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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As we sit down to our Rosh Hashana meals, all eyes go to the challah/apple ceremoniously (or should I say unceremoniously?) dipped in honey. The kids begin to sing that lifeless ditty to the tune of Oh My Darlin’ Clementine “dip the apple in the honey, make a bracha loud and clear. . . . “ (I can’t recall the rest because we banned that song from our house more than a decade ago). Much ink has been spilled (mostly by the honey lobby) perpetuating this custom of dubious and suspect origin in the name of sweetness for the upcoming year. In keeping with the spirit of the New Jewish Food Movement, perhaps we should critically re-examine this custom and explore alternatives. As a maple syrup producer, may I humbly suggest using maple syrup. Read more »

The recent controversy regarding the custom of Kapparot (see article in the Forward) made me realize that Kapparot is virtually the only remaining ritual that uses an animal sacrifice as an atonement for human sin. In Temple times, any inadvertent sin had a corresponding animal sacrifice that was intended to cause the sinner to contemplate the nature of sin and how this animal is now losing its life instead of the sinner. pretty powerful stuff, if your environment is agrarian and animals are preciously traded commodities. Today however, things are much different. Read more »

Perhaps it’s no coincidence that a primary source for the teaching that “Elul” is an anagram for “Ani L’dodi V’dodi Li” (I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine) is the Shulchan Aruch - The Set Table. This verse from Song of Songs is seen by the sages as a call for us to reconnect with the Divine (our “Beloved”) during this season of teshuvah - renewal and repentance. Yet as we stare at our own brimming tables (and across them), this Rosh Hashanah, I offer the following meditations on this verse’s spirit of reciprocity - not just with God, but with each other and the food that connects us:

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This article comes from Tuv Ha’Aretz’s weekly newsletter. Thanks Gary Rendsburg for the article which is especially relevant considering the upcoming holidays.

Ask anyone with a typical Jewish education today, and he or she will tell you that the three Jewish holidays of Pesah (Passover), Shavu‘ot (Weeks), and Sukkot (Booths) commemorate major events in Israel’s early history. Pesah, of course, recalls the exodus from Egypt; Shavu‘ot celebrates the giving of the Torah at Mt. Sinai; and Sukkot evokes the wandering in the desert. Naturally, this information is correct, but if we trace the historical origins of these festivals, we discover that all three began as agricultural observances.

Pesah is associated with the barley harvest, which occurs in the early spring; Shavu‘ot is associated with the wheat harvest and the ripening of the first fruits, both of which occur in the early summer; and Sukkot is the great fall harvest festival, celebrated after all produce has been gathered from the fields (note that many cultures in the world have such a holiday; witness, most familiarly, the Canadian and American Thanksgiving feasts). These three holidays, accordingly, were signposts for the ancient Israelite farmers, with their strong ties to the land – and let us recall that the vast majority of the people in ancient Israel was engaged in the growing of crops and the production of food.

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The New York Times reported this week that New York City’s oldest diner, Moondance, is moving…to Wyoming.  While property values skyrocket throughout the five boroughs, La Barge, Wyoming residents, Cheryl and Vince Pierce, “stole” Moondance for a tag-sale rate of $7500.  The diner, which features many of its original furnishings, will travel across the country on the back of a flat bed truck, before settling in its new home.  That’s one less restaurant for New York City, and one (total) restaurant for La Barge.

The whole situation is sadly fitting.  With Starbucks on every corner and $25 omelettes on brunch menus, Manhattan is no longer the kind of place for a place like Moondance.  In last week’s parsha, Eikev, Moses lies on his deathbed as the Jewish people are about to cross into the land of milk and honey they’ve been wandering towards for forty years.  He commands them to beware and avoid the belief that ”my power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth,” - in other words, to remain humble despite their new plentiful existence.   

Hopefully, as Moondance makes its own journey towards a new home, New York - a city made beautiful by quirky diners and drab by each Frappucino - can take Moses’ message to heart. 

Read the article here.

This shabbat is called “Shabbat Nachamu” (Shabbat of Comfort), named after this week’s haftarah which offers consolation following the devastating events of Tisha B’Av, commemorated last week.

Since my first visit to Jerusalem, prior to beginning cantorial school, I’ve been torn about the purpose and method for observing Tisha B’Av. On the one hand, I have no desire to see us return to a patriarchal system of priestly castes, with animal sacrifice as the primary form of Jewish spiritual expression, and on the other hand, we Jews can now rejoice in Jerusalem rebuilt in our own time. Read more »

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.

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).

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In less than three weeks we will celebrate our son Shlomo’s Bar Mitzva, G-d willing. Those of you who have had the privilege of meeting him know that underneath the black hat, fringes and payos (sidecurls) he is one cool kid – into farming, animals (he raised the first flock of laying hens for Isabella Freedman/ADAMAH), woodworking, sustainable building and even a bit of WalMart and corporate America bashing once he gets going! Read more »

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.) 

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These days, you can’t toss an organic pomegrante drink in New York City without hitting someone gushing about “farming.” People are joining CSAs, flocking to the farmer’s markets, and insisting that their restaurants and supermarkets carry free range eggs and meat. Heck, even Farm Aid is coming to NYC this year! (As someone who coordinates CSAs for a living, this makes me swoon a little.)

But even with our newfound city-folk expertise on all things sustainable agriculture, most New Yorkers would be surprised to meet a farmer like Farmer John.

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I recently heard an interview with Native artist Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun during which he made a comment about the nature of food. He asked “When a Haida is eating a hotdog When does the hotdog become Haida (referring to the first nations band)? When it’s in his hand? When it’s in his mouth? or after he’s had a bowel movement.” Yuxweluptun was using this image as a metaphor for many cultural dilemmas. I ended up stuck on the Koan-like statement for a while trying to grapple with what about the metaphor hit me. I think it stems from the possibility of thinking about it from a literal perspective and then approach food and culture differently. When does what we eat become who we are, if it even ever does.
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