This entry is cross-posted at marriedwithbackpacks.com

It’s now been seven weeks backpacking through this meat-lovers paradise, tough going for a pair of Jews spoiled by home cooking and New York’s great vegetarian restaurants. Vegetarian cuisine in Peru and Bolivia is, like their economies, ‘developing.’ We were pleasantly surprised at the number of vegetarian restaurants in Lima, Arequipa and Cusco. In many of them we had a set menu consisting of a soup, a main, tea and possibly desert for $1.50-$5. Now it could be that South American vegetarian cuisine is relatively immature, or did the Spaniards run off with all the Inca’s seasoning as well as their gold… because all most all of our Andean meals were quite bland. The vegetables or grain soups would have been enlivened by adding almost anything. The mains usually consisted of rice, eggs and glisteningly oily fried vegetables. Most of the vegetarian restaurants rely heavily on eggs and cheese, so if you are travelling vegan, it might end up being the rice and oily vegetables for meal after meal. If you risk eating at a non-vegetarian restaurant, the vegetarian menu usually consists of pizza and spaghetti. I should mention that it wasn’t all bad news, we did enjoy a veggie version of a traditional Arequipa dish (at a restaurant called Lakshmivan), a large pepper stuffed with vegetables, tofu and chillies, as well as scrumptious burritos at the Hearts Café in Ollantaytambo.

When it comes to snacks there is more to get excited about. Street vendors roast potatoes over coals, although unfortunately for us, always together with chunks of meat. At night, bands of mobile popcorn makers roam the streets providing a cheap and delicious snack, available salty or sweet. One can also find puffed Quinua and other Andean grains, available in small bags or pressed with honey into a type of granola bar. In the right hostel you can find a breakfast of yoghurt, sweet puffed grains and fresh papaya and bananas – delicious. When it comes to fruit, we didn’t try as many exotic varieties as I would have liked, but we did enjoy a juicy cherimoya in La Paz.

On one occasion our diet was supplemented by some wild protein. On a jungle trip in the Bolivian Amazon we were fishing for piranhas using hand reels when I was luckily enough to drag in a fish around a foot long. After checking for fins and scales, we decided it would be a welcome addition to what were some otherwise meager jungle rations. I killed the fish, a first for me, using the most readily available means, the oar of our canoe, and the fish was cooked up for lunch the following day.

Civil unrest in Bolivia led us to fly early to northern Argentina, where we traded charming street markets for expensive, industrialized supermarkets where everything contained corn syrup, beef fat or both. The cattle industry is so enormous that the excess fat makes its way into bread, crackers and other baked goods. Additionally, in many places vegetarian food is nowhere to be found, indeed one should not be surprised to have one’s vegetarianism openly mocked. In this region we did a fair bit of self catering, utilizing our pot to make pasta and tomato sauce.

Upon reaching Buenos Aires, home to around 100,000 Jews and some of the world’s best kosher restaurants, we joined in the gluttony of the locals. An upmarket sushi chain has a kosher branch where we paid through the nose for a roll featuring mango, salmon and fried cheese, and another featuring citrus marinated salmon. At the Al Galope restaurant we enjoyed a traditional Argentinian parilla, meat grilled over a wood fire. The steak, sausages, sweetbreads, meatballs and tripe were brought to our table on a mini grill with its own coals to keep it warm. The leftovers lasted two lunches but the meal itself was well, too meaty. It was tough to go straight into that much plain roasted unseasoned meat.

Now I don’t think I have ever ingested a McDonald’s hamburger in my life, but if you are in Buenos Aires and for some reason there is a kosher McDonalds, why not? OK, I can think of many reasons why not, but we went for what would be a first time and last time experience. My frustration began when the worker took minute after gratification delaying minute to put together our already prepared meal. This is supposed to be fast food! Then I almost threw a fit trying desperately to open their tiny ketchup packets, which cannot be opened with greasy fingers. The bun was soggy and the meat bland – I’m assuming this is standard – not an experience I’ll miss. If I can give them credit for something is that their prices appeared to be the same as the non-kosher McDonald’s. And of course, the sight of a frum woman standing in the middle of a McDonald’s kitchen checking lettuce for bugs is priceless.

The culinary highlight of our trip is a restaurant in Buenos Aires called Asian. After trying a few albeit delicious options we realized their pineapple, soy and ginger marinated steak ($22) is quite simply the best thing we can ever remember eating. Quality kosher wine is served by the bottle only, but for only $13 a bottle there is no fear in erring on the plentiful side. It was very expensive by Argentinean standards, but with quality and service that shamed anything we had experienced in the US, even at top dollar New York kosher restaurants. Argentineans eat ridiculously late, restaurants are usually packed at around 11pm, such that when we came at 8pm we had the whole place ourselves. A great way to finish off the first continent in our round-the-world trip. Bring on Australia.

Last Sunday, July 25, 15 people gathered at Oregon’s Museum of Science and Industry for Portland Tuv Ha’Aretz’s 2nd annual Jewish edible garden bike tour. Portland is laid out in grids, like Washington, D.C. Last year’s tour covered NE Portland; this year we set off to explore neighborhoods in SE.

Our ride leader, Tuv member Beth Hamon, is an old-school bike geek. Last year she created spoke cards for our ride (when you do something for the first time, it’s an innovation; twice is minhag) So of course she made a new one for this year’s ride. Here’s a picture:

Our route took us through the Sellwood, Mt. Tabor and Hawthorne neighborhoods. We started with a trip down the Springwater Corridor, a 40-mile multi-use trail that runs partway along the Willamette River and goes past some fantastic bird habitats.

We visited four gardens, ranging in size from a single raised bed to an urban micro-farm, complete with bees and a small orchard. All the gardeners talked about what they grew, how long they’d been growing food, and some offered perspectives on how their Judaism informs their gardening. For some, the conection is simply that they are Jewish and enjoy putting their hands in the dirt. Others talked about earth stewardship and one gardener deconstructed the Hebrew word pardes (orchard), as a way of explaining his approach: “Pardes begins with a Peh, which stands for p’shat, a simple explanation for things (what you see is what you get). The next letter, Reish, stands for remez, which means “hidden,” and suggests all that goes into making the plants grow: water, healthy soil, air, sunlight. Daled is drash, a commentary, and the final letter, Samech, stands for sod, which means “secret”, as in ‘The Secret Life of Plants,’ something you have to study and understand over a period of years.”

We ended our 14-mile loop with a picnic lunch at Sewallcrest Park, next to an enormous community garden. It’s worth mentioning that community gardens are very popular here; we have a three-year waiting list, with more than 1,000 people waiting for a plot.

Here’s a link to our Flickr page for more pictures of our ride. One rider used a nifty little GPS device he wore on his wrist like a watch to map our route. Here’s another link that shows where we went.

If you’d like to plan a similar event, please feel free to contact me for information.

Originally Published by ZEEK.

Humanity’s current alienation from nature is unprecedented. As Wendell Berry explained in his seminal 1977 work The Unsettling of America, we are confronted with a “crisis of culture,” reflected in a “crisis of agriculture,” rooted in the simple fact that modern people have become disconnected from nature and the natural cycles we depend upon for survival. In less than fifty years, modern Western culture – particularly in the United States – has shifted from relying on small family farms that dotted the countryside to relying on an industrial food system run by massive corporate farms.

This rift from our food source is mirrored in our everyday relationship to nature. Richard Louv explains in his recent work, Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder, that “our society is teaching young people to avoid direct experience in nature,” at the cost of mental, spiritual and physical health. Citing research that the rise in Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), obesity, and autism could be directly related to what he calls nature-deficit disorder, Louv concludes that “[t]ime in nature is not leisure time; it’s an essential investment in our children’s health (and also, by the way, in our own)”. (Louv p.120).

In my personal spiritual journey, I have found Louv’s conclusion to be profoundly true – that through deep nature connection, I have been able to heal and find clarity in my personal life. I see an expressed need for a return to nature in others as well. Disconnection from nature fuels increased spiritual seeking and an urgent desire to find meaningful community.

As a disproportionately urbanized people, Jews exemplify the modern trend toward nature-disconnection. We are, however, also uniquely situated to reclaim a cultural heritage that will guide us back into a deep relationship with nature. We think of Judaism as an urban religion, but our 3,000 year-old tradition is deeply rooted in an ancient aboriginal mindset and way of being that is inherently connected to Creation. As Rabbi Gershon Winkler explains in Magic of the Ordinary, “in its aboriginal form Jewish spirituality has less to do with religion that it does with direct, uninhibited experience with Creator through Creation.” (p. 11). Winkler further explains, “What was once a holistic spirit path that encompassed all the nuances and dynamics of the spirituality of earth and body ha[s] over the centuries mutated into a parochial focus on religion as an institution by itself.” (p. 12). At its core, Rabbi Winkler teaches, Judaism “emphasizes the sacredness of the earth, and that all organisms, even stars and planets, are imbued by the Creator with a divine consciousness.” (p. 7).

Until the very recent establishment of the State of Israel, the greater part of the Jewish people have been cut off from an enduring land connection for the better part of the last two thousand years. Given the state of nature disconnection we experience in modern life, it makes sense that “aboriginal” Jewishness is dormant today. Yet, we need look no further than our Torah portions, prayers, and yearly holiday cycle to see that our earth-based traditions are within easy reach.

The Torah teaches that the human (Adam) is made of the earth (Adamah). (Genesis 2:7). In our Creation story, after everything in nature but Adam has been created, G-d turns to Creation that came before Adam and proclaims: “Let us make Adam in our image, after our likeness.” (Genesis 1:26). Strikingly, this is the only moment in the Torah where G-d speaks in the first person plural (“we”), signaling a critical aspect of the Creation story. As the 17th Century Rabbi Cordovero explains, “in creating the human, G-d incorporated all of the attributes of all the animals and plants and minerals and so on that had been created up to this point. In each of us, then, are the attributes and powers of all the creatures of the earth.” (Cordovero, Shi’ur HaKomah, Torah, chpt. 4.). Fundamentally, our tradition teaches that we are inextricably connected to and reflected by nature. To disconnect from nature is to disconnect from ourselves.

Our prayers provide constant reminders of our essential nature-connection. In the psalms, we are reminded that not only humans, but all of Creation relates to and praises G-d. (Psalm 145:10 – “All your creations praise you”; Psalsm 148 – “Praise the Creator sun and moon, all bright stars … mountains and hills, fruit trees and cedars, wild and tamed beasts, creeping things and winged birds”; Psalm 150:6 “All souls praise G-d”).

The Shema, the central Jewish prayer that teaches us to listen, teaches that G-d is the infinite, unifying force of all things in Creation (“G-d is One”) and directs us to love G-d with all of our heart, soul and might. (Deuteronomy 6:4-9). The subsequent verses of the Shema demonstrate how inextricably connected we are to Creation and the consequences of our disconnection. If we follow the path of love outlined by the Shema, we are taught rain will nourish our grain for bread, grapes for wine, and grass for our cows; but if we go astray and worship ‘alien gods,’ the rain will dry up, and trouble will follow. (Deuteronomy 11:13-17). While many recoil from this last portion as an idle threat of a vengeful, paternal G-d, given today’s reality of global climate change and Wall Street gone awry, we may understand this not as an irrelevant edict but as ancient wisdom and warning that articulates an intricate relationship of action and consequence within an ecology more tightly woven than we currently understand; one which we might heed through a shift in our lives and culture.

The Jewish tradition is provides us with a built-in operating system that connects us to the earth by connecting us to the cycles of nature. Rabbi Jill Hammer explains, “The cycle of the Jewish year, like many calendrical cycles, takes note of and weaves itself into the natural seasons: Passover falling in the spring, the new year of Rosh Hashanah in the autumn, Chanukah in the winter, and so forth. One of the most important ways of tying the earth to the spirit is to fully celebrate the holidays as they pertain to the seasons and cycles of the earth.” (Tel Shemesh, telshemesh.org/eight/#n1).

As we deepen our understanding of how Judaism today relates to our aboriginal roots, we will gain more understanding of how to relate our modern traditions to our ancient earth-connected ways. For example, the traditional period between the 17th of Tammuz and Tisha B’av, where we mourn the destruction of the Temple, is based on a more ancient tradition. At the beginning of the summer solstice, at the onset of killing summer heat and drought, our Babylonian ancestors annually mourned the death of the “life-death-rebirth” deity Tammuz (namesake of the month Tammuz) (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tammuz_%28deity%29). This is not to suggest that we should return to worshiping Sumerian gods, but that we can reconnect to our ancient roots to more deeply understand our current cyclical daily, monthly and yearly practices as they relate to the natural world around us.

Returning to earth-based roots of Judaism is the goal of Wilderness Torah (www.wildernesstorah.org), which I co-founded and co-direct. With the mission to awaken and celebrate the earth-based traditions of Judaism to nourish the connections between self, community, earth, and Spirit, Wilderness Torah creates experiences aligned with the cycles of nature and the cycles of our lives. Through an annual cycle of land-based pilgrimage festivals, one of its primary program areas, Wilderness Torah celebrates holidays in their original context. At the Sukkot on the Farm Festival, for example, multi-generational community gathers on a local, organic farm for 4 days to immerse in the essence of the harvest holiday, while renewing the ancient water libation ritual performed in Temple times (www.eberlatlivinglab.org/sukkot-waterrain-ritual), to awaken our consciousness to the central role of water in our agricultural cycle and our lives.

When I asked Tali Weinberg, a friend, colleague and former farm manager for the Adamah farm at the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center, why we need to reintegrate our earth-based roots back into Judaism, she explained: “When humans are disconnected from the earth, we are not only separated from an intimate knowledge of the sources of our food, medicine, shelter, and all the things we need to sustain our lives, we are separated from our sense of human identity. This is equally true for Jews with regard to an authentic sense of Jewish identity. Jews cannot know their Jewish selves without this connection.” At a time when concern for the environment and Jewish identity are both at all time highs, there is no better time to reclaim and awaken our aboriginal, earth-based ways as a means toward strengthening the Jewish tent today and inspiring the next generations of Jews to truly understand what it means to embark on Tikkun Olam.

In his blog Torah Flora, Dr. Jon Greenberg shares his unique insights and vast knowledge on Judaism and plants (or as he more articulately puts it, “biblical ethnobotany”). Some of us had the chance to witness that knowledge first hand today at the New York Botanical Garden, where Dr. Greenberg gave an enthusiastic group a “Torah Flora Tour.”

The goal of the tour (and blog), according to Dr. Greenberg, is to “use knowledge of plants and nature to better understand Torah and Halacha.” He cites a long-lost relationship during the biblical era between Judaism and nature, and a wish to reconstruct it.

Turns out this relationship goes well beyond the obvious of using Lulav and Etrog on Sukkot and bitter herbs on Pesach (though he discussed those as well, with exhibits A, B, and C proudly on view). This symbiosis exists in ways we have overlooked in our learning, in the very language of Tanach. Dr. Greenberg quoted Devarim in comparing a bitter man to wormwood, and wondered about the true identity of the desert Juniper in Jeremiah. It seems we’ve always turned to our green, leafy friends, for culinary, spiritual, and literary inspiration!

With every plant we passed, Dr. Greenberg pointed out its identifying marks and place in Jewish history (confirmed and fabled; Legend has it that it was a Jewish friend who showed Thomas Jefferson how to eat tomatoes…), and threw in some fun facts to sweeten the deal. He quoted sources with impressive speed and skill, citing the Talmud, Rambam, and Josephus in his fascinating botanical history lesson. Eventually, my intended event-reporting soon became a long list of “Who Knew?” facts and ideas I couldn’t wait to share on JCarrot!

For instance, while many Midrashic sources list the four species of Sukkot as metaphorical representations of people or senses, the Rambam sees them in an entirely original light: as an agricultural history of the Jews: The Lulav (date palm) grows in the desert, where the Jews wandered for forty years. The Aravot (willow) is a water-loving plant which finds its home on river banks, and represents our people’s crossing of the Jordan River on their way to Israel. The Hadasim (myrtle) grows in the Israeli highlands, where the people eventually spread out and settled, and the Etrog (citron, a cultivated fruit) represents the orchards that finally signaled the Jews’ agricultural growth in the land.

But the lessons didn’t end with interpretations of Judaic ritual items, oh, no. Some of the highlights of the tour were the “fun facts,” the stuff we might not use but sure are glad to know! For example, did you know that the word “scallion” comes from the Latin name for it, “Ascelonium”, so-called since the plants were imported from Ashkelon? I sure didn’t. Or that the original Maror (bitter herbs) probably wasn’t horseradish at all, but sea holly, the “prickly lettuce?” Dr. Greenberg and his wife offered us some samples of this spicy plant. Man, is it bitter. It could kick wasabi and romaine lettuce both to the curb come Hillel sandwich season. Funny thing is, sea holly starts out sweet. But as it matures, it becomes bitter and spiny, until it reaches a point where it’s no longer edible; just like the Jews’ experience in Egypt started pleasantly and ended in unbearable oppression!

As we walked among the rows of flowers and fruit, grateful that temperature had dropped a few degrees for the occasion (“I’ve got connections up there,” Dr. Greenberg joked), we came across familiar plants with hidden stories. “Not all of our favorite vegetables were always popular,” Dr. Greenberg shared, explaining how potatoes and tomatoes, both members of the Nightshade family, were once thought to be poisonous. In fact, eggplant took quite a while to find an audience. Quoting an Italian source from the 1890’s, he told us how the purple food was described as “a disgusting vegetable fit only for Jews.” Gee, thanks, guys. I’ll take that Eggplant Parmesan to go.

Dr. Greenberg spoke with such aplomb and excitement; it made me glad that I’d driven across the Throgs Neck Bridge to be there. Where else could I have heard so much about our shared history with nature? Next time I’m choosing my farmers’ market apricots, I’ll think for a moment about how some sources identify it as the forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge in Eden.

At one point, we arrived at an ordinary, flowering sage plant.

“What does this look like to you?” Dr. Greenberg asked.

“A Menorah!” some brave or eager volunteer announced.

“Exactly. And where did we light the Menorah?”

“In Jerusalem, on Har HaMoriah.”

“Right. ‘Moriah’ is Hebrew for ‘sage.’”

Wow.

Dr. Greenberg will be speaking next at the Association of Orthodox Jewish Scientists in Southbury, Connecticut on Sunday, July 25^th. Those interested can register for the event at aojs.org.

One time my brother came home to find me on the couch watching The Food Network.  He threw his hands up, “all you watch is food TV!”  That’s pretty true, but there is one cooking show I was missing out on, until now.  Eat in Good Health is a Yiddish cooking show produced every 2 weeks by The Forward.  It is one of the most enjoyable cooking shows I’ve seen.  The show is a great mixture of tradition, modernity, entertainment, and education.

The show’s hosts, Rukhl Schaechter and Eve Jochnowitz speak throughout the show at a calm but normal pace.  Though they teach a few of the nuances of Yiddish, it is not a language learning show.  Still, while watching the show I felt like I was picking up a few phrases.  At the very least, the flow of the language started to feel familiar, and I did learn that there are different words for sweet and sour cherries.

As surely and naturally as they speak Yiddish, they live in the old world and the new.  There was something so fun about watching Eve say, in Yiddish, that she had purchased organic, locally grown popcorn in Union Square.  Two minutes later, they sing a traditional Yiddish song about the mamelige (a kind of Jewish polenta) they’re making.  They also defer to their grandmothers occasionally when cooking, Rukhl explaining that she measures salt in her hand because that’s what her grandmother did.  Later, they come right back to modernity, suggesting to put feta (something I don’t think they had in the shtetl) in the mamelige.

In such a fast paced world where food seems incomplete without truffle oil and Himalayan salt, the down to earth traditionalism of this show is refreshing.  Eve’s delight as the popcorn she is making “finds sound” and starts popping is just as entertaining as watching Bobby Flay garnish a plate as seconds count down.  In fact, perhaps The Food Network would benefit from some of Eat in Good Health’s style.  Though I have a feeling that watching Paula Deen sing a song about butter with a southern twang wouldn’t be quite the same.

The clip above is their second episode, watch their first episode here

See those blue ribbons? My challah (and my husband’s bagels) won those at the county fair last year. Both recipes always turn out reliably scrumptious, which should be enough for any baker, but there is something undeniably, down-home country-satisfying about serving your family and friends “blue-ribbon” baked goods.

Folks looking for Jewish food and culture might not head for the county fair; as Jewish pig farmers, pole benders and log-rolling lumberjacks are rarities in most parts, yet the lure of competition, fancy ribbons and yearlong bragging rights might make you wish to consider participating. That’s right, I suggest you get your apron on and whip, bake, pickle or jar up your Jewish delicacies and head to your county fair. Trust me, your homemade kosher dills will taste even better adorned with a Best of Show ribbon. All you need is a copy of your local fair’s open-class entry form to start planning your submissions.

Make great challah? Babka? Rugelach? Matzah? Bagels? How about hamantaschen? Home economics class B baked goods can be your proving ground. County fair food preservation judges have had plenty of pickles cross their palates, why don’t you see if they can gauge what makes a good gefilte fish?

Fascinated by fermentation? Budding oenologists and zymogurists can bottle up and enter their best kosher wine, beer, or hard cider. If you’re more of a drinker and designer than distiller, see if your county fair has a category for labels. Either way, bring some Jewish flavor to your county fair and bring home some blue ribbons! But don’t forget your cowboy boots; there is nothing to win with open-toed shoes in the livestock halls.

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Hey all you NY metro, cross-cultural foodies — this one’s for you. Tomorrow in Chinatown the Egg Rolls and Egg Creams Chinese-Jewish festival is scheduled, and it sounds like a blast. �Here’s an excerpt from their flyer:

Experience a unique slice of the city where Chinatown meets the Jewish Lower East Side, at our Egg Rolls And Egg Creams Festival.

Klezmer march and music – lion dance – synagogue tours – Chinese opera and acrobatics – Yiddish and Chinese lessons – sing a long – tea ceremony – scribal art – folk dance demos – mahjongg – art projects – kosher egg rolls and egg creams

This is a free event.�

Come join me and enjoy the festivities, 12 �- 4 pm at the Museum on Eldridge Street (12 Eldridge Street between Canal and Division). �I’ll be looking for all the jcarrot fans, and providing an updated post on the festival. �Hope to see you there. �

For more details visit their site (warning: you have to play a brief online game of mahjongg to enter. Seriously.)

In this week’s parasha, Beha’alotcha, Bnei Yisrael continue their journey from Egypt to the promised land. They are provisioned during their desert wanderings by manna, a mysterious food which appears on the ground with the nightly dew, and, according to midrashim,[1] exhibited a variety of tastes. It is against this background that we read the Israelites’ astounding complaint:

�If only we had meat to eat. We remember the fish we ate in Egypt for free, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions and the garlic.� [2]

The Israelites had only just been redeemed from tortuous oppression, so it is most perplexing that they would now long for the ‘free’ foods of slavery. Commentators have offered a number of explanations, claiming that perhaps the fish were so cheap or easy to catch such as to be considered free.[3] The Sifrei, however, provides a more profound interpretation. �What does chinam (free) mean? Free from the commandments.�[4] The Israelites did not miss Egyptian cuisine, rather the lack of moral autonomy and responsibility that slavery entailed.

It seems shocking that a nation would choose bondage over freedom, all for the sake of avoiding its incumbent moral and spiritual tumult. A people who spurn independence and responsibility are poor candidates for the creative enterprise of building a nation, much less a holy nation. Thus we find that the so-called dor hamidbar, the generation of the desert, is forced to wander and die off before the Jewish people are allowed to enter their homeland.

Maimonides, in his Mishne Torah, expounds upon the importance of responsibility by drawing upon a seemingly unrelated verse in our parasha. In the chapter preceding that of the �free fish,� we find that Moses is told to construct two silver trumpets which will serve a variety of purposes, including gathering the congregation, moving the camp, as well as wartime and celebratory uses. Maimonides , commenting on the verse �you shall sound an alarm with the trumpets�[5] asserts that �there is a positive Torah commandment to cry out and to blow trumpet blasts regarding every calamity that befalls the community.�[6] The trumpets and crying out are intended to awaken the realization that these troubles are a result of our actions and we must seek to change our ways. If however, Maimonides warns, �you will say ‘this thing is the ways of the world… it is happenstance,’ — this is derech achzariut (the way of cruelty).�[7]

Maimonides here offers a sharp critique of our understanding of our relationship to the world around us. We look around and see an unredeemed world and distress within our own nation and community. One natural response might be, ‘it is not my doing, it is simply the way of the world.’ Another response might be, ‘it is not my responsibility to fix it, nor is it within my power to do so.’ As someone who does not shy from calling opposing positions the ‘ways of ignoramuses’ and the ‘ways of fools,’ Maimonides does not say that these approaches are wrongheaded. Rather, he employs the language of cruelty. It is not just intellectually, and for Maimonides, theologically false to imagine that we can disconnect and isolate our actions from the world around us, it is primarily cruel.

The Israelites who complained about the manna provide a stark picture of the desire to flee from moral responsibility. The burden of freedom is such that they would rather return to a system of institutional disempowerment, a decision that seems unimaginable to us.� Maimonides, in contrast, writes of a far more subtle and seductive flight from power and responsibility � an imagined isolation and powerlessness.

We may like to think that our prosperity, opportunity, and freedom were created and exist in a vacuum disconnected from the poverty, oppression and disenfranchisement of other individuals, communities and nations around the globe. We live, however, in a world of incredible interconnectedness. Much of what we rely upon for our day to day lives � our food, clothing and household goods � was produced by someone else, often in some far off land. Unfortunately, many of the people involved in the production process may not have worked under ethical conditions or did not receive a fair price for their goods or labor. Those of us who are lucky enough to enjoy freedom and prosperity face a choice. Do we continue to purchase goods at their �free market� price, a discounted price because it does not factor in a decent wage for workers, safe working conditions or fair prices for commodities? Or, alternatively, do we choose to purchase products that are fair trade certified and support businesses that pay a living wage? True, no single act of conscious consumption will reverse an unbalanced system. It may soothe our restless soul to imagine then that we are powerless to tackle the great disparities of power that govern global trade, that they are simply ‘the way of the world’.� Our tradition, however, warns otherwise � that irresponsibility and inaction are not holy, or even neutral, but ways of cruelty. Furthermore, we should not imagine that our action is merely spiritual or reflexive. For although the marketplace is a seemingly uncontrollable torrent, it is naught but the aggregation of billions of individual drops. We can choose to divert ours to a stream which promotes a more just society.

The mission of the Jewish people is radical and extensive. Deliverance from Egyptian slavery was not an end in and of itself. It was the first step towards building a nation striving to embody a prophetic vision of justice, a venture which demands great commitment and responsibility. Those who spurned that responsibility, who could not bear the yoke of freedom, never got to see the promised land. Will we too seek respite from that burden, preferring �free� food and goods and refusing the challenge, expense and complexity of ethical consumption? May we be strong enough to achieve a more complete liberation.

The iridescent colors reflected off an oil slick are like a twisted and distorted rainbow.

There is a special correlation between this week�s Torah portion and the rainbow covenant of Noah�s time. And there is a foreboding contrast between the rainbow covenant and what�s happened in the Gulf of Mexico. The tension between these dynamic relationships in many ways defines the predicament of our time.

Just as this week is the week we read about the central covenant of the Torah encoded in the Sabbatical and Jubilee years, it is also the week when the anniversary of the rainbow covenant falls. It is no random happenstance: the covenant represented by the Jubilee is in many ways a response to the covenant with Noah and the animals.

How so? The covenant of Noah�s time�the first covenant recorded in the Torah�includes the land and the animals as covenant partners with God alongside the human family. This is also the case with the Jubilee covenant: the land is promised her Sabbaths as a condition for the Israelites to settle upon the land, while the people are required in the Sabbatical year, when the land is resting, to open their fences to allow the wild animals in to eat their fill.

The first condition�to let the land rest�is a fulfillment of the promise in the rainbow covenant that God will no longer destroy the land because of humanity: here God promises to exile humanity in order to save the land from being destroyed. The second condition�allowing the wild animals into the fields�is a tikkun for what happened after the rainbow covenant: even though the animals were partners in God�s covenantal promise not to destroy the earth, they afterwards became fodder for the humans (�like green plants I give you them all�).

Instead, here, in the Sabbatical year, the humans are required to allow their agriculture to go wild and to invite the wild animals to share what grows. This is not only a tikkun for the permission granted to human beings to eat animals. It is also a return to the Garden of Eden, where animals and human beings shared the same food.

And the Gulf of Mexico? In the rainbow covenant God promised not to destroy the Earth because of us, but God did not promise that we wouldn�t destroy the Earth. As the oil laps at the shore and threatens vast ecosystems, important food sources, and endangered species, we must realize that God�s covenant is not enough to save us. The iridescent colors reflected off an oil slick are like a twisted and distorted rainbow. The tragedy and horror of this accident remind us that we have reached a point where we can undo God�s rainbow covenant at the expense of our own lives and the lives of other creatures.

These are the worst of times, because the threat is that close and that enormous. And these are the best of times, because we can wake up to our potential for love and righteousness and create a sustainable world, a world that reflects the rainbow covenant as it was meant to be: a promise to honor and cherish all beings, as God does, and so to act in God�s image.

Then, to quote a medieval prayer (from Pri Eitz Hadar), may we be privileged to see �the whole return to its original strength�and to see the rainbow, joyful and beautified with his colors.� Yashuv hakol l�eitano ha rishon, v�niratah hakeshet, sas umitpa�er b�govanin.

David Seidenberg is the creator of neohasid.org and a teacher of Judaism and ecology.

On April 18, my co-steering committee member Sylvia Frankel and I were invited to speak to the congregation of St. Andrew Lutheran Church in Beaverton, Oregon, a nearby city most famous for being the home of Nike. It was an opportunity to address the congregation for one of a series of learning and study sessions; this one was called Food and Spirituality from a Jewish Perspective.

About 25 people attended, including Lead Pastor Mark Brocker and Associate Pastor Robyn Hartwig, and members of the St. Andrew Green Team, a group of congregants who work on sustainability issues within the St. Andrew community.

My co-presenter Sylvia is a Professor of Jewish Studies at Lewis & Clark College and also teaches at the Florence Melton Adult Mini-School in Portland. She spoke first, talking about the ancient Biblical connections between Jews, the land, and food, as well as the practice of gleaning. I talked about social justice in Jewish faith and practice, and how that relates to food, fair treatment of farm workers, and environmental stewardship as a Jewish ethic.

The group was very receptive, commenting on aspects of our talks, and asking provocative questions, including how to preserve the dignity of poor people in need. I mentioned Maimonides‘ eight levels of charity, the highest form of which is self-empowerment of the poor.

This was a great opportunity to do interfaith community engagement; both Sylvia and I really enjoyed the interaction and hope we can participate in other interfaith discussions about ethical and sustainable food. We’d like to thank Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon, an interfaith nonprofit based in Portland, which hosted an Earth Care Summit in February, where we met members of the St. Andrew community.

Anyone else have similar experiences, within a Hazon CSA or otherwise? Please share!