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.

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!

Jo Ellen, who is a good colleague of mine who I respect greatly, portrays us oddly:

Hazon is becoming an “institution” on its own, with paid staff and programs. Yet it is a new kind of institution for the Jewish world, as it has neither a clear niche within organized Judaism nor a primary goal to become a national organization that will challenge and change the Jewish world. Hazon’s leaders are essentially uninterested in the organized Jewish world. That is something very new for American Judaism.

True? False? Is the Jewish environmental movement disinterested in in the organized Jewish world?  Weigh in on Jewschool, or in the comments below.

Last November, I koshered my kitchen for the first time. I did so with the full understanding that my decision came with certain compromises, like giving up my favorite cheeses and my delicious but uncertified collection of vinegars. While a bit heartbreaking, these were sacrifices I was willing to make as I welcomed in my new lifestyle. If only I had known that I might have to give up salad, too.

Leafy salad greens, along with berries, asparagus and a variety of other produce, have come under serious scrutiny in the kosher world over the past decade. There’s nothing treyf about these particular fruits and vegetables, except that they have a tendency to attract insects, which are halachically forbidden. Once they are removed from a spinach leaf or the inside of a raspberry, the produce is theoretically fit to eat. But kosher agencies like the Orthodox Union and KOF-K argue that certain bugs (for example, aphids, thrips and mites) are too small to spot easily, but large and common enough to be compromising.

As a result, the kosher industry and a growing number of consumers have started to eye their refrigerator crispers with suspicion. Meanwhile, new products have emerged, like vegetable soaps, and light boxes that make insects easier to see. While most Jews probably still have never heard of light boxes, for some they’ve become a way of life. All catering companies certified by Star-K, for example, are required to use them, and two years ago, the company started selling them directly to consumers for home inspection.

But why the heightened interest in insects now? One answer, according to the Orthodox Union’s Web site, is Rachel Carson, the scientist whose 1962 book, “Silent Spring,” led to a national ban of DDT and other pesticides. As Menachem Genack, CEO/rabbinic administrator of the O.U., has stated, “Since the days of Rachel Carson, the federal government has quite correctly limited the use of insecticides on food… therefore, knowing how to check for these insects has become increasingly important.” In other words, when it comes to kashrut’s bug restriction, organic produce is actually deemed more “dangerous” than its conventional counterparts. This explanation seems historically anemic, however, since the kosher laws long predate the use of pesticides, and produce has been organic-by-default for most of human history.

The actual reason for the insect fixation has little to do with a 20th-century biologist and everything to do with bagged lettuce. Pre-washed salad greens were a late but powerful arrival to the American love affair with industrial convenience foods. As they, along with shredded coleslaw, baby carrots and similar products, have grown in popularity, they unwittingly opened the door to kosher certification.

“Value-added [meaning “processed”] products made all the difference,” Rabbi Tzvi Rosen, who edits Star-K’s journal, Kashrus Kurrents, told me. “The Halacha was always clear about bugs, but now the awareness about it has been heightened.” Kosher consumers know to look for hechshers, kosher endorsements, on packaged foods, but until recently, that category didn’t include fresh produce. Now that the line is blurred, the broccoli sitting quietly on the edge of our plates has become the center of attention.

While not necessarily the stuff of daily headlines, the increasing preoccupation with bug infestation has the potential to change the kosher diet dramatically, and not for the better. Every major certification agency has guidelines on its Web site (or, in the case of the O.U., for sale on a 90-minute DVD) about proper inspection. The Chicago Rabbinical Council takes things a step further by banning the use of fresh Brussels sprouts and other produce that, because of their tightly packed leaves or small crevices, are deemed too difficult to inspect adequately. Similarly, the Kashruth Council of Canada prohibits catering services from using fresh broccoli, artichoke leaves, frisee, mixed greens, oyster mushrooms, curly spinach, watercress, dill, curly parsley, blackberries and raspberries.

Perhaps only a handful of people mourn the loss of Brussels sprouts. But many believe that there is something larger at stake here. As these industrial standards begin to trickle into people’s homes, they encourage stilted norms, including the incorrect notion that certain “seed bearing plants,” which God gave to humans to eat in Genesis, might not be fit for consumption, after all. Some argue that eventually, whole categories of fruits and vegetables could be considered untrustworthy — a stance that could, ironically, further deter kosher keepers from seeking out the healthy, organic, unadulterated foods so highly recommended by nutritionists and food experts. (Not incidentally, bagged lettuces and baby carrots both have been linked to food-borne pathogens, like salmonella and E. coli contamination — both unfortunate side-effects of industrial food production.) On the fleyshik side of things, hormone-free and free-range meat is becoming increasingly possible to find under kosher auspices. But the vegetable part of the meal seems headed in the opposite direction.

Perhaps more important, kosher agencies overstep their bounds by beginning to hechsher fresh produce. From the industry’s perspective, any expansion of business is understandably a good thing. But these agencies were developed to take the guesswork out of kosher consumption, not to discourage the use of inherently kosher fruits and vegetables, or to profit by creating a new need for inspection DVDs, light boxes and the like. The lesson to be learned here is to not give up common sense. The halachic prohibition against insects is not the issue; kosher caterers and consumers alike should certainly check for, and remove, bugs. But when this honest concern turns grocery shopping and dinner preparation into battle scenes, we can only lose.

Check out the interesting comments/response from readers at The Forward’s website.

We are in the final days of Sukkot, one of Judaism’s three harvest festivals, and one of my favorite times of year. The traditional observance of Sukkot: building a booth, decorating it with greens and seasonal fruits and veggies, eating and sleeping under its roof through which we must be able to see the stars, all highlight and make holy things we do every day: living in our homes, eating meals together, even sleeping. Perhaps this is why I look forward to Sukkot so much, or perhaps that it often coincides with my birthday (I’m still young enough to enjoy rather than dread it), or perhaps simply that it happens during the autumn, my favorite season of the year.

Judaism is particularly connected to food, and Sukkot especially to the bounty of our fall harvest. Now is the time for the first apples of the season, in all their amazing varieties, for winter squashes, for root vegetables, and for the last of summer’s abundance: the tomatoes, the zucchini, the pesto made from homemade basil. It is a time to celebrate the simple pleasure of growing and cooking and eating.

This past year, I’ve been involved with Portland’s chapter of Tuv Ha’Aretz. You may have participated in one of our previous programs, like the Jewish edible garden bike tour led by Beth, or our first canning workshop. But by far the most interest we’ve generated is with our gleaning parties, which are happening now. We’ve gone out to our partner farm, Sauvie Island Organics, three times now (and we hope to go more), and with the help of over 20 people, we’ve been able to harvest over 700 lbs of food, all of which we’ve donated to local food pantries. It’s been a wonderful experience to be out on the farm picking beans and squash, getting to know new people and, most of all, saving good food that would otherwise go uneaten and giving it to those in need.

That’s what I want to talk about tonight. The flip side of Sukkot, the season of bounty, is deprivation. While my sweetie and I have been able to eat like kings this summer from our very own front-yard garden, many in our community never get to eat a fresh tomato or cucumber or any other produce, for that matter. There’s been a lot of “food news” recently, about the locavore movement (eating food grown or produced within 100 miles of where you live) and about other sustainable food movements that keep cropping up like mushrooms. One of the most inspiring pieces of news I’ve heard in awhile was Michele Obama’s White House vegetable garden, and the farmer’s market she recently championed, that’s now open in front of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Along with all this celebration of fresh local food, however, there’s also been discussion of “food deserts,” areas in which there is no full-service grocery store, and access to healthy fresh food is, at best, a challenge, and at worst, nonexistent.

My neighborhood in NE Portland, which is mostly low-income, was, not too long ago, a food desert. Now we have a New Seasons and a Safeway within walking distance. But despite this, fresh produce is still not a regular part of many of my neighbors’ diets.

Awhile back, I had several discussions with friends and acquaintances, including a local farmer, about why low-income people don’t eat local, fresh, organic food. I was surprised at their responses (I’d characterize these folks as liberal progressives). One person said that if people just stopped buying soda they could afford fruits and vegetables instead. Another said that if people took the money they spent on drugs and alcohol and used it for food, they could afford to eat properly (he was apparently equating the term “low-income” with “substance abuser,” something that really surprised me). Several people commented, in rather disparaging ways, that if people understood more about nutrition and health they’d make better choices. Not one of the people I spoke with talked about the cost of food as a barrier to eating more produce. As a low-income person myself, I was amazed at these responses.

Last winter, I did some volunteer work for the Oregon Food Bank, summarizing the findings of several focus groups they’d conducted among low-income people who were struggling with food insecurity and hunger. Here’s what some of them said:

“The cost of vegetables is so expensive right now. Even lettuce, you know? It’s like, ‘Oh, there’s no salad tonight.’ So if there could be more vegetables, more meat, that would be ideal.” Another added, “More fruits. All I can afford is bananas and apples. Or oranges sometimes when they’re cheap.”

Families reported the overall cost of food was rising, and that fresh fruits and vegetables are particularly expensive, often unaffordable. Parents are profoundly aware of the expenses associated with providing nutritious, balanced meals for their children. One parent told her son, “I’m sorry we don’t have enough this month. We have to keep a roof over your heads. It’s one or the other.”

Parents reported frustration at their inability to provide their families nutritious meals with a balanced variety of fresh fruits and vegetables. One parent said, “My daughter, she’s 10 and she loves, she wants to take an apple every day for a snack, and I’m just like, “Oh, you can’t,” and I feel bad, you know, because it’s just an apple, but it’s not in the budget right now.”

Here are some statistics from the Oregon Food Bank:

Of people receiving food assistance,

•  46% of households had at least one member working.

•  30% of households had one or more members working full time.

•  43% of families with children had at least one full-time worker.

•  67% of households reported incomes less than 100% of federal poverty level.

•  40% cite higher wages as critical to improving their situation.

•  55% of households report that they receive food stamps.

•  65% of these households say their monthly food stamps last two weeks or less.

According to a study published by the Center on Hunger and Poverty at Brandeis University, Oregon is number one in the nation in hunger and food insecure households.

These statistics, particularly that last one, are shameful. It is unconscionable that people go hungry in the richest country in the world. Oregon’s legacy of hunger is not new, unfortunately, and is partly due to the disappearance of traditional jobs, like logging and fishing, that sustained people in smaller communities. It’s also a result of low wages and high costs of living, and a number of other factors too complex to go into here.

As we move from the bounty of Sukkot into the joy of Simchat Torah, which celebrates our essential text, the Torah, and our survival as a people, let us be mindful of those who long to buy apples for their children but regretfully pass them by. These people are our neighbors, our friends, our co-workers, even perhaps ourselves. Let us recommit ourselves to the true promise of Sukkot, and work to provide healthy affordable and delicious food for everyone. Chag sameach and shabbat shalom.

For ways to alleviate hunger and food insecurity in your community, check out the end of my previous post, Is the Food Movement Elitist, and if so, Does it Matter?

After 70 years of publication, Conde Nast is ceasing publication of Gourmet magazine, while maintaining its support of Bon Appetit magazine.  As with many (most?) corporate decisions, it was a precipitous one, announced to its staff on Monday just as the November issue was off the presses.

As an immigrant to this country, I learned about the cultural rituals of my new country through the Girls Scouts manual– obtained from my small, neighborhood library, another American treasure– and later on, the pages of the food magazines.  The National Geographic was too arcane for me, but Bon Appetit broadened my cultural horizons past my family’s tenement apartment in New York’s Chinatown.  It showed me what people really do eat in their own homes and how to prepare their dishes.  It gave me a cultural passport, even before I could afford to travel on my own salary.

The New York Times reported on Gourmet’s demise in its Wednesday’s Food section—my favorite section of the whole week!—and noted that now-prominent chefs and food writers were weaned on the pages and recipes of Gourmet and how it provided a “home for literate, thoughtful food writing.  Its stable of contributors included James Beard, Laurie Colwin, and M.F.K. Fisher…”  It even quoted Alice Waters saying that a “review in Gourmet used to mean everything. ‘Yes, you could be in The New York Times, but that was sort of fleeting.  Gourmet was just a bigger cultural picture.’”

Well, if you’re not a subscriber (who may be getting the good-bye letter by now), you’re out of luck.  The newsstands and bookstores did not get any additional copies and they’re most likely sold out by now.  You could check with your local library.   Me, I’m relishing my September issue of Gourmet, which was billed as the “The Ultimate Harvest Cookbook” with recipes for everything in season from A (apples) to Z (zucchini).

Thursday, October 8 at 3:00 pm the New York City Health Department visited the fruit stand on 89th and Broadway in Manhattan.  Apparently his fruit stand was too big, extending a foot or so outside the designated area.  The police were summoned  as was a New York City garbage truck.   The police proceeded to deposit crates of fruit and vegetables into the garbage truck.  They threw perfectly good fruits and vegetables away! A homeless woman literally kneeled down begging for the food.  The officers ignored her request. The bystanders were astounded.  As  pedestrians called various state and local officials, as well as news reporters,  the garbage truck closed and the police ceased to haul any more crates of food into the garbage truck for fear of negative publicity.  The supervising police officer said, “We are just following health department protocol.”

The following facts abut this incident have been confirmed to be true: 1) While the health inspector claimed that the food was spoiled the people who had just purchased fruits and vegetables demonstrated that the produce was fresh and edible; 2) The proprietor of the stand has had other violations for the size of his stand; 3) The proprietor has a long history in the neighborhood of generosity toward the poor and homeless; 4) There is a school on the block whose parents and children are glad the healthy snack alternative exists steps from the school’s doorstep. I am shocked the NYC has a policy of destroying edible food, particularly fruits and vegetables.  Additionally, given Scott Stringer and Mike Bloomberg’s sustainability agendas it seems shocking that such a policy would be tolerated.  Is sanctioning a fruit and vegetable proprietor really in keeping with Stringer and Bloomber’s health agenda? Finally, this guy is well-liked and respected in the neighborhood, and earns meager wages from this job. It is hard to imagine what the city gained by sending 8-10 police officers and a city garbage truck to dispose of edible food.  So far, no comment from either Stringer or Bloomberg’s office.

I love hummus. I really do. I had some this morning for breakfast. I will probably have some with dinner. I seriously considered running away with my favorite hummus-seller in Machane Yehuda when I lived in Israel. But even I have never really considered the possibility of a sweet hummus. I mean, at its base hummus is mashed chickpeas. And when I think chickpeas I don’t think dessert.

Well lucky (?) for me, there are people in the world who don’t think the way I do when it comes to chickpeas. They saw hummus as a dessert-in-the-making. And they added some cocoa powder and some sugar (sugar! The humanity!) and they called it Chocolate Hummus.

Apparently the results are delicious and relatively healthy — you know, because of all of the CHICKPEAS that they smashed up with CHOCOLATE.

I’m sorry, but — WHA???? There are some ideas that should not be realized, people. When Herzl said, “If you will it, it is no dream,” he was not talking about hummus.

And these sweet hummus people haven’t stopped at chocolate. You can also buy the following flavored hummuses: pumpkin pie, toasted almond, peanut butter, caramel apple, and maple walnut. They’re made by a company called, I kid you not, Dessert Hummus.

Caramel Apple Hummus?! It’s just wrong.

To be fair, Health.com has reviewed these ridiculous flavors and calls them “brilliant.” This makes me think health.com is maybe not so healthy in the head.

Some things are sacred, people. God, for instance. Also, the Torah. And: HUMMUS. Stop messing with it. Jeesh!

Finally: I challenge someone to buy a case of this dessert hummus. Bring it to the MJL offices so we can try it and I can see if my gut revulsion is warranted or not.

(Cross-posted at Mixed Multitudes)

So why am I violating Shabbat by posting on The Jew and the Carrot today? I should explain that my personal level of observance allows me to use my computer on Shabbat, but I do try to create a separation between how I spend my time on Saturdays and what I do the rest of the week. It’s one way I make Shabbat different and special, even if I don’t adhere to the traditional prohibitions on work.

So what’s such a big deal that I choose not to wait til tomorrow to write about it? Taking down Monsanto. You think I’m being funny? I’m as serious as a heart attack. IMO, Monsanto is currently one of the most dangerous companies operating on the planet, for innumerable reasons. Here are some:

• The folks at Monsanto gifted us with Agent Orange, aspartame (otherwise known as NutraSweet) PCBs and bovine growth hormone, among other products.

• Monsanto controls 90% of the soy, 65% of the corn, and 70% of the cotton market, and has a rapidly growing presence in the fruit and vegetable market. That’s just in North America. Their influence in developing nations like India is even greater (check out this 2006 article in the New York Times about Indian farmer suicides for a direct link to the need for pikuach nefesh). India Together, an independent online news outlet based in India, reports that there have been 182,936 farmer suicides in that country since 1997. Other news outlets and blogs, including The Daily Mail and The Ethicurian, attribute these suicides directly to debt incurred when the farmers were urged by the Indian government to plant GM crops, like those engineered by Monsanto. (In the interests of balance, here’s a different take on this issue in a study cited in The Guardian, which suggests the farmer suicides are a result of lack of financial support rather than GM crops specifically.)

• Percy Schmeiser is a farmer from Saskatchewan Canada, whose canola fields were contaminated with Monsanto’s genetically engineered Round-Up Ready Canola by pollen blown by the wind from a nearby farm. Monsanto said it didn’t matter how the contamination took place, and demanded Schmeiser pay their Technology Fee (the fee farmers must pay to grow Monsanto’s genetically engineered products). Monsanto outlined their request for patent infringement seeking damages totaling $400,000. Click here to learn more about Schmeiser’s case.

• In order to be productive, the entire line of Monsanto’s seeds essentially require the use of Roundup herbicide, forcing all of their customers to purchase it. Roundup is owned by Monsanto.

• In the middle of a recession, while farmers’ incomes are dropping, Monsanto recently announced a 42% price hike on its most popular genetically modified seeds. In many areas of the country, seed distributors carry only Monsanto’s GM seeds.

Can you spell M-O-N-O-P-O-L-Y, boys and girls?

CREDO Action is calling for a federal investigation of Monsanto for violation of anti-trust and monopoly laws. They’re circulating a petition to be sent to President Obama’s antitrust chief Christine Varney. If you’re interested, you can sign it here.

I’ll be the first to admit that an online petition is a relatively spineless form of activism, but it’s a start. Shabbat shalom.

I have to admit that I’m pretty surprised that none of the contributors at Jew and the Carrot has mentioned anything about shiva asar b’Tammuz, or the 17^th of Tammuz, a fast day that fell this year on July 9^th. I don’t mean to wag my finger – I’m not keeping the fast days either – nor compete with Rabbi Mark Hurvitz’s elegant post regarding fasting as a mode of consciousness-raising about Darfur. But I do think it’s worth contemplating what it means, as a Jew, to refrain from food. Frankly, the topic of fasting should be a part of our collective conversation, in the aftermath of the AgriProcessors and Rubashkins fiasco, of what it means to be kosher.

The whole point of kashrut, as I recall — aside from driving ourselves and our loved ones mad — is that it teaches us to be thoughtful. In other words, to think before putting just anything in our mouths. To my mind, other aspects of Judaism, like wearing a kippah or tzitzit, or living in a home with mezuzot, do much the same; they encourage us, if only by virtue of reminding us that God is watching, to think twice before committing a negative act by word or deed.

Fasting, you could argue, is similar. It reminds us of the bounty we have, which we so often take for granted, and promotes mindful eating once the fast is over. But we’re smart people. And I have to say that I think there must be a better way.

You could ask why bother fixing what ain’t broke. But the reasons are many. For one, there is the surfeit of disordered eating among adolescent women, with Jews being no exception. My high school was pretty badly afflicted, and I always wondered whether it were a  coincidence that the first outposts of Tasti-D-Lite were located just blocks away. (Girls used to go there for “lunch.” They broke even on rent, supplies, and wages from the trips there from the girls in my class alone. ) Second, given that it is one of the only mitzvot universally observed (that is, on Yom Kippur), the concept of fasting has lost much of its meaning, because for some, it is the only mode of observance, or identification with Judaism, still practiced. Third, there is so much hunger in the world — in Darfur, of course, and the rest of the developing world, but in our own communities, too — that it seems a chillul Hashem to perpetuate.

What if, instead of fasting on a single day, we devoted the period of the Nine Days or the Aseret Yemei Teshuva to donating half of our normal food intake to the hungry (literally, by clearing out our pantries, or symbolically, through charitable donations)? Or if we devoted those same periods to ensuring that we said the brachas before eating, or the Birkat Ha’Mazon, if we did not do so normally, and with even more kavanah if those prayers were part of our practice? I don’t know; I’m no halachic expert. But I think that the concept of fasting has become so perverted, within our own culture and as a result of Western mores, that it’s time that we did better.