Michelle Obama is hula-hooping for health on the South Lawn of the White House. Jamie Oliver’s going to teach obese America how to cook their vegetables, and eat them too. Herbivores, frugivores, and locavores are putting their stakes in the ground, amidst the moist dirt of organically grown slow food.

Meanwhile, my 20-month-old daughter went to synagogue over the holiday of Simchat Torah and learned the word “candy.” We were spending the holiday with my parents, and my girls were dressed in traditional New York Jewish holiday autumn glory, patent-leather shoes and red wool coats. On the way to synagogue, I noticed that other children on the sidewalk were carrying big plastic bags (luckily for them, they don’t live in Palo Alto, where plastic bags are illegal; I considered hauling them back West by the thousands, to sell on the sly at Whole Foods).

On the way home from synagogue, those children’s bags were full, Halloween-like, with candy. Lollipops, chocolates, sucking candies, soft candies, Fruit Roll Ups, Gushers, Reeses Peanut Butter Cups, Craisins, York Peppermint Patties, Snickers, M&Ms, gum, Jelly Bellies, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Luckily, being from Palo Alto, we were limited to our pockets.

This is not solely a New York phenomenon. When my oldest daughter was a young toddler, at our local synagogue, a kind-hearted older kid gave her a lollipop and opened it for her, in the course of the two minutes I’d turned my back. I was aghast, and immediately took the lollipop away. Tragic crying ensued. I decided that this attempt to shield my child from the relentless world of synagogue sweets was futile. I gave her back the lollipop. She sucked on it with wide eyes and a tear-stained face, then pulled the lollipop from her mouth, smiled, and said, for the first time, “Happy.”

Rabbi Eleazer of Worms, who, in the 12th century, formalized the ritual of putting honey on the slates of Jewish children attending Heder for the first time, would be delighted. This is one approach to teaching children how to love Judaism. My younger daughter hears the word “Torah” and immediately says “candy.” My older daughter learned to associate shul with “Happy” at a tender age.

But is this really what we want to teach our children? To associate religion with empty calories and fleeting sweetness, which leaves in its wake sticky fingers and an aching tummy, which must be later toned with hula-hooping? Shouldn’t we instead be serving them nutrient-rich, filling, and fulfilling foods? Isn’t that what we hope our Judaism provides us and our children? Something substantial and substantive?

And yet. I love the autumn in New York. And there is something especially magical about being in my parent’s Sukkah, especially, on a cold, brisk morning, for breakfast. And there’s no Sukkot breakfast like Entemann’s Crumb-Topped Donuts, freshly baked in the Bronx. As I took a bite one morning this past trip, my flax seed and oatmeal thousands of miles away in sunny California, I couldn’t help but smile, and mumble through the powdered crumbs, “Happy.”

While most of us in the Northeast who are plugged in to local agriculture are reveling in our early CSA bounty, many of the producers of this bounty are worrying about the future of this year’s crop.

Laura, a friend in Cambridge, MA, who is a participant in this summer’s Adamah Fellowship in Falls Village, CT, writes on her blog that the Adamah CSA, which delivered its first share this week, is in danger of losing its crop due to the high volume of rain received by the Northeast US in the past few weeks. This amount of rain, combined with the fact that the rain is predicted to continue for several more days at least, and the fact that the farm is located next to a river, mean that it could cost them the viability of many crops, especially so early in the season.

At the end of her post she asks for readers to pray–presumably for NOT rain. An ironic twist on the traditional Geshem prayer said on Sh’mini Atzeret at the end of the Sukkot harvest holiday in the fall. For those of us with a stake in New England and Mid-Atlantic agriculture, we may want to create a new ritual to account for these rare cases of too much rain.

While the prayer for rain, T’fillat Geshem, also references the planting of a tree next to a stream by Abraham, similarly to the placement of the Adamah fields, it takes note of the complicated role rain has played in Jewish tradition, saying:

For a blessing and not for a curse, Amen.

For life and not for death, Amen.

For abundance and not for famine, Amen.

Whether or not this extreme weather pattern is due in part to climate change is unclear, but it seems likely that changes in climate will have myriad impacts on the relationships between Jewish ritual and the earth.

Have a joyous and sweet Simchat Torah! Love, The Jew & The Carrot

(Cross posted on Mixed Multitudes)

Wednesday is Simchat Torah, which generally means dancing around with the Torah, watching little kids wave some flags they made in Sunday school, and lots of drinking.  Simchat Torah is second only to Purim in its association with alcohol.  I don’t think there’s any halakhic obligation to drink this week, the way there is on Purim, but if you walk into any synagogue on Tuesday night, you’re likely to see a bottle of schnapps or two (or six).  Now I like Schnapps, but I also enjoy mixed drinks, and thought I’d share some nice Jewish cocktail and shot recipes to help enliven your Simchat Torah celebrations.  Chag Sameach!

The Ashkenazi–the old classic
Fill a glass with ice.
Float:
1 part vanilla milk
1 part coffee liquer
1 part vodka
Enjoy!

The Sephardi–an Ashkenazi with a little chocolate mixed in
Fill glass with ice
Float:
1 part chocolate liqueur
1 part vodka
1 part coffee liqueur
2 – 3 parts vanilla Al ha-Boker milk (regular milk will probably do in a pinch)
Pour carefully to get that layered effect going, because not only does it have to be girly, it has to be pretty. Then stir it up a little and drink it.

The Bloody Waters of Ancient Babylon
My former roommate’s bartender boyfriend invented this drink.
1/4 oz Southern Comfort
1/4 oz vodka (absolut)
1/4 oz Amaretto
1/4 oz slow gin
Fill a shaker with ice, add the above.
Add some pineapple juice, and a splash of sweet and sour. Shake it. Strain into a martini glass and then swirl grenadine on top.

Manischewitz Sangria Martini
1 part raspberry Stoli vodka
1/2 part triple sec
1/2 part pear schnapps
2 parts Manischewitz Concord-grape wine
1 part fresh sour mix
1 part Sprite
Lemon twists, to garnish
Shake the vodka, triple sec, schnapps, Manischewitz and fresh sour in a cocktail shaker with ice. Pour into a martini glass.
Top with Sprite and garnish with a lemon twist.

Manischevetini
2 Oz of Vodka
1/2 Oz Orange Juice
1/2 Oz Manischewitz
Combine all ingredients in a cocktail shaker, shake well; serve. Garnish with an orange twist if desired.

The Kiddish Club
1 part whiskey
1 part lashon hara

Also of note: Bangitout’s Top 10 Jewish Mixed Drinks.

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.

On Hoshana Rabba we beat the ground with willows, branches from a tree that feeds on the depths of hidden waters. Our beating is a plea for awakening. Arise from your slumber! Get yourself ready; the rains will shortly be falling!

On Simchat Torah, we are all high priests, raising our hands and calling to the skies of God and the angel Af-Bri. Impregnate the clouds! Bring the rains!

If Rosh Hashana is the birth of the world, of time, of human being, then Simchat Torah is the birth of history. And we begin our history this Shabbat with Bereishit. First, the distant recollection of a paradise of gathering, of abundance, of natural harmony. Then, the transition of humanity from this space to another world completely, sparked by the birth of the farmer and the murder of the gatherer.

And here we are, 5767 years later. Finally, after months of cloudless skies, rains will begin falling. The soil will come to life. Worms will find their way back to the surface. Sleeping roots will begin pushing deeper with new growth. Seeds will germinate. Green growth will shyly appear, soon to blanket the naked soils.

Even though it is Shemita, for the most part, history will recycle itself. Farmers will till ground and sow seeds. Trees will be pruned and fertilizers will be spread. Contracts will be signed. Crops will be harvested. Produce will be packaged and shipped, processed and labeled. Modern agriculture will have a healthy year, undisturbed. The marketplace will be as hectic as any previous year.

In the months leading up to Rosh Hashana, the marketplaces, the shuls, the fields were full of the sounds of dialogue, of argument, of tension. Everyone was asking questions…what are we supposed to do with Shemita today, in the modern world? How will the farmers make a financial living? What will people have to eat?

The Rabbinate of the land was split. Some argued that the only kosher food would be those imported or grown by Arabs. Others were outraged by the ultra-Orthodox ruling and upheld the legal loophole of Heter Mechira, which allows the symbolic sale of land to a non-Jew for the year, similar to selling chametz during Pesach. I observed every farmer in the valley where I work sign their fields to Heter Mechira, even watched as my own farm hired a farmer to replace me for the year.

All the questions and arguments were attempts to bypass this burden of a tradition, efforts to keep on living normally without inflicting the wrath of our own subconscious guilt. No doubt, there are some serious pressures and challenges. The financial security of many families in Israel depends on continued farming. There are enormous contracts for export to Europe that can’t simply be ignored for the year. Most of the population of Israel is concentrated in the center, between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, a mostly urban and suburban region. Their only access to food is through the marketplace. The diet of most Israelis is heavily dependant upon annual vegetables, crops needy of tilled soil, irrigation, and fertilizer. The population is growing every year and tillable land is lost to highways and development towns.

This Shabbat, as we read the story of creation we will simultaneously be reading our own stories. We are continuously kicking ourselves out of the Garden. Cain is still killing his brother, daily. More than we can possibly understand. We are lost in this cycle, in this spiraling of history. Modern business-led agriculture, more than ever before, controls our future, our nutrition, our social and communal structures, our natural resources. This is the world of the marketplace, where food is commodity and land is a factory. We are eating oil, pesticides, the byproduct of slavery and deforestation.

Maybe God threw us out of the Garden in the first place, but he also gave us the key back in. All the laws that guide agricultural practices in Israel, such as Kelayim, Orlah, Bikkurim, Peah, and, most of all, Shemita, are meant to help us transcend the illusions created by agriculture…land ownership, private property, class divisions, food as commodity, land as factory. Following these Mitzvot, even as we embrace the agricultural system for our own survival, we also have a glimmering spark of the ideals and ethics of the Garden and the Gatherer.

Shemita, once every seven years, offers us a way out of our own history, just as Shabbat offers us a way out of the week, and back into the Garden. For sure, in the modern world, this tradition seems impossible and impractical. Maybe it is impossible. Maybe we’ve gone to far following Cain.

Nonetheless, if we keep on blindly studying just what we can and can’t do on Shemita, and argue about how to survive and keep on farming while staying legal to God, sure, the Oral Torah lives on but it becomes nothing more than neurotic arguments with no root. If we keep on approaching Shemita this way, yes, everyone will have food to eat. The year will pass and be forgotten. No lessons will be learned and we’ll go back to sleep, to be abruptly awoken in another seven years with the same confusions. Now is the time to wonder what Shemita offers us, how to celebrate it even if we can’t fully keep it, how to harvest her lessons even as we break her rules.

From the organic farmer’s perspective, from the pastoralist, from the ecologist, Shemita is not a step away from farming but a step towards correct farming. Just because the land is resting does not mean it is dead. If anything, it is raging with song and life, returning to her natural state. And we get the chance of relating to the earth again in a wild way. What the earth provides, gather. Enjoy the nuts, berries, and fruits of all the native plants that produce perennially. Enjoy the grains and seeds from storage. Enjoy the wild edible weeds and let your animals pasture, as well, so you can have dairy and meat to eat. Enjoy all the vegetables that grow on their own from seeds that fell from their Mother plants last season. Do not be fooled into thinking your field is yours and no one else’s, and feel free to go to your neighbor’s orchard to harvest your own needs. Barter and share but do not sell. Forgive all agricultural loans because you will need to be forgiven one day, as well.

Maybe in our current day, Shemita is an ideal more than anything else. But it offers us a language that we can use to understand the land we are living on, the land that we have been separated from in exile for thousands of years. And it offers us a chance to stop our regular agricultural practices and ask the important questions. Are we planting the right plants for this climate and landscape? Are they perennial, drought-tolerant and resistant to pests or are they needy annuals, products of modern agriculture? Are we eating the correct foods in our own diets? Are we taking full advantage of the limited rainfall and preserving the little water that we have in nachalot and mayanot? Is our agriculture completely changing the face of Israel’s natural landscape? Is it putting too much of a burden on her natural resources? Are we supporting monocrop large-scale farms or are we supporting family-owned organic farms? Do we even know where our food is coming from in this tiny country? Why are we buying imported dried figs when there are great trees in the wild full of fruit? Do we know what weeds are edible and what their medicinal properties are?

If we begin asking these questions now, then seven years from now we might be in an entirely different Shemita. And an entirely different Israel.

Growing up as an Army brat in the Great Plains, away from any Jewish community to speak of, with a mother who didn’t dig the cooking schtik and a dad who converted from Christianity, I missed out on everything from knishes to gefilte fishes.

Yet into me was impressed a Jewish lack of food: fasting. To this day, I watch out for the fast days more than I watch for Shabbath. So for all those who are Jews by food or by fasting, here’s a helpful guide, courtesy of Gourmania again:

The Diet Guide to the Jewish Holidays

Rosh Hashanah – Feast
Tzom Gedalia – Fast
Yom Kippur – More fasting
Sukkot – Feast
Hashanah Rabbah – More feasting
Simchat Torah – Keep feasting
Month of Heshvan – No feasts or fasts for a whole month. Get a grip on yourself.
Hanukkah – Eat potato pancakes
Tenth of Tevet – Do not eat potato pancakes
Tu B’Shevat – Feast
Fast of Esther – Fast
Purim – Eat pastry
Passover – Do not eat pastry
Shavuot – Dairy feast (cheesecake, blintzes, etc.)
17th of Tammuz – Fast (definitely no cheesecake or blintzes)
Tish B’Av – Very strict fast (don’t even think about cheesecake or blintzes)
Month of Elul – End of cycle. Enroll in Center for Eating Disorders before High Holidays arrive again.

This post idea thanks to shamir*power.