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.

Crossposted to Kayam Farm Kollel Blog Photo from Kayam Farm

Shalom!

My name is Joel Mosbacher, and I was the “Brachot captain” for week one of the Kollel here at Kayam Farm. I am a rabbi at Beth Haverim Shir Shalom in Mahwah, New Jersey, and I’m spending six weeks of my first-ever sabbatical sweating and studying here at this incredible place. I love it here, and would recommend to all of my colleagues to spend a week, a month, a summer, or whatever time you possibly can here at Kayam when you get a vacation or a sabbatical!

We spent the first week of the Kollel focusing on Tractate Brachot (Blessings), so as the weekly captain I will try to share some of the highlights from our ten hours of learning over the course of four days. After reading this blog entry, please feel free to respond with your own musings, questions, and comments, right here on the blog page for all to see and enjoy.

Early in our week, we thought about how here at Kayam we see farming as something good, apleasurable challenge; something miraculous and necessary, something exciting and full of promise. The Torah, however, seems to view agriculture as a punishment—a curse upon Adamfor eating the forbidden fruit in in the Garden of Eden. The difference between our positive perspective on sustainable agriculture and Biblical view of accursed farming is important to keep in mind as we work and study here together.

It seems as though Americans have deeply internalized the Torah’s view of farming: we don’t want to work for our food. Americans want our food fast, easy, and cheap, and it’s great whensomeone else does it for us. We don’t know or care what it takes to provide us with endless,cheap monocultures of staple foods providing minimal nutritional value, maximum environmental harm, and a dissolution of local economies. Spray pesticides, outcompete small farmers, hiremigrant workers- do whatever it takes- just as long as most of us don’t actually have to be farmers, working hard in order to produce food for people to eat.

Kayam’s mission is to embody and inspire social and ecological responsibility by transforming our community through hands-on Jewish agricultural education. But perhaps our greater vision is to return to gan Eden mikedem (like Eden of old)—so that we begin to see tending the garden asa blessing, becoming God’s partners in the beautiful and abundant unfolding process of creation. Or, as Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young sang so beautifully, “we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden…”

In our text studies this week, we looked at excerpts from chapters six and nine of TractateBrachot. We examined many rabbinic perspectives about why we should say blessings, and food blessings in particular:

-In order to see the universe, our role within it, and God’s role more clearly

-Because everything belongs to God, so saying a prayer before consumption redeems that which we consume

-Because eating is a continual opportunity to bring Godliness into our lives

-So that we recognize the everyday miracles all around us

-In order to open a gate and allow God’s goodness to pour into the world

Some other rabbinic tensions we discovered this week:

-Food is food, whether it is whole or ground up. Yet the rabbis teach that not all food is created equal. We make distinctions between whole food and torn foods, between the sevenspecies of Israel and other species, even between store-bought/processed food and homemade. Contrary to what we might think as local-organic-homemade enthusiasts, the rabbinic perspective sees commercially processed bread as higher quality than a home-baked loaf.

-What do you do between saying hamotzi and actually eating? The Babylonian Talmudargues that one can take one’s time, serve the humus, and even feed one’s animals before eating the bread! The Jerusalem Talmud differs, saying there should be no break whatsoever between the blessing and the eating. Why? Perhaps because Jews in Eretz Yisrael felt amore immediate connection to the land and its produce, and therefore abhored anydisconnect between blessing one’s food and the accompanying act of eating. The exiledJews in Babylonia, in contrast, had less of a connection to land, so perhaps they were not as concerned about maintaining the immediacy and intimacy between blessing and eating. What do you think?

-The rabbis seem to have preferred processed foods- can you believe it?! Perhapsprocessed foods back then were actually safer and more nutritious, with the opposite being true today.

-Are we allowed to write our own blessings? The Talmud, and the Rambam, seem to permitus to compose our own blessings, but only by mistake! If a person does not know the official,rabbinically ordained blessing, he/she can say whatever he/she feels and that blessing counts, ie. permission is granted retroactively for that creative blessing. But if he/she knows the official wording of the blessing and consciously avoids it, then that seems to be prohibited. There was much lively debate about this, and what the problem is, if any, with coming up with new blessings today. What’s the worst that could happen? We’ll all start saying too many blessings, and become too creative in expressing thanks for all the wonderful things in our lives? Oh no! What will we do?!

-Our final day of learning revolved primarily around the challenging rabbinic instruction to bless God for evil as well as for good. Intellectually, we could make sense of this through a number of prooftexts from Psalms, Job, and even the Shabbat morning liturgy. In practice, however, we have each had experiences where it is difficult to praise God. Sometimes it’s hard to praise God with joy, or with a full heart. And yet this is our charge- to be accept all things in our world, no matter how hard they can be.

Learning Brachot this week made us remember to praise the Source of all life, and to constantly recognize that our food does not come from Food Lion or Trader Joe’s. And even when we feel cursed, we are taught to affirm that there is justice and truth in the universe.

We have all eaten from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Perhaps Adam and Eve’s sin was not eating the fruit, but instead, failing to acknowledge the Source of that fruit. And is it now a curse, a punishment, to work the land? Can we not work the land together in joy, in community, and in blessing?

When we bless God, Hashem, HaBorei, HaMotzi, Ha’Omer v’Oseh, we have, the opportunity to redeem that fruit. Let us all turn curse into blessing in our home and in our field, at the table, every meal. And may it all be for a blessing.

B’shalom,

Rabbi Joel Mosbacher

2010 Kayam Farm Summer Kollel, Brachot Captain

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.

As a Jewish community we have the capacity and potential to create our own unique and genuine response to integrating environmental education into our family life. That�s why we are so excited to present this first-ever Los Angeles Jewish environmental seminar � �Framing the Environment Through a Jewish Lens�. Join us on Sunday, May 23rd, 1:30-6pm at the Shalom Institute in the beautiful Malibu Mountains.

If you are a Jewish educator, part of a synagogue Green Team, communal professional, youth professional or lay leader, we�ve created the chance for you to meet and learn from thought leaders and organizations, gathering information on green certification of facilities, farming and gardening materials, curriculum resources and much more.

Seminar admission is $18.00. At 12:30pm an optional complimentary community lunch hosted by the Lisa & Maury Friedman Foundation will give you a chance to network with each other and seminar presenters.

The keynote speech, �Am I My Planet�s Keeper? Empowering Communities with Jewish Wisdom on the Environment�, will be presented by Evonne Marzouk, founder/executive director of Canfei Nesharim, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the importance of environmental protection education from the perspective of Torah and Jewish law.

Following the presentation, you can choose from two tracks: the Religious School and Day School Educator Track, led by Evonne Marzouk, Elana Havusha, Shalom Institute�s garden director, and other community environmental educators or the Green Team and Community Track led by Bill Kaplan, executive director of the Shalom Institute and Lisa Friedman, president of the Lisa & Maury Friedman Foundation. Either way you�ll experience the Marla Bennett Israel Discovery Center and Garden as well as the Institute�s organic farming center.

Ample time has been set aside for everyone to collect a variety of environmental education curriculum and teaching and organizational materials which you can use in your community. You�ll get an overview of Jewish communal learning approaches — from Torah text to the basics of greening our Jewish indoor and outdoor facilities and educating our families � surrounded by the very nature we are all committed to protecting.

The Shalom Institute Camp and Conference Center is located at 34342 Mulholland Hwy, Malibu, CA 90265. For more information call 818-889-5500 or visit the Shalom Institute website. To register, click here.

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!

Listen to our new PODCAST, Episode 5 by clicking here!

Co-Founder Julie Wolk sits down with me on the latest Hazon Podcast. Listen to what Wilderness Torah is doing to revitalize the American Jewish Community. Also, don’t forget you can subscribe on iTunes by searching “Hazon”.

Also, don’t forget that it is Earth Day this week, so check out all the options going on in your area. For a good listing, check this website out

They have a map where you can choose where you live and find out what is going on near you!

And finally, for those in the New York area, come see “Tapped: The Movie,” a documentary about water usage and safety in America. It is screening at 5 pm at the Cowin Center at Columbia University (between 120 and 121 streets on Broadway). If you are one of the first 100 people to arrive at 4 pm, you can exchange a plastic bottle for a FREE Klean Kanteen! So look into your recycling bin and grab a plastic bottle. If you come after the first 100 people, you will get a great discount on Klean Kanteen.

Check out this new special Ride Edition Podcast! If you haven’t heard, Hazon is allocating funds raised from the Bay Area Ride a bit differently than past rides. It’s pretty exciting and really putting the power in the hands (or cycles) of Ride participants, who will get to decide where to allocate the funds they raise.
Also, if you didn’t hear about last year’s NY Ride engagement story, Marc tells us what he was thinking the day he proposed on the Ride.

Check it all out by clicking here!

You can also subscribe to the podcasts through iTunes! The last episode has listeners all the way near the Philippines, so join the global community!

Happy passover!

It is apropos that the Whole Grains Council has declared quinoa as the March Grain of the Month, as we begin Passover on the night of March 29th. Quinoa, a rockstar of a grain in its own right with tons of nutritional value, made its debut as a Passover friendly grain just a few years ago, forever changing the way many people cook for the holiday.

According to the laws of Passover, chometz (barley, rye, oats, wheat, and spelt [BROWS to many who attended Jewish day school]) and their derivatives are forbidden. An Ashekanazic rabbinic tradition developed where kitniyot, legumes, rice and other similar products that are processed similar to chometz, look like chometz when ground into flour, or may have even just a bit of chometz in them, were also outlawed for Passover (many Sephardic Jews eat kitniyot).

As luck would have it, the law of kitniyot applies only to items that the rabbis were aware of at the time this tradition developed. This means that, you guessed it, quinoa is allowed on Passover! No longer were the Jewish people restricted to endless variations of potato dishes.

Enter, quinoa.

You still can’t make macaroni and cheese (although if you are a fan of potato starch/egg noodles, have at it!), but here is a wonderfully filling and delicious quinoa recipe.

For more information about the laws of Passover, check out this link.

Quiona Pilaf w/ Baby Bella Mushrooms & Crispy Shallots

Ingredients:

1 Tbsp + 1 tsp olive oil
3 shallots, thinly sliced, divided
1 garlic clove, thinly sliced
8 oz baby bella mushrooms, sliced
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp black pepper
1 cup of quinoa, picked over
2 cups water
1 Tbsp chopped chives
2 Tbsp chopped roasted almonds

Directions:

1. Heat 1 Tbsp oil in a sauce pan and cook 2 shallots and garlic over medium flame until soft, 4-5 minutes. Add mushrooms and cook 6-8 minutes more until they have released their liquid.
2. Add spices, quinoa, and water, stirring to combine. Raise heat and bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer 12-15 minutes until quinoa is tender and liquid has been absorbed. Allow to rest an additional 2-3 minutes covered, then fluff with a fork.
3. Meanwhile, heat remaining 1 tsp of olive oil in a small pan. Fry remaining 1 shallot until it is crispy and very browned.
4. Garnish quinoa with crispy shallots, chives and almonds.

Take a gander at my food blog for more recipes.

The month Nisan begins tonight and with it, so many associations. Last year, I wrote about the practice of refraining from eating Matzah from Rosh Hodesh Nisan (i.e. tonight) until Passover. Most people make, if any, the association of dreaded Pesach cleaning and preparation. I’ll be writing some about that in a few days or next week, God willing, but for now, let’s stick to things connected specifically to Rosh Hodesh Nisan.

One association fewer people make is that Birkat haIlanot, the blessing over blooming trees, is typically said in the month of Nisan:

ברוך אתה ה” אלוהינו מלך העולם שלא חיסר בעולמו כלום וברא בו בריות טובות ואילנות טובות ליהנות בהם בני אדם

Barukh Atah Adonai Eloheynu Melekh haOlam, sh’lo hisar b’Olamo kloom, uvara vo b’riyot tovot v’eelanot tovot lehanot ba-hem b’ney adahm

Blessed are you, Hashem our God, King of the universe, for nothing is lacking in His universe, and He created good creatures and good trees in it so that people can enjoy them.

( * There are a few variations of the blessing. This is the way it appears in the Shulhan Arukh. I suppose if you’re learning this for the first time, you’re learning it from me; say it the way you were taught it.)

The occurrence and wording of the blessing make sense: we tend to bless God for those things that benefit us and happen at specific times (think holidays.) We also make blessings on anything enjoyable (Birkhot haNehenin.) But there is more to this practice than simply making the blessing. First, you have to see the tree. It is not enough to know that this is when it will happen or to hear that someone else saw it. Second, it is the blossom or flower of the tree that you must see. Third, we say the blessing only when we see this happen to/on a tree that produces edible fruit. Finally, each person says this blessing only once per year, upon seeing such a bloom for the first time.

Among the purpose of blessings is to compel us to see the beautiful in the ordinary and in the extraordinary and to appreciate these as gifts from God. Birkat haIlanot has a particularly beautiful way of doing this. “One who goes out,” says the Shulhan Arukh, “in the days of Nisan and sees trees from which a flower is blossoming, says [the above blessing.]” (OH 226:1) Truthfully, the later scholars tell us, the blessing is not connected only to this month, but that this is the time when trees typically bloom in warmer countries (the Shulhan Arukh was probably compiled in Tz’fat and was based on material “the Mehaber” previously compiled there and in Adrianople, Turkey.)

This blessing fits into a category known as Birkhot haRe’iyah, blessings of seeing, made when seeing things: rainbows, lightning, certain people, oceans and, of course, trees in bloom. Sometimes it is hard to look at something in nature and see a spark of God in it, have a spiritual experience from it. How much harder it is to look at people, especially the ones you don’t like, and see God in them. All the soft-spoken rabbi talk about “the image of God” in the world won’t make that easy. These blessings help. Notice that the rule isn’t that one should go out looking for such a tree. When you go out, starting around now, it says, you have to observe everything around you; don’t necessarily look for a tree, but when you spot one–which means you have to observe everything around you–say this blessing.

Of course, the timing of the blessing makes sense because people mark Rosh Hodesh Nisan and it’s around now that trees start to bloom in many parts of the world (at least in the northern hemisphere.) But I posit that there is another reason. We start paying attention to blossoming trees tomorrow because in a certain way, that’s what tomorrow is all about. Rosh Hodesh Nisan is a time to remember that redemption is on its way. Just as we must do with trees, beginning tomorrow, if not all the time, we have to start looking around. Miracles can (Nisan from Nes, miracle) happen at any time anywhere. Maimonides even defines a miracle this way: when something unusual but within the limits of the natural order happens at precisely the right time. Usually we don’t notice miracles until after they’ve happened. Most scholars hold that you can’t say Birkat haIlanot after the actual fruit comes out; the whole point of the blessing is to thank God for potential. Right now (Rosh Hodesh begins in a few minutes here on the East Coast) is a particularly auspicious time to be thinking about potential. Our redemption as a people and as individuals is as close and as evident as the blossoming trees. Only by remembering to bless it will we remember–and merit–to see it.

Hodesh Tov!