The town of Modiin, about 30 km northwest of Jerusalem, is pretty much a suburb without a city; an outsider can easily get lost among its shiny, planned streets filled with look-alike buildings, all faced in the same beige limestone. (I write this with all the smugness of one living in a tiny kibbutz house with a view of dairy sheds.) So it was something of a surprise to find that the town supports an educational ecological farm right on its border.

It’s called Hava v’Adam (a Hebrew play on words – Hava means both Eve and a farm). Last month our Kibbutz Gezer ecology group got a tour of the farm, organized by my neighbor and friend, Ofra, who works there part-time.

Our guide was a lovely young man named Haim who’s is in charge of the agriculture, and who appears to radiate a sort of intense inner peace (if that’s not an oxymoron), especially when espousing the virtues of home-grown organic food. The spiritual aspect is overt here: The farm offers a way to reconnect with the Earth on many levels.

Several gardens of mixed seasonal vegetables are scattered around the site. We admire the broccoli, Swiss chard, herbs, onions, cabbages, cauliflower and spiky artichoke relatives called cardoons. Weeds have their place in the gardens, too, especially edible ones. The layout is textbook permaculture: Biofiltered graywater from the kitchen eventually waters the vegetables; all waste is composted; animals and fruit trees help complete a whole in which all the parts nourish each other. We also visit the farm’s two kindergartens and a sort of ecological art therapy room for older children.

Much of the farm’s workforce is made up of young people who volunteer there for a year before their army service. We meet some of them in the communal building which, like the other buildings on the farm, is mostly constructed of local materials such as mud, straw and wood. Dreadlocked and dressed in layers of fashionably ratty clothes, they all seem to be going about their various chores cheerfully before leaving for the weekend. There is also a group of American students (who we don’t meet), there for a five-month experience in organic farming in Israel. (Details of the program are on the Hava v’Adam website.)

Afterward, we rest in the shade and chat with Haim. Everyone’s been inspired by something they’ve seen, and each is hoping to bring at least one thing back to the kibbutz, whether it’s integrating animals into the landscape, recycling water, or adopting planting techniques in the neighborhood organic gardens. We all know that Kibbutz Gezer would have a long way to go before it could call itself an ecological community, but somehow, after our visit to Hava v’Adam, we’re thinking about the next step in the journey.