In this week’s parsha Be-Har (“on the mountain”) we are given the agricultural law of Shemita, a Sabbath for the land. “Six years you may sow your field and six years you may prune your vineyard and gather the yield. But in the seventh year the land shall have a Sabbath of complete rest.” (Lev. 25:2-4). In lieu of working the land, we are told to eat what the land produces without effort, and give freely of the bounty to all who are hungry.

Parsha Be-Har also gives us the jubilee – a complete release of all land ownership and release of all slaves every fifty years. (Lev. 25:8-10). “Seven times seven years—so that the period of seven weeks of years gives you a total of forty-nine years… and you shall hallow the fiftieth year…You shall proclaim release throughout the land for all its inhabitants.” (Lev. 25:8-10).

It’s no coincidence that we are given Shemittah and jubilee during this holy time of counting the Omer.

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I just had one of the most revelatory food experiences of my life, and I didn’t even eat a single bite. Read on if you’d like to see how the Broadway musical South Pacific might inspire your Passover Seder this year. Read more »

(x-posted at Lilith)

Today, I disagreed with Michael Pollan. (I know - I’m a little bit scared too.) According to an article in today’s NY Times, my favorite foodie believes that the rising price of commodity crops like wheat, corn, and soybeans is a good thing. The Times reports:

“[Pollan] likes the idea that some kinds of food will cost more, and here’s one reason why: As the price of fossil fuels and commodities like grain climb, nutritionally questionable, high-profit ingredients like high-fructose corn syrup will, too. As a result, Cokes are likely to get smaller and cost more. Then, the argument goes, fewer people will drink them.”

In other words, if the price of a Big Mac goes up high enough, then people will switch to purchasing vegetables at the farmers’ market. Now, don’t get me wrong, I am happy to be member of Pollan’s shul - I buy his argument that paying more for “good” food like free range eggs or organic milk is worthwhile, and that cheap foods are falsely cheap (though perhaps not for long).

But I think Pollan’s assertion that: A (foods made with commodity crops) + B (higher prices on those crops) = C (consumers purchasing more fruits and veggies from small farms) doesn’t necessarily hold up for the majority of the country’s eaters.

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“If an idolator gives a banquet for his son and invites all the Jews in his town, then, even though they eat of their own and drink of their own and their own attendant waits on them, Scripture regards them as if they had eaten of the sacrifices to dead idols…” - Talmud Bavli, Avodah Zarah 8:1

All this recent talk on the blog about choice and continuity in Judaism got me thinking about the Talmudic text quoted above. (Before I front like I’m too cool for school, I readily admit that Hazon’s staff just read this text* during a staff meeting, which is why it’s at the front of my consciousness.)

In my eyes, this - along with a few similarly prohibitive verses - sits as one of the more distressing texts in Jewish tradition because it implies that Jews should not eat with “non-Jews” (in the non-Jew’s home), even if the food they’re eating in that home is otherwise kosher. Why? Because eating symbolizes so much more than filling our bellies - it’s social, it connects us to other people, and it could, as they say, lead to mixed dancing…

More thoughts and a cholent recipe below the jump.

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Since the days of the Bible, Jewish tradition has had something to say about appropriate waste disposal:

“Further, there shall be an area for you outside the camp, where you may relieve yourself. With your gear you shall have a spike, and when you have squatted you shall dig a hole with it and cover up your excrement.”– Deuteronomy 23:13-14

The latest in waste technology, however, is not in spikes and holes, but one of the oldest tricks in the book: compost. Consider this fact: flush toilets account for 40% of household water consumption in Israel. In other words, almost half of the water used in Israeli households goes to disposal and transport (through the sewage system) of peoples’ daily needs. A new company, operating according to a “Jewish-holistic, small is beautiful” philosophy, believes that this is unnecessary. In a country where a chronic water shortage causes rivers, lakes and nature preserves to dry up, brings about the collapse of ecosystems and exacerbates an already intractable political situation, they just might be onto something.  Read more at Treehugger.com:

Can the Composting Porto-Potty Solve Israel’s Water Woes?
By Jesse Fox, Tel Aviv, Israel
February, 02, 2008
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Many people complain that it’s difficult to find a synagogue to join in New York City. There are just so many options, that none of them feel exactly right - you might call it The Shul-Goers Dilemma. These days, however, I’m feeling pretty good at Temple Bet Pollan.

Michael Pollan gets his fair share of love on this blog, and his new book In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto has already joined its predecessor, The Omnivore’s Dilemma as a New York Times Best Seller. Pollan is in the middle of his second whirlwind book tour in two years (I guess he sleeps on the plane) – and I hear the same account every where he goes. Huge venue, sold out show, knockout performance.

Like any effective leader - Martin Luther King included - he’s charismatic and big on the big ideas that change the way we think - or in this case how we eat. But as I devoured (pun intented) Pollan’s new book on my subway commute, I wondered what, if anything, does his worldview offer to the Jewish community? And, perhaps more interestingly, what wisdom does the tribe have to offer back to him?

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I still remember the first time my suburban food-bubble was burst, when I realized the implications of fruit sold according to season. I was in Israel, and became completely dumbfounded when I couldn’t find the strawberries…”whaddya mean you don’t sell them in the winter?!?”

Of course, as my sister recently reminded me, even junk food lovers know the comforting seasonal rhythms of Cadbury Creme eggs in late winter (they’re only sold from Jan 1-Easter Sunday), Peeps in the spring, and, of course, Mallomars in the late fall.

Ah, Mallomars…If Proust had grown up in New York, he would have traded in his madeleine for a Mallomar. Respectable journalists have sung its praises to the heavens, this perfect confection, only available during the dark, baseball-less months of November through March, so delicate is its thin outer layer of chocolate, that it can’t survive the trip from factory to store in the heat of spring or summer. And what could be more Jewish than a cookie that comes eighteen to a box, 70% of which are consumed by New Yorkers?

The only cookie that comes close is its Israeli cousin, the Krembo. Similar in construction and seasonal availability, writers also wax rhapsodic about krembo season. Plus, according to its wikipedia entry: Read more »

Last year, my Tu Bishvat wrap-up post dealt with the question of the mysterious end to the Tu Bishvat seder. After eating foods that are edible on the inside, then outside, then all the way through, the final section of the Tu Bishvat seder has us eating nothing at all. In explanation, I offered this quote from Maggid of Mezritch, the Chasidic master Dov Baer:

““Nothing in the world can change from one reality into another, unless it first turns into nothing, that is, into the reality of the between-stage. The moment when the egg is no more and the chick is not yet, is the level of Ayin, nothingness. It is the same with the sprouting seed. It does not begin to sprout until the seed disintegrates in the earth and the quality of seed-dom is destroyed in order that it may attain to nothingness which is the rung before creation.”

The reason there is no fruit at the end of the seder is because it exists only in the future - after we pick up where the seder left off and plant the seeds of tikkun olam in our community, and in our lives. To tangibly represent this point, this year we’re printing the last page of our seder on this paper. It contains actual wildflower seeds that will really grow if this page is planted in the ground following the seder! May all our work towards a sustainable world come to fruition this year.

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.

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Does it pay to read blogs? Maybe if I hadn’t checked a few of my favorites this morning (metafilter.com, jewlicious.com, nextbook.org), I wouldn’t have come across these bewildering, highly amusing and slightly nauseating headlines:

• A talmudic analysis of a soccer player’s lament, as it relates to restraints made of kreplach
• An FBI plan to track Iranian terrorists in California based on monitoring spikes in falafel sales
• White Castle’s 2007 Recipe contest winner? Slider Latkes (only slightly less gross than last year’s winner -I think I’m gonna be sick)

OK, back to work, people. (Image via Jewlicious)

Thanks to Rabbi Ian Pear (Rabbi of the Shir Hadash community in Israel) for this guest post. It’s funny how things come in twos and threes - Rabbi Pear’s post picks up on the theme of simcha and meat that Avi included in his most recent post about Chef Frankel.

Cross-posted from (Joyous Judaism)

For vegetarians, one Talmudic phrase is particularly bothersome: “There is no simcha (joy) without meat and wine.” The customary way to deal with this dictum — that is, if one is a vegetarian — is to argue that the Talmud was speaking subjectively not objectively — i.e., it did not believe meat and wine were objectively the only means by which simcha could be achieved, but rather the most likely catalyst for the majority of people. Or to put it another way: If one genuinely feels simcha by eating meat and drinking wine, then such a person certainly should not refrain from doing so when mandated to celebrate life — like at a wedding, brit mila, Shabbat meal, etc.. He must enjoy himself! A puritanical asceticism is not permitted; the simcha requires meat and wine. On the other hand, if a person does not feel simcha by eating meat and wine, then he is certainly not obligated to do so, but rather must find an alternative source of joy and pursue that course instead.

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Thanks to Hazon friend, Devora Kimelman-Block for sending us her d’var Torah on last week’s parsah, Noah.  You may recognize Devora as the woman who pioneered a Tuv Ha’Aretz CSA at her shul, Tifereth Israel, or for her quickly-growing reputation as a “kosher, free range meat” pioneer.  Check out the “Meet your Meat” shabbaton Tifereth Israel is hosting at the end of the month.

In the story of Noah and the flood earth had gone to ruin and was filled with lawlessness and corruption.

“An end of all flesh has come before me and the earth is filled with wrongdoing through them; here, I am about to bring ruin upon them, along with the earth.” (6:13).

What constituted this lawlessness, corruption or wrongdoing is not specified. What did the pre-flood world look like? It seems that there was massive chaos and disorderliness in a number of ways.

In the beginning of Genesis, God creates (or orders) the world. The creation of the world really seems to be about putting things in place. First there was chaos, waters, darkness. God puts separates the light and dark, the waters above from the waters below (which enables land), God sets up a light for ruling the night and a light for ruling the day and so on. God also during this time makes “all green plants for eating” (1:30). Notably the green plants were the only thing that animals, birds, fish and human were assigned to eat. God perhaps hoped that setting all these things in place would be structure enough for the world. By the time of the flood, however, chaos and corruption reined.

By the time the flood came what did the world look like? Although this corruption and ruin is not specified, some possible scenarios can be suggested…

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Thanks to Tuv Ha’Aretz farmer and founder of the Shorashim:Roots program at Chava v’Adam farm in Modi’in, Israel, Yigal Deutscher, for this insider look at the shemita year). 

22 days have passed from the moment we celebrated the New Year with the blowing of the shofar until yesterday, when, after hours of dancing, drinking, and singing, we rolled the Sefer Torah back to her beginning and read the story of creation.

This stretch of time has been a stretch out of time, a microcosm of creation itself, mirroring the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet, the 22 building blocks that God used in creating the world we live in.

Yesterday, we stepped back into time, into the Hebrew year 5767, the seventh year of the seven year cycles that guide the flow of time in the land of Israel. This year itself is an extended dimension out of time, one Shabbat stretching from now until next Rosh Hashana. We are already 22 days into Shemita but only now will we come face to face with this moment.

We cannot make this transition alone. We can only begin our year if the land begins with us. Our awakening, reemerging into the normal flow of time, is hand in hand with the earth itself. We have been in a cocoon, nursing from spiritual banks of forgotten reservoirs. The soil of Israel has been in a cocoon herself, deep in sleep after 5 months of hot sun and barren skies.

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You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops…It breaks my heart because it was meant to, because it was meant to foster in me again the illusion that there was something abiding, some pattern and some impulse that could come together to make a reality that would resist the corrosion; and because, after it had fostered again that most hungered-for illusion, the game was meant to stop, and betray precisely what it promised.

Although these words by the late A. Bartlett Giamatti, former Major League Baseball commissioner and poet describe perfectly how I feel this week as a disgusted Mets fan, they could also, like the scroll of Kohelet, describe the bittersweet reality of Sukkot. We celebrate the harvest, even as the falling leaves remind us that soon winter will be here. Of course, the sukkah is the most obvious symbol of impermanence connected with this fall holiday. But the etrog offers its own lessons as well.

My most vivid Jewish memory as a child was kiddush in our synagogue sukkah. Our elderly rabbi would show us his etrog, and implore us to marvel at its luxuriant, citrusy ripeness. Then he took a dry, brown oval out of his pocket, which he revealed was last year’s model. Then he produced a third etrog - this one from five years earlier - a dark caramel brown sphere. Finally, he displayed an etrog from twenty years ago - a pitch-black, shriveled hunk. As he dexterously held all four between his fingers, it was like catching a glimpse of eternity: Each etrog would soon become the next one, and so on down the line - and there between his wrinkled fingers lie our fate as well. Pretty heady stuff for a nine year old to fathom.

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