This piece by Rabbi Kahn-Troster, is adapted from The Jew and the Carrot Blog. Rachel is the Director of Education and Outreach for Rabbis for Human Rights North America and a Hazon board member.
In Judaism, confession is a group experience. On Yom Kippur, we stand together as a community and in one voice confess our collective sins before God. Amidst the various lists of transgressions, the Al Chet prayer contains a line that deals with sustenance: Al chet she chatanu liphanecha b’ma’achal u’mishteh, literally: “For the sin we have sinned before You through food and drink.” “Food and drink” is often translated as “gluttony,” which narrows the sin to the idea that we are confessing to having eaten more than our share, wantonly, without thinking. I think the original translation is helpful—we have committed sins through all kinds of acts of eating and drinking, but also through the way our food is produced, distributed, and wasted despite our best efforts to eat ethically through our Hazon CSAs.
First, Al Chet is about responsibility. The formulation “We have sinned” requires us to admit that it’s not the chocolate mousse cake that is sinful. We’re the ones who take food for granted in a time when so many people are food insecure. Perhaps even more important is the reminder that this sin is before God—it’s not just about eating sustainably from our CSAs but about eating sacredly. We have to remember the Jewish version of Michael Pollan’s basic rule about eating: “Eat kosher food. Not too much. Mostly plants. Say a bracha (blessing).” When we forget to acknowledge that our sustenance depends on God and that we are blessed each day to be able to enjoy it, then we have missed the mark. Judaism provides us with ways to reinforce the sacred nature of our food—as my teacher David Kraemer taught me, we say a bracha not to make the food holy but because it is holy to begin with—saying a bracha thanks God for giving us permission to eat it, and only then does it becomes mundane. On Yom Kippur, we acknowledge as a community that we have been blind to God’s blessings.
It’s especially poignant that we recite this line of the Al Chet on a day when we are fasting. I, like I am sure many of you, end up dreaming about bagels and water as the last hours of Yom Kippur tick down. Most days of the year we can commit this sin. On Yom Kippur, we can’t. This offers us a fantastic opportunity to live our lives differently as soon as the holiday is over—we can begin to eat sacredly as we break our fast.
G’mar chatimah tovah—may each of us be inscribed this year for good in the Book of Life.
Showing posts with label Torah Connections. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Torah Connections. Show all posts
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
“I’m a grass farmer” and Parashat Ekev
Gary A. Rendsburg
This week’s parasha (portion of the Torah reading) includes several well-known passages, which indicate ancient Israel’s remarkable awareness of its natural surroundings in the land of Canaan and beyond. Among these passages is Deuteronomy 8:8, with the famous list of the seven species (wheat, barley, vines [i.e., grapes], figs, pomegranates, olive oil, and honey [extracted from dates]), and which is preceded by the verse describing Canaan as “a “good land, a land of wadis of water, springs and deeps, coming forth in the valley and in the mountain” (v. 7).
We also read the following description of the land in Deuteronomy 11:10-11, with a contrast to the physical environment of Egypt: “For the land into which you are coming to inherit it, it is not like the land of Egypt from which you came forth; where you must sow your seed and water with your foot like a vegetable garden. And the land that you are entering to inherit it, it is a land of mountains and valleys; from the rain of heaven you shall drink water. A land that YHWH your God cares for; always the eyes of YHWH are on it, from the beginning of the year until the end of the year.” Now, from any objective standard, one would assume that Egypt, with the constant flow of the Nile River, providing for plentiful water throughout the land, would be a more desirable place for agricultural productivity. But the biblical author turns this notion on its head, because he/she realizes that the irrigation system required to bring the waters of the Nile to the sown fields takes considerable labor – unlike the land of Canaan, where the rainfall is supplied directly by God, without the involvement of human toil.
Finally, a few verses later, we read: “And I will give the rain (to) your land in its season, former-rain and latter-rain; and you shall collect your grain, and your new-wine, and your fine-oil. And I will give you grass in your field for your cattle; and you shall eat and you shall be satiated” (Deuteronomy 11:14-15). At first glance, it would appear that the latter verse omits a step (or two or three) in the food chain: God states that he will give grass in the field for the cattle, and as a result thereof we humans will eat. But how do we get from the cattle eating the grass to our eating our own food?
The answer is clear to anyone who has ever farmed in a traditional manner, that is, polyculture farming, which naturally is how all farming occurred in antiquity. It all starts with the grass, as everyone who has read Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma (2006) readily will understand. I refer especially to Pollan’s description of Joel Salatin, the chief operator of Polyface Farms in Virginia: “But if you ask Joel Salatin what he does for a living (Is he foremost a cattle rancher? A chicken farmer?), he’ll tell you in no uncertain terms, ‘I’m a grass farmer.’”
Salatin comprehends the point about grass well, but he clearly is not the first to recognize the importance of grass in the food chain. The ancient author of Deuteronomy, three thousand years ago, already saw the connection between the grass in the field and the food on our tables – if he/she omitted several steps along the way, it is because presumably everyone in ancient Israel, where so many people engaged in farming (of the local, organic, pastured, grass-fed kind), would have understood the connection between the two parts of the biblical verse.
Gary A. Rendsburg holds the Blanche and Irving Laurie Chair of Jewish History and serves as Chair of the Department of Jewish Studies at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey.
This week’s parasha (portion of the Torah reading) includes several well-known passages, which indicate ancient Israel’s remarkable awareness of its natural surroundings in the land of Canaan and beyond. Among these passages is Deuteronomy 8:8, with the famous list of the seven species (wheat, barley, vines [i.e., grapes], figs, pomegranates, olive oil, and honey [extracted from dates]), and which is preceded by the verse describing Canaan as “a “good land, a land of wadis of water, springs and deeps, coming forth in the valley and in the mountain” (v. 7).
We also read the following description of the land in Deuteronomy 11:10-11, with a contrast to the physical environment of Egypt: “For the land into which you are coming to inherit it, it is not like the land of Egypt from which you came forth; where you must sow your seed and water with your foot like a vegetable garden. And the land that you are entering to inherit it, it is a land of mountains and valleys; from the rain of heaven you shall drink water. A land that YHWH your God cares for; always the eyes of YHWH are on it, from the beginning of the year until the end of the year.” Now, from any objective standard, one would assume that Egypt, with the constant flow of the Nile River, providing for plentiful water throughout the land, would be a more desirable place for agricultural productivity. But the biblical author turns this notion on its head, because he/she realizes that the irrigation system required to bring the waters of the Nile to the sown fields takes considerable labor – unlike the land of Canaan, where the rainfall is supplied directly by God, without the involvement of human toil.
Finally, a few verses later, we read: “And I will give the rain (to) your land in its season, former-rain and latter-rain; and you shall collect your grain, and your new-wine, and your fine-oil. And I will give you grass in your field for your cattle; and you shall eat and you shall be satiated” (Deuteronomy 11:14-15). At first glance, it would appear that the latter verse omits a step (or two or three) in the food chain: God states that he will give grass in the field for the cattle, and as a result thereof we humans will eat. But how do we get from the cattle eating the grass to our eating our own food?
The answer is clear to anyone who has ever farmed in a traditional manner, that is, polyculture farming, which naturally is how all farming occurred in antiquity. It all starts with the grass, as everyone who has read Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma (2006) readily will understand. I refer especially to Pollan’s description of Joel Salatin, the chief operator of Polyface Farms in Virginia: “But if you ask Joel Salatin what he does for a living (Is he foremost a cattle rancher? A chicken farmer?), he’ll tell you in no uncertain terms, ‘I’m a grass farmer.’”
Salatin comprehends the point about grass well, but he clearly is not the first to recognize the importance of grass in the food chain. The ancient author of Deuteronomy, three thousand years ago, already saw the connection between the grass in the field and the food on our tables – if he/she omitted several steps along the way, it is because presumably everyone in ancient Israel, where so many people engaged in farming (of the local, organic, pastured, grass-fed kind), would have understood the connection between the two parts of the biblical verse.
Gary A. Rendsburg holds the Blanche and Irving Laurie Chair of Jewish History and serves as Chair of the Department of Jewish Studies at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
The Kitchen as a Place of Perpetual Blessing
From Nada Chandler, shareholder and member of the Steering Committee of Houston’s Tuv Ha’Aretz
In response to last week’s piece “The Cooking Brachot”, Nada Chandler, shareholder from Houston, Texas, reminds us that there are already long standing ways for women to bless the food they are preparing that are not within the traditional liturgy. I have just recently learned from Nada that many women may recite prayers called Tekhines. Tekhines are Jewish private devotions and prayers in Yiddish written by both women and men, but recited primarily by women. Nada has also told me that Tekhines have been a part of the Jewish tradition for at least 400 documented years and in today's world, women who recite Tekhines in their kitchen probably do not have to consult anything but their memory.
- Brooke Saias, Hazon’s Food Justice Coordinator
Rooted in our tradition over the centuries, women have recited the most basic “cooking” blessing, as they made their Challah:
May it be Your will, our God, the God of our Fathers, that You bless our dough, as You blessed the dough of our Mothers, Sarah, Rivkah, Rachel and Leah. And may we be blessed as in the verse: “You shall give the first yield of your dough to the kohen to make a blessing rest upon your home.” “May the pleasantness of the Lord our God be upon us; establish for us the work of our hands; establish the work of our hands.”
Women did not have to consult a siddur or an established liturgy as they cooked, they either, as I learned from my mother z”l (of blessed memory), spontaneously, or in words she learned from her mother invited God to participate in the process. Every time my mother, z”l, put something in the oven she would say, “Zol es zayn bashert oys tsu kumen gut” it should be destined that it'll come out [tasting] good . It contains one strong element of Jewish prayer – the petition.
In a kosher home, every act of food preparation is another occasion to be aware of the sanctity of the whole process, as well as the knowledge that what happens in the kitchen is a part of our partnership with God. Observing kashrut, like saying the blessings before and after eating, is a constant kitchen reminder of the role of God in all that we do. In today’s dual kitchens, perhaps it is possible to operate on automatic pilot, and never have to stop to think if the knife for the tomatoes is parve, but even in those modern wonders, one still has to sort through the rice, wash each leaf, crack each egg, (and who does not thank God when all of the eggs are perfectly clear?*), and check each onion. Each of these acts is a reminder that preparing food is as holy a process as eating it is. Our tradition may not have a single prayer for food preparation, but so long as breads need to rise and soup needs to be properly seasoned, God will share in the process.
*In our free range world, there is the possibility of there being a blood spot on the egg which would render it treif (non-kosher).
In response to last week’s piece “The Cooking Brachot”, Nada Chandler, shareholder from Houston, Texas, reminds us that there are already long standing ways for women to bless the food they are preparing that are not within the traditional liturgy. I have just recently learned from Nada that many women may recite prayers called Tekhines. Tekhines are Jewish private devotions and prayers in Yiddish written by both women and men, but recited primarily by women. Nada has also told me that Tekhines have been a part of the Jewish tradition for at least 400 documented years and in today's world, women who recite Tekhines in their kitchen probably do not have to consult anything but their memory.
- Brooke Saias, Hazon’s Food Justice Coordinator
Rooted in our tradition over the centuries, women have recited the most basic “cooking” blessing, as they made their Challah:
May it be Your will, our God, the God of our Fathers, that You bless our dough, as You blessed the dough of our Mothers, Sarah, Rivkah, Rachel and Leah. And may we be blessed as in the verse: “You shall give the first yield of your dough to the kohen to make a blessing rest upon your home.” “May the pleasantness of the Lord our God be upon us; establish for us the work of our hands; establish the work of our hands.”
Women did not have to consult a siddur or an established liturgy as they cooked, they either, as I learned from my mother z”l (of blessed memory), spontaneously, or in words she learned from her mother invited God to participate in the process. Every time my mother, z”l, put something in the oven she would say, “Zol es zayn bashert oys tsu kumen gut” it should be destined that it'll come out [tasting] good . It contains one strong element of Jewish prayer – the petition.
In a kosher home, every act of food preparation is another occasion to be aware of the sanctity of the whole process, as well as the knowledge that what happens in the kitchen is a part of our partnership with God. Observing kashrut, like saying the blessings before and after eating, is a constant kitchen reminder of the role of God in all that we do. In today’s dual kitchens, perhaps it is possible to operate on automatic pilot, and never have to stop to think if the knife for the tomatoes is parve, but even in those modern wonders, one still has to sort through the rice, wash each leaf, crack each egg, (and who does not thank God when all of the eggs are perfectly clear?*), and check each onion. Each of these acts is a reminder that preparing food is as holy a process as eating it is. Our tradition may not have a single prayer for food preparation, but so long as breads need to rise and soup needs to be properly seasoned, God will share in the process.
*In our free range world, there is the possibility of there being a blood spot on the egg which would render it treif (non-kosher).
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Mayyim Hayyim - The Water of Life
By Rabbi Jacob Fine
Lack of water is not something that most Americans tend to worry that much about, especially here in Seattle. Walk into any household anywhere in America any time of year and, provided that the bills are paid, when you turn the faucet, water is going to flow out of the tap. Clean, fresh water in America is so ubiquitous that it is a profound spiritual challenge not to take it for granted.
Tragically, much of the world’s population is in a very different situation. Over one billion men, women, and children (more than four times the population of the United States and Canada combined) lack safe water to drink. It is surprising for many of us to learn that the lack of safe drinking water is the primary cause of disease in the world today, causing 80% of the world’s health problems. Every day, tens of thousands of people die from causes directly related to contaminated water. 1
In America, among the rare demographics that are deeply sensitive to water, both in its abundance and in its absence, are our farmers. Regardless of the scale or style of farm, H2O is one thing that all growers need.
Given that the Torah is in many ways an agricultural book, it should come as no surprise that water is a frequent actor. Water emerges sometimes in the form of a blessing, such as when Isaac digs anew his father’s wells and discovers springs, and sometimes in the form of a curse, as in the case of Noah’s flood.
And on many occasions, we find the Israelite people in want of water. In Hukkat, the first of this week’s double parshah, we find the Israelites complaining bitterly to Moses and Aaron for having led them out of Egypt to a land without water. “Why have you brought the Lord’s congregation into this wilderness for us and our beasts to die there? Why did you make us leave Egypt to bring us to this wretched place, a place with no grain or figs or vines or pomegranates? There is not even water to drink!” (Numbers 20:4-5)
Even for those of us who are not ourselves farmers, the more deeply that we are connected to the source of our food—the more deeply we become sensitive to water. One of the by-products of eating seasonally is that you become more intimately attuned to local weather patterns. You notice when it rains a lot because your strawberries are super plump and watery. And you notice when it hasn’t been raining at all because your kale is bitterer while your tomatoes are much sweeter.
In addition to all of the other benefits, eating produce grown on local farms is a way to sensitize ourselves to the central place that water plays in all our lives. As part of the world’s privileged minority who lives without fear of going without clean and abundant water, let us use our deepening relationship with the source of our food as an opportunity to become more conscious of mayyim chayim—the water of life. Let us open our hearts to the Israelites’ cry which is a current reality for far too many people today—‘’There is not even water to drink!”
Shabbat shalom, Rabbi Jacob
Please direct comments to Rabbi Jacob Fine at jacob@hilleluw.org
Lack of water is not something that most Americans tend to worry that much about, especially here in Seattle. Walk into any household anywhere in America any time of year and, provided that the bills are paid, when you turn the faucet, water is going to flow out of the tap. Clean, fresh water in America is so ubiquitous that it is a profound spiritual challenge not to take it for granted.
Tragically, much of the world’s population is in a very different situation. Over one billion men, women, and children (more than four times the population of the United States and Canada combined) lack safe water to drink. It is surprising for many of us to learn that the lack of safe drinking water is the primary cause of disease in the world today, causing 80% of the world’s health problems. Every day, tens of thousands of people die from causes directly related to contaminated water. 1
In America, among the rare demographics that are deeply sensitive to water, both in its abundance and in its absence, are our farmers. Regardless of the scale or style of farm, H2O is one thing that all growers need.
Given that the Torah is in many ways an agricultural book, it should come as no surprise that water is a frequent actor. Water emerges sometimes in the form of a blessing, such as when Isaac digs anew his father’s wells and discovers springs, and sometimes in the form of a curse, as in the case of Noah’s flood.
And on many occasions, we find the Israelite people in want of water. In Hukkat, the first of this week’s double parshah, we find the Israelites complaining bitterly to Moses and Aaron for having led them out of Egypt to a land without water. “Why have you brought the Lord’s congregation into this wilderness for us and our beasts to die there? Why did you make us leave Egypt to bring us to this wretched place, a place with no grain or figs or vines or pomegranates? There is not even water to drink!” (Numbers 20:4-5)
Even for those of us who are not ourselves farmers, the more deeply that we are connected to the source of our food—the more deeply we become sensitive to water. One of the by-products of eating seasonally is that you become more intimately attuned to local weather patterns. You notice when it rains a lot because your strawberries are super plump and watery. And you notice when it hasn’t been raining at all because your kale is bitterer while your tomatoes are much sweeter.
In addition to all of the other benefits, eating produce grown on local farms is a way to sensitize ourselves to the central place that water plays in all our lives. As part of the world’s privileged minority who lives without fear of going without clean and abundant water, let us use our deepening relationship with the source of our food as an opportunity to become more conscious of mayyim chayim—the water of life. Let us open our hearts to the Israelites’ cry which is a current reality for far too many people today—‘’There is not even water to drink!”
Shabbat shalom, Rabbi Jacob
Please direct comments to Rabbi Jacob Fine at jacob@hilleluw.org
Fruit In Its Season
by Rabbi Rachel Kahn-Troster
Yesterday was the first day (finally!) of my local farmers’ market here in NJ, and I’ll admit I went a bit fruit happy, coming home loaded with local blueberries, strawberries, and cherries. It took some detective work to figure out what things were not local–the farmer may be Pennsylvania Dutch but those sure aren’t local peaches, not yet. I’m much stricter about eating fruit locally and seasonally than I am vegetables. I can go months without fresh berries or stone fruit, hoping that it counts towards my balanced diet if I eat many servings of fruit in the summer and far fewer in the winter. Sure, there are days towards late February when I am sick of citrus fruit, grapes, and bananas, and look longingly towards the plums flown in from California. But in my heart, I know they will disappoint me.
(As an aside, the Toronto Star had an article last week about the ubiquitous California strawberry, tracing it from laboratory to the store. The comments on the article are an interesting cross section of conflicting consumer values )
Today, choosing to eat seasonally is a values choice. In my brain, I hear two conversations from the days before I had my daughter. One parent explained to me that parenting is compromise, and that meant buying those strawberries in December if your kid just had to have them. Another told me how for her growing up, eating cherries was special, because you only got them for part of the year, and how she wanted her son to know that feeling of specialness when he eat cherries. I understand the first parent (we’ve all been there) but I want to be the second. Just because we can have something all the time doesn’t mean we should. We risk having the sacred and special become mundane.
Seasonal eating keeps us rooted in changes of every year, and that is what makes it such a Jewish value for me. Jewish time is agricultural, with the Pilgrimage festivals linked to the harvests of the year. The reason we have Jewish leap years is to prevent the holidays from coming unglued to the season: Passover can’t be in the middle of the winter and Sukkot can’t be in the summer. The rituals we associate with the festivals are also connected to the seasons: the spring greens on the seder plate, the first fruits of Shavuot, and the harvest decorations of Sukkot. There is some disconnection in the timeliness of it all for those of us who don’t live in Israel: every year, my father reminds us that the reason we eat potato at seder for our “spring greens” for karpas is that it was still winter in April in Poland. Our rootedness in the land is for a land far away, as we see when we pray for rain based on Israel’s climate calendar. And yet Jews all over have also adapted to the land they find themselves in, incorporating the seasonal produce of their new homes into their holiday meals.
Living according to the passage of the seasons also reminds us that we can’t have what we want all the time. I’m sure many kids would love it if every day were another night of Hanukah. But if we lit the candles all year, they would lose their meaning. They wouldn’t be special any more.
One of my teachers taught me that living on Jewish time means living on a separate clock and calendar than the rest of the world. To me, part of that means eating by the real calendar, not the artificial abundance created by technology and our ability to use fossil fuels to transport food. Food is a gift from God, and the more we take it’s permanence for granted, the more mundane we risk it becoming.
One of the traditional uses for the shehechiyanu blessing is the the first time you eat a fruit in a given season (or since Rosh Hashanah). Wouldn’t it be sad if we never had the chance to say it because our food was no longer linked to the seasons? As we head towards a beautiful summer of harvests, I hope we all have a chance to experience foods that are special.
Yesterday was the first day (finally!) of my local farmers’ market here in NJ, and I’ll admit I went a bit fruit happy, coming home loaded with local blueberries, strawberries, and cherries. It took some detective work to figure out what things were not local–the farmer may be Pennsylvania Dutch but those sure aren’t local peaches, not yet. I’m much stricter about eating fruit locally and seasonally than I am vegetables. I can go months without fresh berries or stone fruit, hoping that it counts towards my balanced diet if I eat many servings of fruit in the summer and far fewer in the winter. Sure, there are days towards late February when I am sick of citrus fruit, grapes, and bananas, and look longingly towards the plums flown in from California. But in my heart, I know they will disappoint me.
(As an aside, the Toronto Star had an article last week about the ubiquitous California strawberry, tracing it from laboratory to the store. The comments on the article are an interesting cross section of conflicting consumer values )
Today, choosing to eat seasonally is a values choice. In my brain, I hear two conversations from the days before I had my daughter. One parent explained to me that parenting is compromise, and that meant buying those strawberries in December if your kid just had to have them. Another told me how for her growing up, eating cherries was special, because you only got them for part of the year, and how she wanted her son to know that feeling of specialness when he eat cherries. I understand the first parent (we’ve all been there) but I want to be the second. Just because we can have something all the time doesn’t mean we should. We risk having the sacred and special become mundane.
Seasonal eating keeps us rooted in changes of every year, and that is what makes it such a Jewish value for me. Jewish time is agricultural, with the Pilgrimage festivals linked to the harvests of the year. The reason we have Jewish leap years is to prevent the holidays from coming unglued to the season: Passover can’t be in the middle of the winter and Sukkot can’t be in the summer. The rituals we associate with the festivals are also connected to the seasons: the spring greens on the seder plate, the first fruits of Shavuot, and the harvest decorations of Sukkot. There is some disconnection in the timeliness of it all for those of us who don’t live in Israel: every year, my father reminds us that the reason we eat potato at seder for our “spring greens” for karpas is that it was still winter in April in Poland. Our rootedness in the land is for a land far away, as we see when we pray for rain based on Israel’s climate calendar. And yet Jews all over have also adapted to the land they find themselves in, incorporating the seasonal produce of their new homes into their holiday meals.
Living according to the passage of the seasons also reminds us that we can’t have what we want all the time. I’m sure many kids would love it if every day were another night of Hanukah. But if we lit the candles all year, they would lose their meaning. They wouldn’t be special any more.
One of my teachers taught me that living on Jewish time means living on a separate clock and calendar than the rest of the world. To me, part of that means eating by the real calendar, not the artificial abundance created by technology and our ability to use fossil fuels to transport food. Food is a gift from God, and the more we take it’s permanence for granted, the more mundane we risk it becoming.
One of the traditional uses for the shehechiyanu blessing is the the first time you eat a fruit in a given season (or since Rosh Hashanah). Wouldn’t it be sad if we never had the chance to say it because our food was no longer linked to the seasons? As we head towards a beautiful summer of harvests, I hope we all have a chance to experience foods that are special.
Greening Your Shabbat Table
Hosting a Shabbat meal is a wonderful way to spend quality time with family and friends without the distractions of the everyday (email, ringing cell phones, distracting text messages…) It also offers an amazing template over which to create new rituals and traditions that add new meaning and sustainable flair to the experience. Hazon’s blog The Jew & The Carrot (www.jcarrot.org) offers the following resources to help you Green Your Shabbat Table and discover, “What makes this Shabbat meal different from other Shabbat meals?”
Greening Your Shabbat Table
Set a kavannah (intention) to “go local.” Whether you decide to make all your dishes from scratch, or purchase some things ready-made, make a pledge to feature ingredients and dishes that are locally grown. Remember that the definition of “local” is loosely defined - so decide in advance where you want to draw the boundary. Even if you don’t manage to eat all local, all the time in your day-to-day life (and really, who does?), Shabbat is the perfect time to strive for that ideal. See just how local you can go!
*Teaching moment: Think about your guest list and what interests your invitees share. If several your guests are vegetarians, or committed meat eaters, consider brining this topic into the meal as well. If there are people who are involved in social justice causes, or grow their own herbs, consider what kind of menu and discussion questions would draw them in most.
Involve your friends. Don’t take on the local kavannah alone - get your friends involved! Invite them into the conversation about where ingredients for your shared meal will come from. If no farmer’s market is readily available at which you/your guests can buy local produce, what other criteria can you use for buying locally or sustainably? Perhaps everyone will pledge to use no plastic bags in their shopping (including those little bags for vegetables and fruit!) or to walk or bike to their supermarkets or farmers markets.
Utilize peoples’ skills. Maybe someone is a great baker—ask him to make challah. Someone else might have a knack for roasting her own peppers or making fruit preserves—find a way to use that as well!
*Teaching moment: If you do decide to ask your friends to bring dishes to the meal, consider giving them questions to think about while they are shopping or preparing their food. For example, if someone is bringing fruit, try giving them the task of asking the fruit vendor about the origins of the produce, or what makes organic food different from pesticide-free food. Ask them to share what they learned at the meal.
Drink locally. If you are comfortable drinking non-kosher wine, try to find a bottle (or box!) of wine grown and produced close to home. If you prefer kosher, check out a wine on The Jew & The Carrot’s kosher organic wine list.
Check in with the season. If you are hosting in the winter, think about making a winter vegetable theme, e.g. winter squash, or using lots of peaches, nectarines, and cherries if you are hosting a summer meal. And realize that as the seasons change, the ingredients will as well so that allows you to have original menus numerous times a year!
Bless your meal. Other than the traditional brachot (blessings) birkat hamazon (grace after meals), invite your guests to discuss whom they want to thank before, during, and following this unique meal and encourage them to create their own blessings or songs if they so choose.
Eat together. With intention. In silence. (Try spending the first 10 minutes of your meal just enjoying the food and company without speaking. It might feel a little strange at first, but see if you can relax into the idea. And of course you can share your experiences afterwards!)
Learn together. Rabbi Shimon said: If three have eaten together at one table and have not spoken over it words of Torah, it is as though they had eaten of the sacrifices of the dead (Isaiah 28:8)…but if three have eaten at one table and have spoken over it words of Torah, it is as if they had eaten from the table of God (Ezekiel 41:22).
In other words, learning together over food is a good thing! Identify a learning coordinator for your meal who will come up with questions to lead the discussion around the table, and identify short texts that can be learned together. Discussion questions can include: “What does sustainable mean to you?” “How is your relationship to this meal different from other meals knowing how it was prepared and where the ingredients were purchased?” “What is the connection between Shabbat and having a sustainable meal?”
Texts are another great way to create an order and guide your meal. Try to focus on Jewish texts (Hazon’s book “Food for Thought” curriculum book is an incredible resource for relevant texts), but feel free to bring in non-Jewish texts as well that might speak to your dinner’s theme, i.e. highlights from Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma or Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.
Clean up green. After your sustainable meal, clean up with green cleaning supplies like Seventh Generation or Ecover. Invite your friends to help you wash dishes and put leftover food away. Whether or not you made all the food yourself, or invited friends to help, clean up should be a communal effort (which is more sustainable for you)!
Be Creative. Don’t feel limited by these ideas! This is just a starting point for making sustainable Shabbat “seders” a tradition that any community, group, or city can take part in and make their own!
Thanks to Nadya Strizhevskaya for pulling together this resource page.
Greening Your Shabbat Table
Set a kavannah (intention) to “go local.” Whether you decide to make all your dishes from scratch, or purchase some things ready-made, make a pledge to feature ingredients and dishes that are locally grown. Remember that the definition of “local” is loosely defined - so decide in advance where you want to draw the boundary. Even if you don’t manage to eat all local, all the time in your day-to-day life (and really, who does?), Shabbat is the perfect time to strive for that ideal. See just how local you can go!
*Teaching moment: Think about your guest list and what interests your invitees share. If several your guests are vegetarians, or committed meat eaters, consider brining this topic into the meal as well. If there are people who are involved in social justice causes, or grow their own herbs, consider what kind of menu and discussion questions would draw them in most.
Involve your friends. Don’t take on the local kavannah alone - get your friends involved! Invite them into the conversation about where ingredients for your shared meal will come from. If no farmer’s market is readily available at which you/your guests can buy local produce, what other criteria can you use for buying locally or sustainably? Perhaps everyone will pledge to use no plastic bags in their shopping (including those little bags for vegetables and fruit!) or to walk or bike to their supermarkets or farmers markets.
Utilize peoples’ skills. Maybe someone is a great baker—ask him to make challah. Someone else might have a knack for roasting her own peppers or making fruit preserves—find a way to use that as well!
*Teaching moment: If you do decide to ask your friends to bring dishes to the meal, consider giving them questions to think about while they are shopping or preparing their food. For example, if someone is bringing fruit, try giving them the task of asking the fruit vendor about the origins of the produce, or what makes organic food different from pesticide-free food. Ask them to share what they learned at the meal.
Drink locally. If you are comfortable drinking non-kosher wine, try to find a bottle (or box!) of wine grown and produced close to home. If you prefer kosher, check out a wine on The Jew & The Carrot’s kosher organic wine list.
Check in with the season. If you are hosting in the winter, think about making a winter vegetable theme, e.g. winter squash, or using lots of peaches, nectarines, and cherries if you are hosting a summer meal. And realize that as the seasons change, the ingredients will as well so that allows you to have original menus numerous times a year!
Bless your meal. Other than the traditional brachot (blessings) birkat hamazon (grace after meals), invite your guests to discuss whom they want to thank before, during, and following this unique meal and encourage them to create their own blessings or songs if they so choose.
Eat together. With intention. In silence. (Try spending the first 10 minutes of your meal just enjoying the food and company without speaking. It might feel a little strange at first, but see if you can relax into the idea. And of course you can share your experiences afterwards!)
Learn together. Rabbi Shimon said: If three have eaten together at one table and have not spoken over it words of Torah, it is as though they had eaten of the sacrifices of the dead (Isaiah 28:8)…but if three have eaten at one table and have spoken over it words of Torah, it is as if they had eaten from the table of God (Ezekiel 41:22).
In other words, learning together over food is a good thing! Identify a learning coordinator for your meal who will come up with questions to lead the discussion around the table, and identify short texts that can be learned together. Discussion questions can include: “What does sustainable mean to you?” “How is your relationship to this meal different from other meals knowing how it was prepared and where the ingredients were purchased?” “What is the connection between Shabbat and having a sustainable meal?”
Texts are another great way to create an order and guide your meal. Try to focus on Jewish texts (Hazon’s book “Food for Thought” curriculum book is an incredible resource for relevant texts), but feel free to bring in non-Jewish texts as well that might speak to your dinner’s theme, i.e. highlights from Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma or Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.
Clean up green. After your sustainable meal, clean up with green cleaning supplies like Seventh Generation or Ecover. Invite your friends to help you wash dishes and put leftover food away. Whether or not you made all the food yourself, or invited friends to help, clean up should be a communal effort (which is more sustainable for you)!
Be Creative. Don’t feel limited by these ideas! This is just a starting point for making sustainable Shabbat “seders” a tradition that any community, group, or city can take part in and make their own!
Thanks to Nadya Strizhevskaya for pulling together this resource page.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
The CSA Season Begins
by Rabbi Rachel Kahn-Troster
Member, Hazon CSA Tuv Ha’Aretz in Tenafly, NJ
"How great are Your works, Oh God, How very profound Your designs!"
(Psalm 92:6)
In Michael Ableman’s book Fields of Plenty, there is a moment when he describes looking across a field planted with more than 70 varieties of summer squash, all in bloom. It is a picture of abundance, but what I remember thinking when I read this passage was, “There are how many varieties of squash? I’ve only ever seen 3 or 4!!! Where would I find 60+ more? And how would you cook them?”
Every spring and summer, I am amazed by the new varieties of fruits and vegetables I discover from local farms, expanding my palette beyond the year-round supermarket staples. They serve as milestones in my life: that happened during the August we discovered heirloom tomatoes, or that was the summer I started eating beets and kale. Each new taste leaves me just a little bit more in awe at the wonders of God’s world that I could easily take for granted.
One bracha that is familiar to many of us is the Shehecheyanu, which we say at significant moments in our lives, such as wearing new clothes, lighting the first night of Chanukah candles, or a conversion. One time when say this bracha is when we eat a new fruit or vegetable, either for the first time altogether or for the first time this year.
Imagine, if you are like me, and you only eat strawberries when they are local and in season. When you finally get your hands on a ripe, tasty strawberry, you feel lucky to be able to eat it in its proper time and place. It makes sense to take a moment to translate that gratitude into thanks to God for the blessing of a small, perfect morsel of fruit.
We are just at the beginning of the CSA season, a season when we will be blessed with beautiful produce that tastes the way food should taste. Some of what we find in our boxes every week will be new to us this year; other produce we will encounter for the first time in our lives. Each piece of food will be the result of the partnership between the farmer who grew the food and the Creator who thought to design that carrot or those 70 varieties of summer squash. I invite each of you to take a moment, as you begin your CSA journey, to offer words of thanks, either the traditional ones below or the ones you feel moved to say.
Shehechiyanu
Blessed are You, O Lord, our God, Sovereign of the Universe, who has caused us to live, and has sustained us, and has enabled us to come to this time.
Barukh ata Adonai, Eloheinu melekh ha-olam, she-hecheyanu, ve-kiyemanu ve-higiyanu la-zeman ha-zeh.
Member, Hazon CSA Tuv Ha’Aretz in Tenafly, NJ
"How great are Your works, Oh God, How very profound Your designs!"
(Psalm 92:6)
In Michael Ableman’s book Fields of Plenty, there is a moment when he describes looking across a field planted with more than 70 varieties of summer squash, all in bloom. It is a picture of abundance, but what I remember thinking when I read this passage was, “There are how many varieties of squash? I’ve only ever seen 3 or 4!!! Where would I find 60+ more? And how would you cook them?”
Every spring and summer, I am amazed by the new varieties of fruits and vegetables I discover from local farms, expanding my palette beyond the year-round supermarket staples. They serve as milestones in my life: that happened during the August we discovered heirloom tomatoes, or that was the summer I started eating beets and kale. Each new taste leaves me just a little bit more in awe at the wonders of God’s world that I could easily take for granted.
One bracha that is familiar to many of us is the Shehecheyanu, which we say at significant moments in our lives, such as wearing new clothes, lighting the first night of Chanukah candles, or a conversion. One time when say this bracha is when we eat a new fruit or vegetable, either for the first time altogether or for the first time this year.
Imagine, if you are like me, and you only eat strawberries when they are local and in season. When you finally get your hands on a ripe, tasty strawberry, you feel lucky to be able to eat it in its proper time and place. It makes sense to take a moment to translate that gratitude into thanks to God for the blessing of a small, perfect morsel of fruit.
We are just at the beginning of the CSA season, a season when we will be blessed with beautiful produce that tastes the way food should taste. Some of what we find in our boxes every week will be new to us this year; other produce we will encounter for the first time in our lives. Each piece of food will be the result of the partnership between the farmer who grew the food and the Creator who thought to design that carrot or those 70 varieties of summer squash. I invite each of you to take a moment, as you begin your CSA journey, to offer words of thanks, either the traditional ones below or the ones you feel moved to say.
Shehechiyanu
Blessed are You, O Lord, our God, Sovereign of the Universe, who has caused us to live, and has sustained us, and has enabled us to come to this time.
Barukh ata Adonai, Eloheinu melekh ha-olam, she-hecheyanu, ve-kiyemanu ve-higiyanu la-zeman ha-zeh.
Friday, June 19, 2009
Jewish Food Jewish Life: Practicality vs. Deliciousness
by Eve Quarrendon Jochnowitz
Member Tuv Ha’Aretz Hazon CSA at the 14th Street Y in New York City
In this week’s (6/20/09) sedre, shelakh-lekha we read the famous story of the spies sent by Moses to reconnoiter the land of Israel. The accounts brought back are not contradictory but they highlight two very different but equally accurate views of the situation: first, that it is unlikely that a rag-tag group of desert-bedraggled wanderers could overthrow an entrenched military power, and second, the produce there is just so good, you have to try it! The Israelites faced with the two reports contemplate a seemingly impossible undertaking that might yield up some really good food. In a way, this story is the mirror image of the episode in last week’s parshe, in which the flavorful vegetables of Egypt are remembered in the context of the seemingly endless and impossible sojourn in the desert.
But challenging undertakings are by no means as impossible or impractical as they seem before you try. It is hard to believe now, but people my age will recall that for decades organic agriculture was dismissed as impractical, inefficient, and an actual threat to the world food supply because of lower yield. The opposite has proved to be the case as the careful land-management by organic farmers like our CSA partners has in fact resulted in more food (and vastly more delicious food) produced on sustainably cultivated land.
The giant, fat, juicy, fragrant, and irresistible grapes carried back by the spies tell their story more eloquently than any words: Strive for deliciousness and accomplish the impossible.
This post comes to Tuv Ha’aretz Chicago courtesy of Hazon's office of Food Programs. Visit www.hazon.org
Member Tuv Ha’Aretz Hazon CSA at the 14th Street Y in New York City
In this week’s (6/20/09) sedre, shelakh-lekha we read the famous story of the spies sent by Moses to reconnoiter the land of Israel. The accounts brought back are not contradictory but they highlight two very different but equally accurate views of the situation: first, that it is unlikely that a rag-tag group of desert-bedraggled wanderers could overthrow an entrenched military power, and second, the produce there is just so good, you have to try it! The Israelites faced with the two reports contemplate a seemingly impossible undertaking that might yield up some really good food. In a way, this story is the mirror image of the episode in last week’s parshe, in which the flavorful vegetables of Egypt are remembered in the context of the seemingly endless and impossible sojourn in the desert.
But challenging undertakings are by no means as impossible or impractical as they seem before you try. It is hard to believe now, but people my age will recall that for decades organic agriculture was dismissed as impractical, inefficient, and an actual threat to the world food supply because of lower yield. The opposite has proved to be the case as the careful land-management by organic farmers like our CSA partners has in fact resulted in more food (and vastly more delicious food) produced on sustainably cultivated land.
The giant, fat, juicy, fragrant, and irresistible grapes carried back by the spies tell their story more eloquently than any words: Strive for deliciousness and accomplish the impossible.
This post comes to Tuv Ha’aretz Chicago courtesy of Hazon's office of Food Programs. Visit www.hazon.org
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