Rabbi Ben Bag-Bag used to say of the Torah: “Turn it and turn it again, for everything is in it. Pore over it, and wax gray and old over it. Stir not from it for you can have no better rule than it” - Pirke Avot 14:25, Sayings of Our Fathers. 

Whether we stir or not, though it definitely helps to stir, compost happens.  We are all witness to the irrefutable process of decay in varying degrees of time, as benign as the gradual whither of a solitary banana left in the fruit bowl too long (alright already you know who you are: you cannot continue to ignore that mealy brown banana in your kitchen any longer…it’s bordering on neglect now…time to make a decision…turn brown ‘nanas into ‘nanabread!), or perhaps more tragically, the swift demise of those raspberries that hosted a mold convention—several different molds—within a day of being washed and refrigerated (I have a strict policy of having no “wounded soldiers” by eating any berries I buy on the way home).

The compost pile, in whatever form it may take in your home, distills this sad verity: that once picked, most of our foods begin to break down immediately; sad because we may be so poignantly reminded of how quickly the sweet starches of our white corn, whose tall stalks have taken 3 months of water and fed heavily from of our soils, begin to lose their flavor.  At the same time, a corn cob in our pile can also remind us of our ever-changing world of molecules…and definitions.  At what point has a corn cob ceased to be a singular thing and become soil, a composite-like substance? 
The often-asked “how do I know my if my compost is done?” might be one of the more existential questions for the spiritual gardener, since decomposition does not work on a continuum of start to finish, so much as it is a process of constant reconfiguration.  To a large extent, our entire world around us, not just our food, is matter-in-transit—water cycles from clouds to ocean and back, our forest floors nurse new stands of ponderosa pine from its decaying humus, our very own cells are regenerating with exceptional speed just as others die.

Jews knew all about this of course, since way back.  It is my understanding that in the kabbalistic tradition of Rabbi Isaac Luria, the world was created through God’s words, which were held in glass vessels.  Unable to contain the power of their possibility, the vessels shattered, their shards scattered to the corners of an imperfect earth, leaving us as gatherers of these holy sparks, or klitat ha’nitzot.  It would seem that tending the compost pile is a manifestation of that instinct to take the broken, forgotten, used-up, and to transmute the mundane into something holy again: we feed our food scraps to our compost bin, knowing that the rich soil will give our fields a boost of nourishment come planting time.  Some would say that as we “raise the sparks,” we are taking part in tikkun olam; that is, repairing the fragments of the material world around us.  Furthermore, as we elevate the lowly things, we make our own selves more whole as well, and more integrated into the life cycles of the earth and of others.  A favorite saying of Shamu Sadeh, ADAMAH Program Director, is “the stone rejected by the builders shall be the cornerstone.”  Though a New Testament teaching, the parable of the builders is quite vivid in capturing in this context both the spiritual and practical redemption that comes with making use of seemingly imperfect materials, so much so that our holiest structures need not be marbled from the finest lime, but simply cobbled from humble rock.

In our endeavor to redeem our leftovers, we may also find that the kabbalistic belief in reincarnation fits well in our embrace of decomposition.  The compost pile has its analogue in the gilgul nefesh, or wheel of souls, as it stirs about, recombining in various forms through time.  It takes many lifetimes to retrieve the holy sparks they say, and it is honorable work to elevate them.  Who knew that the simple alchemy taking place in our steaming piles in backyard nooks and worm bins (what holy souls are worms, indeed) could propel us towards healthy future generations?

There is a saying that goes, “We did not inherit the world from our forefathers; we received it on loan from our children.”  I’d be willing to take it a step further and suggest that composting is an act of paying interest on that loan.  In replenishing our fields and gardens, we increase the fertility for future generations, thereby accruing both a kind of spiritual and physical wealth.  What excellent commerce to be engaged in, then; by recycling our food, we are never diminished.