One of the times it sucks the most to be a convert like me (I’m doing this on my own, not for love) is during the holidays – Pesach in particular.  Like Christmas is for many (even secular) Christians, Pesach is one of the holidays that nearly all Jews, even many non-observant ones, celebrate in one way or another with their families.  Sure, over the years I’ve been fortunate to be brought into the homes of friends and strangers, but still it is not the same as having family traditions to look forward to, or even the casual security of knowing you have that unconditional place to go for the holiday.

So this year a friend of mine and I decided to host our own “orphans” Seder – for others like me who doesn’t have (a Jewish) family or just doesn’t like their family.  Although to be honest, I can count on one hand how many Pesach Seders I’ve attended, so maybe I don’t know what I’m getting myself into.  I mean, I know they are a lot of work, but I love a good dinner party and I have a friend to help out with the Jewish stuff.

But then I tell my friend (who had participated in Hazon’s Environmental bike ride last year) that I want to do an environmentally-themed Seder.  Sounds like fun, a little learning around the table, and hey, I write for the Jew & the Carrot, which is a project of Hazon, so they might be able to help me find an environmental Haggadah, right?

“No we don’t have one of those per se, but Nigel Savage is speaking at Uri L’Tzedek, so why don’t you go to that?”

Okay, so I found myself in Upstate Manhattan last night in a room of a couple dozen younger Jews (early to mid twenties) with fresh fruit on the table, and a circle of chairs.  In an effort of punctuality, we jumped in right away.

What does it mean for you to combine spirituality and eating?  How do you currently do this? How might you be able to grow in this area?  What are your top three priorities in food consumption?  What are the questions you ask yourself in food stores when choosing products and when deciding which restaurants to frequent?

Those were just a few of the opening questions posed by Shmuly Yanklowitz, the Uri L’Tzedek facilitator.  Uri L’Tzedek is a leading Orthodox social justice organization that was founded last year by rabbinical students from Yeshivat Chovevei Torah.  Because they frequently draw a crowd of like-minded folks, we could have happily spent the night just discussing one of those questions.  But, there was so much else to talk about!

So Nigel got started, “Are you eating differently than you did five years ago?”  Almost every hand shot up.  What were people doing?  Eating less meat, more fruits and vegetables (in part why Rabbi Ari Weiss had a table full of fruit as a snack), others had changed their eating habits because healthier food tastes better, is more ethical.  We could have discussed this all night, but we had to keep moving.  Nigel passed out a packet of some of the highlights of Food for Thought, a recent publication put together by Hazon as a resource for thoughtful discussion and learning on Jews and food.  Maybe this could be (in part) my Haggadah!

But because we had so much to cover in such a short amount of time, we kept going.  Rabbi Ari Weiss got up and spoke about environmentalism and Judaism, and he started from the beginning – literally.  We compared the two creation stories in chavruta, discussing the two (rather different) directives in our relationship to the earth.  A couple more texts that we went through quickly (but were given hand-outs for more thoughtful study later) and then we were onto the action steps to reduce your carbon footprint.

The evening wrapped up with a list of Uri L’Tzedek’s upcoming events which was good because I felt like I only got a tiny taste of a much bigger social justice discussion this group is facilitating. I didn’t necessarily walk away knowing what I was going to do for Pesach, but maybe I can become a Uri L’Tzedek groupie?  Ari and Shmuly are totally guys I’d love to have a drink and a deeper conversation with.  I think this is a group definitely worth following.

*Photos by Shmuly Yanklowitz