Thanks to Maria Russakoff for this guest post, originally printed in the Arizona Jewish Post.  It’s been a while since we’ve posted anything about Hazon’s Food Conference or the controversial goat schecting, but this piece is worth sharing. 

The handwritten sign over the shiny percolator reads: “Chai tea - made lovingly with raw goat and cow milk, brewster honey, sadeh hot peppers, blackstrap molasses, black tea and ginger.” I haven’t the faintest idea where brewster honey comes from or what makes hot peppers “sadeh,” but I know from the first sip that I have come to a place that will nurture my stomach, mind and soul for the next three days. I breathe a contented sigh of relief, happy to have made it in one piece from sunny Arizona to the Connecticut Berkshires in the dead of winter, happy to be back at the Hazon Jewish Food Conference in its second year.

As a member of the executive planning committee for Hazon’s 2007 Jewish Food Conference, I have spent the past year meeting with a dozen or so volunteers and Hazon staff via conference call to work out the details of this event. We have had to adjust to the vagaries of cell phone reception and the inflexibility of schedules and time zones; committee members have periodically shouted over the din of a crowded New York cafè or hurriedly hung up to catch a train. It can be tricky to exchange ideas with a group of people by phone on their lunch hour. However, over many conference calls, I have been buoyed by the creative synergy of the group. At registration, I exchange warm greetings with my fellow committee members, some of whom I am meeting face to face for the first time.

Come with me for a moment as I backtrack to a wintry New England evening, Chanukah, 2006. Nigel Savage, Hazon’s director and creative rallier of people and ideas, has the stage. He earnestly addresses the crowd of 150 food conference participants over dinner, asking: “How many of you would eat meat if you had to slaughter it yourself?” Nine months later, the largely vegetarian executive committee grapples with the same question: To shecht (slaughter) or not to shecht at this year’s food conference? We do not achieve consensus over this question, and some members quietly bow out of the committee over the issue. The question, though initially startling, is inevitable. This is, after all, the Jewish food conference, no exceptions. I find myself admiring an organization that is committed to an honest exploration of the issues, wherever that may lead, however uncomfortable the journey.

Chanukah, 2007. The morning of the shechting I layer on every piece of clothing I packed, including my pajamas. It is 16 degrees out and I am not a fan of bracing, bitter cold. As I carefully put on arm warmers a fellow participant has kindly lent me, I can’t help but replay the questions I’ve been asking myself since September when we first discussed the possibility of shechting at the food conference. Will I be overcome by emotion witnessing the death of these goats? Will they experience pain or fear? What will it mean that we have taken their lives for me to eat? Is eating meat necessarily so Jewish? Will I ever be able to eat meat again? Anticipation and dread mingle in my gut as we drive out to the field where the shecting will take place.

The actual shecting is solemn, awesome, transformational for some. Although the role of the 60 or so people present is merely to witness, this is an intensely communal event.
After the shechting, I attend a small group session. My group of seven meets in the tea lounge, home of the goat milk chai. As we unwind from our heavy outerwear, a much deeper unwinding takes place in our conversation. Further questions arise: As a Jewish parent, how do I gather myself to face my children in 20 minutes, one participant asks. What do I tell them?

We recall how tenderly the goatherd held the goats in their final moment. Speaking of parenting, how does this relate to the binding of Isaac? We remember how swiftly the shochet’s knife separated life from death. Another participant reminisces about the death of two very significant people in her life; one death instantaneous and without warning, the other excruciatingly slow. We agree that witnessing the slaughter has brought into sharp relief both the wholeness and holiness of our tradition: a ritual for every aspect of Jewish life, including death. The slaughter of these three goats has been many things, none of them trivial.

I would be fooling you if I said that I have resolved all my food issues after attending the food conference. Not surprisingly, I now have a whole new set of questions. I would also not be entirely truthful if I said the shechting was the highlight of the conference. Keep in mind that over the long weekend of the conference, 248 participants attended 60 sessions led by 65 presenters. These sessions ran the gamut from cooking demonstrations, to urban worm composting, to the 2007 Farm Bill reauthorization, to how to have a sustainable simcha, to the history of bagels. There were religious services for all shades of Jews. Indeed, I found myself on Friday night at the Orthodox minyan sitting behind the mechitzah (wall), a first for me.

It turns out that my seminal food conference moment comes as I sit outside by a frozen pond in the warm winter sunshine. In front of me, the freshly fallen snow on the pond glimmers with an infinity of tiny fiery lights. I am reminded of the kabbalistic notion of the holy sparks of God scattered “in the beginning.” Behind me by the hen house, a rooster perching improbably in the white winter snow crows his little heart out. Joyous laughter bubbles up inside me as I consider the contrasts: white rooster with blood red crown on white snow, warm sun, cold bench, Yankee New England, Jewish Food Conference. For a brief interlude, the world comes into perfect focus and everything is whole. I suspect I am catching a glimpse of the Eternal. Not too shabby for a food conference.

It is not the act of shechting three goats which will serve to define Hazon’s food work, but the context within which it is framed. The food conference is in its essence a unique opportunity for individuals to come together as a Jewish community to explore what it means to be Jewish now, in the 20th century. Food, which brings us together and has historically set us apart, becomes a logical point of departure. Whether you come for the food or for the Judaism (or to babysit the grandkids), you will find that one aspect curiously magnifies the other.

Maria Russakoff lives in Tucson with her two sons and husband. She spends much of her time composting, gardening and participating in local community-supported agriculture. To find out more about the Jewish Food Conference, go to hazon.org.