drinking their milk, and I think we appreciate it more because of the work involved in getting it.
Read more »
This summer working on the farm at Adamah I’m learning that making things is extremely enjoyable. We are satisfied because it is our hands that have weeded the onions, our milking and washing the jars, and prepping the feed, that brings our milk to our table. No wonder God said “it was good” after every day of creation. God was making things! And having a damn good time.
I offer this as preamble to my latest most exciting project. And while it’s not strictly on the Adamah curriculum, this summer is the first time I’ve found myself to take it on in earnest: bread the ancient way, catching the living yeast in the air….SOURDOUGH!
Read more »
In honor of my parents, Edith & Richard Stevenson, on their 27th wedding anniversary today -– may the next 27+ be just as full of joy and adventure!
It’s the end of our fourth week here at Adamah. We’ve marked time with Shabbatot, a Rosh Chodesh, and yesterday, the summer solstice. And so, I’m stepping back to consider what it is I’m doing here, what it was I was hoping to learn, what in fact I have discovered.
The most important realization has come around what I am actually doing. I wanted to work on a farm this summer because after talking so much about CSA, farmer’s markets, eating locally, supporting organic agriculture, on and on about the benefits for health and community — I had never actually experienced what it was like to do the growing, the actual agriculture itself. I told everyone – I’m going to grow food all summer! I can’t wait!
Well, we’ve been busy dawn till dusk, doing and learning all kinds of things, but in four weeks I realized I’m not doing the one thing I came here for. I’m not growing food.
Read more »
It’s hard to get excited about mulching. In fact, most aspects of farming are tedious and not too exciting. Sitting in the library researching various food commodities over the years has meant that I have spent many an hour day dreaming about becoming a farmer and how beautiful and fulfilling my life would be.
I am a farmer now. A Jewish farmer to boot. I’m currently a participant of Adamah, the Isabella Freedman’s Jewish organic farming program that Anna has written about. My name is Jeff and this is my first post on The Jew and The Carrot.
Read more »
My friend sent me a card the other day with this quote on it:
We have not inherited the world from our ancestors. We are borrowing it from our children.
It is a remarkable thought because it shifts our view of history from a series of events culminating in the crowning glory of this present life, to a vision of an even better future, for which our lives are the foundation.
For some reason it is difficult for us to plan ahead, though, to plan our present with a mind for what we hope for in the future. I remember when I was first organizing events at Hazon and we wanted to have them listed in the JCC calendar. An event taking place in June needed a blurb, title and date by the previous December, and I was incredulous at the lead time.
On a farm, the lead time is even more tangible. The entire year is a process of planning, planting and harvesting. The glimpse I’ve gotten of this in one week on this farm is quite a powerful example of how growing your own food is so cosmically grounding, and so profound an experience of Jewish life.
Read more »
Shalom! I am happy to report back to jcarrot from the beautiful wilderness of upstate Connecticut — more specifically, the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center and a program called Adamah which I have the great privilege to be a part of this summer.
Adamah is a 3-month long fellowship for 20-somethings to explore Jewish identity and learn about organic farming. We are 14 people, with different histories with Judaism, different (often no) experience with farming, from all over the US, Canada and Israel. We’ve only been here two days, but already we have learned about goat farming, weeding, compost, irrigation, climbed to the top of a mountain, shared hopes and fears, learned about group mediation, and jumped sweaty and hot into a watering hole.
I’ll write as often as I can to give you a sense of some of what I’m learning up here. I have to say from even these two days, though, that I expect this summer to be an amazing experience. I’ve done a lot of talking about food, I can tell you up down and sideways why you should join a CSA, support your local farmer, shop at a farmers market, eat seasonally, eschew high-fructose corn syrup. But I’ve never actually grown things in the ground in quite this way.
So far, I can tell you some stories from my experiences this morning, in the Sadeh (our 4-acre field), doing the weeding.
Read more »
