Wise Organic Pastures – The Processing Plant

This Article is Cross-Posted on KosherEye.com

Our Bubbie and “grand” Bubbies may have known how to make a famous roast chicken and of course, chicken soup, but certainly did not face the same chicken challenges that the kosher shopper faces today. Most chicken is no longer raised in the back yard! The consumer is now faced with numerous choices in quality, type and price.

Chicken has become a multi-billion dollar industry in America. Kosher chicken is no exception, but is somewhat more complicated. There has been extraordinary growth in kosher poultry sales in the last few decades. Along with observant Jews, many non-Jews and Jews who don’t necessarily adhere to kosher laws now purchase kosher poultry. Why? There is a perception that kosher certification adds a layer of clarity and transparency to poultry purchases. In addition to the FDA and government regulatory agencies, the processing plant must adhere to the specifications of a supervising kosher agency and rabbinical authority. Many consumers welcome this extra layer of inspection.

Kosher shoppers have choices to make. Our goal is to understand and to explain some of them to our readers.

Recently, as part of the KosherEye “kosher” summer road trip through Pennsylvania and Maryland, we were invited to tour both The Wise Organic Pastures processing plant in Scranton, Pennsylvania and a Wise Organic Poultry Farm, which is a 50-mile drive out into the Susquehanna Valley.

In Scranton, we had the pleasure of meeting Moshe Fink, founder of David Elliot Chicken and owner of the processing plant used by Wise Organic Pastures. He answered many of our technical kosher “processing” questions and provided background information.

According to Moshe, for poultry to be considered kosher, they must be in good health when slaughtered. The shochet must use a sharp knife and no stunning or electric shock is permissible before “shechita” (slaughter). Kosher poultry may not be heated, and blood must drip freely from the bird after slaughter. The knife must be sharp, the killing respectful, and the resulting blood symbolically “buried” under a floor covering – in this case a layer of sawdust, coal and ashes. The processing method is cold and no heat is ever applied.

Following slaughter, non-kosher poultry may be scalded with hot water. A natural occurrence from the use of hot water is that feathers just “slide” off. The result of kosher slaughter and cold processing is an unwelcome problem: residual feathers. If consumers are asked the one negative of kosher chicken, it is the feathers!

The David Elliot processing plant uses the “Cadillac” of defeathering machines, the LINCO, made in Sweden. But even with this mechanical wonder, which can be adjusted to the average size of the birds, due to the cold water processing system, feathers must be removed manually at the end of the processing line.

At the David Elliot plant, teams of workers stand with defeathering razor sharp knives and manually remove feathers after the machines have completed the initial process. Yes, this extra step of manual defeathering adds to the price of the poultry, and therefore, it is understandable that value priced poultry has more feathers when delivered to the consumer.

One positive aspect of the “kashering” process is very welcome. All kosher birds are soaked in fresh cold water for 1/2 hour, are than covered in salt for one hour, and then washed in fresh running water 3 times. This is done to follow the biblical prohibition to eating blood. Because of the salt “bath”, most consumers applaud the taste, which taste similar to culinary brining. Kosher chickens have won numerous taste awards including a contest held by the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture. In this contest, a main rule is no seasoning is allowed on the chickens. Empire Kosher Poultry has won several of these prizes and Moshe Fink attributes the consecutive awards to the kosher process – specifically salting!

Our poultry facility visit began with the gracious invitation of our host Issac Wiesenfeld, president and owner of  Wise Organic Pastures.His mother, Rachel Wiesenfeld started Wise Organic Pastures in 1992. She founded the company after the family faced a financial setback. According to Mrs. Wiesenfeld, there was “a need in the kosher poultry market for wholesome chicken raised the old-fashioned way — free range, organically fed, hormone-free — and processed according to strict kosher standards. At the time, there was organic chicken and there was kosher chicken, but no one was offering chicken that was both organic and kosher.”

Her son, Issac, the fifth child of 11 siblings, was the only sibling to join the company! The offices are based in Brooklyn, but the plant and farms are in Pennsylvania. The family has had a thriving business relationship with Moshe Fink for the past 18 years. Although the Wise Organic Pastures started 18 years ago, the company could not add the official organic label until the legislation was passed in Washington in Oct 2001. The Wiesenfelds are truly organic kosher pioneers! And, timing is everything. Since USDA established the National Organic Program officially in 2002, the organic food market has grown by almost 20 percent annually.

KosherEye was given a full tour of the entire David Elliott  processing plant. What did we see?

The sanitation and efficiency we observed at the plant was impressive. Before we were permitted to tour, we had to dress from head to toe, (including boots and hats) in sanitary cover. The shechita atmosphere was antiseptic. The Rabbi inspects each bird for blemishes or problems, and then skillfully and quickly cuts through the neck with a slash of his constantly sharpened knife. The job must be both holy and professionally precise. From the off-loading dock to the packaging area, the plant appears clean, well run and intense in purpose. Certainly the atmosphere is not for the squeamish; however it was a realistic view of how the chickens we eat are slaughtered, kashered, cleaned and packaged.

Both the Organic and Kosher poultry market has grown over the years. The economy certainly affects the consumer’s ability to buy the higher priced organic chickens- but, conversely, the number of organic buyers is growing.

For more information about Wise Organic Pastures, visit WiseOrganicPastures.com. To learn more about David Elliott poultry, call 570-344-6348.

This list, from Consumer Reports, of Common Industry Chicken Terms, is very informative.

Due to my son being an only child with little perspective on living with siblings- friendships, fights and loyalty, my husband and I adopted mans “best friend” with the hope it would become Jonah’s “little brother”. The big hope was that our gorgeous red and white cocker spaniel rescue dog was to would teach my son the responsibilities of caring for another dependent being. We had images of my son walking and feeding our new addition to the family.
What actually transpired was far from my vivid imagination. Flynn gravitated to me – I became his world and he, my shadow. Irrespective of my mood, Flynn was always happy to be with me and tail wagging to prove his point.

Being a rescue dog from an abusive environment, Flynn arrived at our home, skittish and fearful.  It was clear that my sweet Flynn with his honest spirit had been subject to tsa’ar ba’alei chayim : the infliction of unnecessary pain on animals.  Whenever I would offer my hand to pet him, his eyes would squint and his face would jerk, weary of a strike.

My Flynn with his expressive eyes, beckoned me to love, hug and protect him unconditionally. Flynn became my “baby”. Rather than Flynn becoming another sibling for my son, he became my toddler who needed all my attention and would reciprocate with loyalty, hugs and kisses.
Then it was almost two and a half years ago, that my husband and I were sitting around the Sabbath table with a roasted free-range chicken in front of us for dinner that I was struck with an epiphany. Looking at this headless chicken in its full form with the legs and everything intact, made me think of Flynn.

I asked myself, “How can I eat an animal and simultaneously live and love an animal?” I was definitely a product of our society, disassociating the head with the animal, not connected to a fellow mindful creature I was about to eat, but Flynn changed that all for me.

Before Flynn, I did not think too much about tsa’ar ba’alei chayim nor the innocent chicken living in cramped quarters, pumped up with hormones with the sole purpose to be my dinner.  It took Flynn’s gentle soul, my fellow companion to teach me that we are all connected to living creatures.

Suddenly eating this chicken became extremely unappetizing, and I just could not eat it.

My interspecies relationship with Flynn eventually raised my awareness that vegetarianism is life affirming. This was characterized by abstaining from all animal eating, embracing a vegetarian lifestyle related to gratitude for our animal kingdom, rather than entitlement and ownership.

Although I adopted Flynn from the harsh treatment of living with an abusive owner, Flynn in turn adopted me as well. He taught me that we are a part of nature rather than apart from nature. Flynn’s innocence and sweetness evoked a compassion for embracing cohabitation and respect for all animal life that I am grateful and has forever changed my life.

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.

Tuv Ha’aretz Reflections on Parshat Ekev, by Rabbi Marc Soloway

The intuition to make some kind of blessing or prayer before eating, either traditional or spontaneous, transcends religions and cultures.  Jews, Buddhists, Christians, Muslims and probably every religion has its version of making a spiritual connection to the food we are about to eat, whether an established formula or a moment of meditation.  The Talmud has a strong statement that anyone enjoying the physical pleasures of this world without first saying a bracha, is like someone who steals from the Temple! (Berachot 35a).

There are so many traditional blessings for the world of our senses; eating and drinking; seeing mountains, rainbows, oceans; smelling spices or fragrant fruits; hearing thunder.  These blessings affirm the majesty of creation and our appreciation of the great gifts of nature, by reciting these brachot as we see or smell, or before we eat anything. Being part of our Jewish CSA, Tuv Ha’aretz along with its weekly offerings of delicious, local produce has certainly heightened our sense of appreciation for the fruit of the land.  For vegetables, the traditional bracha is baruch atah HaShem elohaynu melech haolam borei p’ri ha’adamah – blessed are You Eternal One, sovereign of the universe, creator of the earth’s fruit.  For fruit, we say p’ri ha’etz, the tree’s fruit.

Making a blessing after we have eaten seems to be less intuitive and, to my knowledge, does not play such a major part in many religions.  Jewish law makes a distinction between halachot (laws) that are d’Oraita – derived directly from the Torah, and d’Rabbanan – coming from rabbinic law.  Clearly a mitzvah that is seen to be from the Torah has more weight and authority than one that comes from the rabbis.  Interestingly, birkat hamazon, grace after meals, is seen as d’Oraita and the myriad blessings before food are d’Rabbanan.  The proof text for this is from this week’s parsha, Ekev, and is a verse, which is included in these after food blessings, “V’achalta v’savata u’verachta… – you will eat, you will be satisfied and then you will bless…” (Deuteronomy 8:10)  The order in the Torah suggests that from that place of satisfaction comes the obligation to offer blessings of appreciation.  When we are full and sated after a wonderful meal, our instinct may be to go to sleep or lounge around on the couch too full to be grateful, yet it is exactly in this state that the Torah asks us to be mindful of gratitude rather than victims of complacency.

Those of us who are more inclined to make a blessing before we eat and tend to forget the blessings afterwards, could try to remember that the gratitude that we express after we are satisfied, rather than before we have tasted what lies in front of us, has a greater force. So much of the Torah’s power comes precisely from the fact that it is often contrary to our impulses or intuitions, demanding consciousness in those moments when we feel unconscious.  This is how the Torah helps us to refine our characters and reminds us that we are just a little lower than the angels. Either way, it has been a source of great pleasure and satisfaction to receive our weekly yield from the farmers’ hands and they deserve our blessings of appreciation along with our own personal way of thanking the ultimate source with whom we are in partnership!

My interview from earlier this month was featured on Our Hen House‘s podcast this weekend. We talked about Torah teachings about compassion for animals, how well Judaism and vegetarianism mesh together, kosher slaughter, the new Jewish food movement, and vegan versions of traditional Jewish foods.

To listen to the podcast, click here. My in-depth interview starts about a third of the way into the podcast. I encourage this blog’s readers to listen to the whole interview, but here’s an excerpt:

There is a lot of foundation for compassion for animals and vegetarianism and veganism in the Jewish faith. And I feel proud to be Jewish knowing that Judaism is one of the forebears of animal welfare in Western civilization.

And I feel that my views on whether you want to call it animal rights, animal welfare, animal protection, what have you, can really be summed up by a Jewish term, it’s in Hebrew, called tza’ar ba’alei chayim, which means unnecessary animal suffering. That is, we should prevent causing animals any unnecessary suffering.

How you interpret that could be deemed, on the one hand, as treating animals humanely with animal welfare and just trying to minimize their pain. Or it can be, in my case, saying that if we don’t need animals for meat or for other ways in which they are exploited, we’re better off without meat and without circuses and rodeos and leather and fur, etc. So if that kind of animal use is unnecessary and suffering is inherent in causing those products to be produced, then, in my mind, it’s tza’ar ba’alei chayim, or unnecessary animal suffering.

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.

By Samuel Eskenasy

iMasoret is a new all-in-one Jewish tradition application.  It serves as a vast info center that can accompany the user wherever they go.  iMasoret includes all the siddur prayers (in Nussach  Ashkenaz  Sfarad  and Edot Hamizrach) for Israel and for The Diaspora. Also included are The Holy Days, the books of the Torah, Tehillim(Psalms), Lessons, Kabbalah, Blessings, and Songs.  The app even provides locations of Jewish sites of interest including kosher establishments, synagogues and hotels.

Some features included are:

•     Shabbat and Yom Tov tefilot:  includes Shacharit Mincha and Maariv songs in three Nussachim, Laws & Customs, and Songs
•       Tehillim: In text, there are week day or monthly readings, and there is the option of Neshama letters.
•       Books: includes Torah(5), Nevi’im (19), and Ketuvim (11(
•       Kabbalah + Lessons: a very wide variety of lessons in text, audio, and video formats
•       Songs + Poetry: another option that provides a comprehensive coverage of centuries of Jewish wisdom, all in text and video.
•       Blessings: all the daily prayers for before and after a meal, and what to say for each kind of meal.
•       A calendar with important times.
•       A search option for finding any word or sentence in any of the content as well as a help function
•       Comments – the user can add his comment to some part of the text that will then be available for all others using the application.

The iMasoret is a fully multilingual application.  The current version provides English and Hebrew, subsequent releases will provide Spanish, French, Russian, and German.

The application also has a business directory that any establishment can join to reach a large pool of potential customers.  Find out more at www.imasoret.com

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.

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

By David Sigal, from appstudio

This app came about from my realization that when people go to Shul to daven, they almost never pull out an electronic device. Back 8-9 years ago I remember seeing people trying to daven in a shul from their Palm Pilots and that looked very unnatural. Pocket PC screens were dim, not multitouch, low resolution and one had to tap on a button almost every second to scroll the text. Besides, there are ample amounts of siddurim in a shul, and most people still prefer to read from a physical siddur.

Now with over 200 thousand apps on the iTunes App Store we were surprised not to find a single dedicated Birkat Hamazon app that I could use as a bencher. Mind you there are a few apps that have a text of Birkat Hamazon in them, but before iBirkat was released we haven’t seen a single app that focuses solely on benching. So I got myself a few Jewish apps, among them iPhone Siddur app, but the only time I found myself opening this app was to read Birkat HaMazon. After a few dozen times of opening said app and navigating to the bencher I realized there is a need in the market for a clean, convenient and quick access to the text of beching, and this is how iBirkat was born.

Designing this app we had a few things we wanted to accomplish and so far this is what we have achieved:

1. Currently this is the only bencher app that is on the market, that means that other apps that have Birkat Hamazon text in them are not focused on Birkat Hamazon, but rather include it along with other texts and features (no need in navigating through an entire Siddur).
2. Our app is free and has no ads in it, it is intended as public service app
3. iBirkat has elegant scroll view as opposed to static page views and our app takes advantage of the accelerometer and adjusts the text to the adequate screen position.
4. Birkat Hamazon text is available in iBirkat in most commonly used nussachim (Ari, Eidut Hamizrah, Sefard and Ashkenaz) which are easily accessible from main menu via a picker.
5. Overall pleasant design and ease of use

The app has been through two updates already, and we are working on producing a version for both the iPad and the new high definition iPhone 4 screen.

Download or find out more here

For a feature request or any comments about iBirkat you can email
appSTUDIO at: info@appstudio.co.il

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