A major opportunity for urban garden growth lies in the estimated 40,000 vacant lots in Philadelphia. This has the area equivalent of 2,700 football fields. They attract crime, and make it harder to create healthier neighborhoods. Financially, vacant lots are costly, with the city spending $20 million on maintenance alone. Furthermore, the lots decrease home equity by $3.6 billion, while the city is owed $70 million in delinquent taxes from the lots. And yet, these spaces have the potential to instead be a community asset, such as community gardens that also creates much needed access to fresh, healthy food.

To try and solve this issue, many groups in Philadelphia have come together to advocate for solutions. Recently, the focus has been around the Land Bank Bill which would make the process of converting vacant lots into community assets significantly easier.[3] A land bank is a public authority created to efficiently handle the acquisition, maintenance, and sale of vacant properties, thus making it easier to use these lots as a community asset. In Philadelphia for example,10,000 of the lots are owned by four agencies, and each has its own, complicated sales process, and therefore sell less than 1% of these lands a year.

Land banks make it easier and cheaper for community member, nonprofits, and investors to buy these lots and convert them into an asset, instead of a blight on neighborhoods. More than 75 local governments have adopted Land Banks as a best practice. And now, Philadelphia will be joining their ranks.

That’s right; a few weeks ago, City Council voted unanimously in favor of adopting the Land Bank Bill, making Philadelphia the biggest American city to establish a municipal land bank. This comes after at least five years worth of advocating efforts by community groups. Two prominent groups that have worked towards the passage of this bill are the Philly Land Bank Alliance, and the Campaign to Take Back Vacant Land, both of which comprise of a coalition of faith, labor, and community partners working together to get this bill passed.

“Philadelphians who have been plagued by vacant properties in their neighborhoods will soon have a powerful tool in the Philadelphia Land Bank,” said Rick Sauer, Executive Director of the Philadelphia Association for Community Development, and a member of the Philly Land Bank Alliance. “The Land Bank will make it easier and quicker for individuals, community groups, small businesses, community development corporations and market rate developers to turn vacant, blighted properties into vibrant, usable spaces.”(1)

Councilwoman María Quiñones-Sánchez, sponsor of the bill, has been working towards this for years. "I'm very happy that Philadelphia has made history today by creating the largest land bank in the country,” she said. (2)

While this is a huge victory which merits celebration, there is still work to be done. The city must develop policies and procedure, create a budget, and develop a strategic plan, for a start. It will also take time to educate communities about this new resource that they will hopefully use for their own benefit. In the words of Amy Laura Cahn, Director of the Public Law Center of Philadelphia’s Garden Justice Legal Initiative, “I think we were able to accomplish something big. It ended with some really good questions….Our work is really just beginning.” (3)

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1- http://www.phillylandbank.org/news/alliance-statement-philadelphia-city-council-approves-land-bank-legislation

2- http://planphilly.com/articles/2013/12/13/philadelphia-gets-a-land-bank-w-hotel-gets-33-million-subsidy

3- http://www.philly.com/philly/classifieds/real_estate/Why_Phillys_Land_Bank_is_an_opportunity_.html

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My camping tent has seen its fair share of adventure: Caked in the red dust and baked in the summer sun of the Sonoran Desert. Encrusted with the frozen rain of a Yellowstone autumn. Rocked with rain, whipped with wind and sprayed by a skunk while the remains of Hurricane Ivan swept through Pennsylvania’s Allegheny Plateau. Yet through it all, my seam-sealed tent has remained safe and secure, warm and watertight. I’ve enjoyed the pleasures of living in the wilderness while avoiding most of its discomforts.

The Jewish festival of Sukkot, a week-long holiday beginning on the 15th of Tishrei (September 18-26, 2013), delivers a very different experience. The traditional practice of building and residing in a sukkah (“booth”) derives from Leviticus 23:42-43:

You shall live in sukkot (booths) seven days; all citizens in Israel shall dwell in sukkot, so that your descendants will know that I made the Israelites live in sukkot when I brought them out of the land of Egypt—I the Lord your G-d.

The sukkah cannot be just any structure. According to halakhah (Jewish law), the booth must satisfy numerous requirements regarding its dimensions, design, materials and placement. For instance, the Mishnah—a second-century compilation of rabbinic laws—states that “a sukkah that is taller than twenty cubits [approximately thirty feet] is invalid” (M. Sukkah 1:1). A reason for this prohibition is supplied by the Gemara, a later rabbinic commentary on the Mishnah:

Rabbah explained: “Scripture says, ‘So that your descendants will know that I made the Israelites live in sukkot” (Leviticus 23:43). [In a sukkah] up to twenty cubits [tall], one “knows” that one is dwelling in a sukkah. [But in a sukkah] taller than twenty cubits, one does not “know” that one is dwelling in a sukkah, since one’s eye cannot see it. (Babylonian Talmud Sukkah 2a)

Likewise, a valid sukkah must possess the right balance of sun and shade (Sukkah 7b), and its covering must be made from particular types and arrangements of natural materials (Sukkah 12a-14b).

As one might expect, a sukkah is not always the most comfortable shelter. The Mishnah requires that for the entirety of Sukkot, “the sukkah becomes one’s permanent dwelling, while one’s house [becomes one’s] temporary dwelling.” Even if it rains, one cannot seek shelter elsewhere unless the rain is so heavy that it spoils one’s porridge (M. Sukkot 2:9)! At the same time, however, the Talmud declares that one should bring into the sukkah any fine dishes or furniture that one may own. This way, one can eat, drink and relax in the sukkah as one would in one’s regular home (BT Sukkah 28b).

The sukkah is full of contradictions: It is a temporary structure that should be treated like a primary home. It is a thatch-roofed hut with fancy furnishings. It is a place where meals are served on fine china, but where rain must be tolerated unless it spoils one’s food. In short, the sukkah is the ideal structure for reenacting the exodus from Egypt in all its complexity. It is simultaneously liberatory and terrifying, wondrous and grueling. When we step into a sukkah, we blur the boundaries between past and present, wilderness and civilization, hardship and comfort, passion and complacency, vulnerability and safety. We discover nature by inviting it into our home.

Bees have become front-page news. The cover story of Time magazine’s August 19 issue—entitled “A World Without Bees”—and similar articles from major news outlets like Mother Jones, The Atlantic and The New York Times are now reporting what beekeepers and environmentalists have been warning us about for years: The global honey-bee population is dwindling due to Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), in which a hive’s worker bees will suddenly and mysteriously disappear, leaving behind the queen, immature larvae, and food stores of honey and pollen.

Colony Collapse Disorder and Agriculture
While overwinter losses of 15 percent are normal and accepted by beekeepers, losses during the past seven years have been as large as they are inexplicable. In May, Bee Informed—a research and advocacy group sponsored by the US Department of Agriculture and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture—released the preliminary results of its Winter Loss Survey for 2012-2013: During this past winter, 31.1 percent of managed honey-bee colonies in the US were lost, making it the fourth-worst winter since 2006. Of the nearly 600,000 beekeepers surveyed, 70 percent suffered losses in excess of their “acceptable” 15-percent mark. Still, it wasn’t as bad as the winter of 2007-2008, when roughly 36 percent of US honey bees were lost.

Exactly what may be causing these massive losses is a matter of ongoing investigation and contentious debate. One study, published in the journal Science in April 2012, indicates that even non-lethal exposure to neonicotinoids—a group of pesticides widely used on corn and soy crops in the US—severely compromises the health of honey-bee colonies. That same month, the European Union imposed a two-year ban on the use of neonicotinoids, in order to better evaluate their effects on honey bees. The US Environmental Protection Agency, however, has eschewed a ban. Instead, it now requires that neonicotinoid-based pesticides carry warning labels about how to use the substances responsibly around honey bees. (Whether the EPA can or will enforce the “responsible” use of these pesticides is another story.)

While these neonicotinoids do seem to pose a risk, bees’ consistent bombardment by a diverse host of insecticides, fungicides and herbicides makes it difficult to define how any individual agent may be contributing to CCD. The consensus among many environmentalists and ecologists is that industrial agriculture as a whole is pushing honey-bee colonies to their breaking point.

The irony is that industrial agriculture, for all its technological innovations and mechanized processes, remains utterly dependent upon honey bees to pollinate crops. Although some crops can self-pollinate (wheat) and others are wind-pollinated (corn), 80-90 percent of flowering plant species require the assistance of animals (particularly insects) to pollinate. In the US, honey bees pollinate one third of crop species: soy beans, apples, citrus, peaches, melons, berries, nuts, broccoli, avocados, asparagus, celery, squash and more. According to the USDA, “Bee pollination is responsible for more than $15 billion in increased crop value each year. About one mouthful in three in our diet directly or indirectly benefits from honey-bee pollination.”

Bees and Honey in Jewish Tradition
As we approach the High Holidays, honey is likely to be on our minds. On Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year (September 4-6, 2013), many Jews eat apples dipped in honey as a way of expressing our wish for a sweet year.

Honey has served as both a valuable food source and as a potent symbol throughout Jewish history. In the Torah, G-d promises “to rescue [the Israelites] from the Egyptians and to bring them out of that land to a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey” (Exodus 3:8). Consumed together, milk and honey supply key nutrients: proteins and fats (milk) and carbohydrates (honey). (It must be noted that both rabbinic commentators and contemporary scholars point out that the “honey” [d’vash] mentioned in these Exodus is not the honey made by bees, but the refined nectar of fruits, particularly carob and dates [dibs in Arabic].)

Although ancient Israelites did not have apiculture (the technical term for beekeeping), the practice was well established in Roman Palestine and is discussed at length in rabbinic texts. In Bava Batra (the tractate of the Mishnah dealing with civil laws of property), the rabbis articulate the proper procedure for selling bees and honeycombs. One line seems particularly difficult to understand:

[If one buys the] honeycombs, one must leave two combs [behind]. (M. Bava Batra 5:3)

The Tosefta (a compilation of related material that did not make it into the Mishnah) adds:

But if there are none besides them [i.e., if only two honeycombs remain], then one is not allowed to touch them. (T. Bava Batra 4:5)

Why aren’t sellers allowed to sell all the honeycombs in their beehives? Shouldn’t owners have the right to deal with their property as they wish? Don’t they have the right to maximize their profit?

In his commentary on this passage, the twelfth-century French rabbi Shmuel ben Meir (better known by the acronym “Rashbam”) offers a compelling explanation: After a bee colony has reproduced and new swarms have exited the hive, one may claim the honeycombs. However, two combs must be kept in the hive during the winter rainy season as a reserve, in order to sustain the remaining bees until the following spring (BT Bava Batra 80a).

Rashbam’s explanation is consistent with standard apiculture practices, from the beginning of beekeeping up to the present day. In temperate climates, a single beehive may require 40-60 pounds of honey to survive through the winter. A beehive in an area with colder, longer winters may require up to 90 pounds! The minimum amount was certainly less near the rabbinic academies of Palestine and Babylon, hence the need for only two combs’ worth of honey.

Seen through the lens of sustainability, the practice makes perfect sense: By requiring that beekeepers retain at least two of their honeycombs, the rabbis ensure that beekeepers will not endanger the long-term health of their bees or their business for the sake of a quick buck. The bees’ need for safety, security and sustenance is inseparable from the beekeeper’s need for an ongoing and reliable source of income. (Of course, beekeepers are allowed to sell their entire hive, bees and combs included, to new owners.)

Alas, the simple and self-evident wisdom of Rashbam is unwelcome in the world of industrial agriculture. One study suggests that bee populations may be suffering from malnutrition caused, in part, by the practice of using bees to pollinate monocultures, rather than a range of different species. Another study proposes that the use of high-fructose corn syrup as a substitute for honey reserves during the cold, winter months may contribute significantly to malnutrition and susceptibility to Colony Collapse Disorder.

As we look forward to a sweet new year inaugurated with apples (that were pollinated by bees) and honey (produced by bees), we would do well to reflect on the fragile beauty that we often take for granted. Warning labels on dangerous pesticides are simply not good enough. If we want to ensure a place for bees in our future—as our partners in food production, and as valued members of the biosphere—we need to recognize that our fate is intertwined with theirs. If we want our names to be written in the book of life, then we need to ensure that the bees are inscribed alongside us.

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On June 25, President Obama unveiled his new Climate Change Action Plan during a speech at Georgetown University. The plan comprises three distinct yet related efforts to prepare for—and to mitigate, whenever possible—the effects of global climate change.

First, President Obama has vowed to pursue new industrial regulations and stricter pollution standards in order to reduce the annual output of carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases. Additionally, he intends to sponsor the development of more sustainable forms of energy, thereby relieving American dependency on fossil fuel.

Second, the plan emphasizes the need to prepare for extreme weather events and other impacts of climate change. This includes reducing flood risk in the region affected by Hurricane Sandy and other coastal areas, as well as preparing for droughts and wildfires in the Midwest and West.

Third, the plan calls for the United States to become a global leader in climate-change action, particularly through the sponsorship and advocacy of international initiatives to reduce fossil-fuel dependency and carbon-dioxide emissions.

The logistics of the plan are clear enough on paper, but they were difficult to follow during a speech in which the president decried Republican intransigence and extolled the resilience of American industry. It comes as no surprise that the Obama Administration will face an uphill battle when it comes to implementing this plan, which right-wing commentators and climate-change deniers immediately—and predictably—denounced as a radical threat to jobs, industry and the economy. Obama’s decision to rely on executive orders to advance his plan will allow him to circumvent, whenever possible, congressional Republicans who either do not understand or do not appreciate the severity of the threat posed by climate change.

While reflecting on my own frustrations with climate-change deniers and the risk they pose to effective climate action, I was reminded of the tale of Pharaoh and Joseph (Genesis 41): In a dream, Pharaoh sees himself standing by the Nile as seven attractive and healthy cows appear and graze on the reeds. They are followed by another seven cows, which are ugly and emaciated, and which devour the seven healthy cows. In a second dream, Pharaoh sees seven good and healthy ears of grain growing on a single stalk. Behind them sprout another seven ears, which are thin and scorched by the wind, and which then swallow up the healthy ones. Pharaoh is deeply troubled by his dreams, which Joseph is ultimately able to interpret: The healthy cows and the healthy ears of grain represent seven forthcoming years of plenty, while the ugly cows and the parched ears represent seven subsequent years of famine.

Faced with this harrowing vision, Pharaoh directs Joseph to prepare for the impending famine. Joseph—a “discerning and wise man”—appoints commissioners over the land to set aside one-fifth of all produce during the seven years of plenty (Genesis 41:33-36). Ultimately, Joseph is able to rely on these grain surpluses during the famine, rationing it out to the Egyptians to ensure their survival. In fact, “the famine becomes so severe throughout the world” that “the entire world comes to Joseph in Egypt to procure rations” (Genesis 41:57).

Like Pharaoh and the Egyptians, we are faced with a set of dire circumstances. The first step is figuring out whose advice we should heed. The Torah says that of “all the magicians of Egypt and all of its wise men… none could interpret [the dreams] for Pharaoh” (Genesis 41:8). Bereshit Rabbah—the midrash or creative commentary on the book of Genesis—expands upon this verse:

Rabbi Joshua of Siknin said in Rabbi Levi’s name: There were indeed interpretations of the dream [made by the magicians], but their interpretations were unacceptable to [Pharaoh]. For example: “The seven good cows mean that you will father seven daughters; the seven ill cows mean that you will bury seven daughters. The seven full ears of grain mean that you will conquer seven provinces; the seven thin ears mean that seven provinces will revolt against you.” Thus it is written: “A scoffer seeks wisdom in vain” (Proverbs 14:6a)—this applies to Pharaoh’s magicians—“But knowledge comes easily to the intelligent man” (Proverbs 14:6b)—this applies to Joseph. (Bereshit Rabbah 89:6)

The magicians and wise men were policy advisers and pundits of Pharaoh’s day, but they were unable to accurately interpret the data gathered in Pharaoh’s dreams. Rather than correctly recognizing the dreams as heralding years of abundance and famine, they misconstrued the message of the dreams as being either about Pharaoh’s individual happiness and sorrow (the birth and death of daughters) or about his position on the international scene (conquest and revolt). The welfare of the Egyptian people wasn’t even on their radar.

Similarly, climate-change deniers misread the evidence and counter it with marginal pseudoscience in order to suit their own agenda, which champions dogmatic individualism and international supremacy, while overlooking the sustainability of the United States’ food supply, the basic welfare of its citizens and even its long-term survival in the face of a looming global threat. Like Pharaoh’s magicians, they are perfect examples of the verse from Proverbs mentioned in the midrash: “A scoffer seeks wisdom in vain.” The Hebrew letz, translated here as “scoffer,” refers to an arrogant, boastful or scornful person. This seems to be just the sort of person whom Obama was repudiating when he declared:

Nobody has a monopoly on what is a very hard problem, but I don’t have much patience for anyone who denies that this challenge is real. We don’t have time for a meeting of the Flat Earth Society. Sticking your head in the sand might make you feel safer, but it’s not going to protect you from the coming storm. And ultimately, we will be judged as a people, and as a society, and as a country on where we go from here.

Even though President Obama has declared that he will not be intimidated by climate-change deniers, there remains the question of whether his Climate Change Action Plan is sufficient given the enormity of the task at hand. Given the fact that power plants account for roughly one-third of domestic greenhouse-gas emissions, the plan has placed the creation of more stringent pollution standards on the top of its agenda. So what action is President Obama prepared to take on this front? “To accomplish these goals, President Obama is issuing a Presidential Memorandum directing the Environmental Protection Agency to work expeditiously to complete carbon pollution standards for both new and existing power plants.”

Joseph didn’t save Egypt simply by understanding Pharaoh’s dream, or by issuing a memorandum to the farmers telling them to plan for the future. He imposed explicit targets for food reserves (one-fifth of the annual crop for seven years) and established commissioners to enact the plan. Until the details mentioned in Obama’s Climate Change Action Plan include clear emissions targets and timelines for reduction, this “Action Plan” will remain little more than an ineffectual expression of ideals and best intentions.

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As a “still-feeling-semi-new” Farm Educator Apprentice here at Eden Village, I feel I’ve been learning exponential amounts of new.

Post first week and a half orientation daze, I now feel I have a bit of a handle on how things operate here. The farm is really looking great! We have a lot planted in the fields such as baby lettuce, carrots, peas, hakurei turnips, beans, onions, potatoes, tomatoes, flowers and more. The whole site is starting to take shape for summer’s full swing, day by day, with one more bucket of compost and one more weed pulled.

I’ve been learning things like how to drive a tractor, how to make a bed in your garden using food scraps, hay, and leaves directly in the ground (called a lasagna bed), how to space rows of kale in the ground or thin out salad greens in the field, and even how to play guitar (slowly but surely!).

The biggest thing I couldn’t have prepared for though is living in this wonderful community. The force this place and people here have is something I could not have imagined on April 13th. Everyone is warm, kind, open, and truly chooses to see the light in the beauty of the every day. With each new morning here I feel a little more supported and a more full sense of self.

I’ve heard one interpretation of the word Shavuot, that it refers to Atzeret which means to “refrain” or “hold back”. As we leave Shavuot and enter Shabbat, I bless that every person finds a way to not refrain from stepping into something new, from opening yourself up a little bit more to a new friend, or even to not hold back when something is truly funny and you want to bust a gut!

Shabbat Shalom, With love,

Avi

This past weekend, I helped plant an American plum tree (Prunus americana) in a new community garden in West Philadelphia, during the Jewish Farm School’s inaugural Shtetl Skills workshop. After digging a foot-deep hole, we moistened the soil of the potted sapling and then pulled it loose from the constraints of its plastic pot. Those of us unfamiliar with planting trees were surprised to see the thick web of roots that encased the cylinder of soil. Winding twice around the bottom lip of this mass was the pale cable of the tree’s taproot.

Nati explained that when a potted plant has outgrown its container, the roots become matted and tangled. For our “root-bound” plum tree, its container was the entire universe; it had grown so used to the shape and size of its small pot that merely replanting it in the earth would not coax its roots beyond these limits. Rather, we massaged and loosened the sapling’s roots from their tangled mass. (Some horticulturists recommend cutting and manually re-aligning the roots of a “root-bound” plant.) After placing the sapling into the earth, we surrounded it with loose, moist, rich compost to entice the roots to expand beyond their accustomed shape and to explore the luxuriant enormity of their new environs. Once acclimated to these new conditions, the roots will become so strong and determined that they will be able to break through dense, dry soil and even rock. That is the true power and wonder of living roots!

The festival of Shavuot is all about the grueling yet vital quest to expand our roots—as individuals and as a community, as Jews and as human beings. As I explained in last month’s post, Shavuot begins on the 6th of Sivan (May 14, 2013) and represents the end of S’firat Ha’omer (“The Counting of the Sheaves”). This daily practice of counting off the 49 days—seven weeks of seven days—between Pesach and Shavuot began as an ancient means of tracking the period between the barley harvest (on or around Pesach) and the beginning of the wheat harvest on Shavuot (which means “weeks” in Hebrew). The holiday’s agricultural origins are recorded in the Torah, where it is described as the “Festival of the Harvest” (Exodus 23:16), the “Festival of Weeks” (Exodus 34:22) and the “Festival of First Fruits” (Numbers 28:26). Shavuot reconnects us with our agricultural roots—not as a static, archaic or obsolete way of life, but rather as a vital aspect of Jewish life and spirituality.

Moreover, according to the Talmud, “The Sages taught: On the sixth of the month [of Sivan], the Ten Commandments were given to Israel” (Shabbat 86b). Therefore, Shavuot—the 6th of Sivan—is celebrated as Z’man Matan Ha-torah: the Time of the Giving of the Torah.

On Pesach, the Israelites fled Egypt as little more than a band of frightened, repressed, timid slaves. Seven weeks later, we stood at the foot of Mount Sinai, received the Torah and were reborn as a people. It was the giving of the Torah and, even more importantly, our acceptance of it that transformed a mass of “root-bound” refugees from Egypt into a people eager to explore the world and spread our roots. (Indeed, the Hebrew name for Egypt, “Mitzrayim,” means roughly the “Narrow Place” or the “Bordered Place.”)

And finally, Shavuot is often observed by communal readings of the Book of Ruth, a moving tale of love, devotion and redemption: The Israelite widow Naomi and her widowed, Moabite daughter-in-law Ruth flee from “root-bound” deprivation in famine-ridden Moab and search for a better life in Bethlehem (literally, “House of Bread”). They arrive there at the beginning of the barley harvest—that is, around Pesach.

Artfully and tenderly, the Book of Ruth records love and charity unfolding through the unlikely medium of agricultural laws, namely the practice of leqet(“gleaning”): the practice of leaving for the poor any stalks that are dropped accidentally during the course of harvesting (Leviticus 19:9 and 23:22; Mishnah Peah 4:10). Not only does Boaz, Naomi’s kind and selfless kinsman, allow Ruth—a stranger anda Moabite—to glean leqetin his field, but he instructs his servants to intentionallydrop stalks of barley for her to glean (Ruth 2:15-16). So ample is the leqetthat Ruth “gleaned until the barley harvest and the wheat harvest were finished” (Ruth 2:23)—through Pesach, the Counting of the Omer and Shavuot—and is able to sustain Naomi and herself.

Shortly thereafter, Boaz and Ruth are married, even though Deuteronomy 23:4 declares: “No Ammonite or Moabite shall be admitted into the Congregation of the Lord; none of their descendents, even into the tenth generation, shall ever be admitted into the congregation of the Lord.” And yet, Ruth is accepted as an exception, by sheer virtue of her inherent goodness.

Some commentators have suggested that Boaz and Ruth’s union is an early example of intermarriage, while others have celebrated Ruth as the ideal convert to Judaism. Regardless of how we understand Ruth’s identity, it is clear that a Moabite woman has been enshrined as a paragon of goodness and virtue. Indeed, she is so honorable and righteous that her great-grandson is none other than King David (Ruth 4:17). As we read in Isaiah 11:1, “A shoot [i.e., the Messiah] shall grow out of the stump of Jesse [David’s father], a twig shall sprout from his root.” If Jesse is the “root” of the Messiah, then surely so is Ruth. Yes, Ruth the Moabite succeeds in escaping the “root-bound” curse of famine, widowhood and her own outsider status. Through sheer strength of character and devotion, she succeeds in becoming the root of the hopes and dreams of Jews throughout history. Only dynamic roots—those capable of sustaining and being sustained by outsiders—are capable of such a tremendous revitalization.

As we celebrate Shavuot—by recalling the Spring harvest, celebrating the giving of the Torah or reading the Book of Ruth—may we reflect on the deep and abiding strength of our roots. If the Torah truly is an Etz Chayyim (“Tree of Life”), then it is up to us to reflect on what its roots—and by extension, our own roots—require to be sustained. In what ways have our Jewish identity, spirituality and practice become “root-bound”? How can we draw nourishment from our traditions in order to continue growing beyond the easy and the comfortable?

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During the month of Iyyar (April 10-May 9, 2013), we traditionally engage in S’firat Ha’omer (“The Counting of the Omer”), which begins on the second day of Pesach (the 16th of Nissan) and ends on the festival of Shavu’ot (the 6th of Sivan). This intervening period comprises 49 days—seven weeks of seven days—with Shavu’ot falling on Day 50. The 18th of Iyyar (April 27-28, 2013) is Lag Ba’Omer: the 33rd day of Counting the Omer. (In Hebrew, numbers are typically represented by letters. “Lag” is just a quick and easy way of pronouncing the Hebrew letters that add up to 33.) This holiday, which honors a number of historical, religious and legendary events in ancient Israel, is typically observed with hikes, games, bonfires and other festive, outdoor activities.

During Pesach, we retell our liberation from Egyptian slavery. According to the Mishnah, it is insufficient to recount the exodus as an abstract myth or historical event. Rather, “In every generation, a person must see oneself as though one personally went out from Egypt” (Pesachim 10:5). In other words, each person should strive to regard the exodus from Egypt as a personal memory, a lived experience.

Fifty days later, on Shavuot, we celebrate the giving of the Torah to Moses on Mount Sinai. And again, our tradition encourages us to commemorate this not merely as a historical event or thrilling legend, but as a personal experience of enduring significance. The early rabbis were vexed by Moses’s puzzling speech in Deuteronomy 29:13-14: “I make this covenant… not with you alone, but both with those who are standing here with us this day before the Lord our G-d [at Sinai] and with those who are not with us here this day.”

According to the Babylonian Talmud, “those who are not with us here this day” means that all future generations of Jews—including converts to Judaism—must understand ourselves as having been present to receive the Torah at Sinai (Shevu’ot 39a).

Retelling our beloved stories and reliving important episodes in our history has served to keep our precious traditions alive. The practice of ancient rituals has fulfilled a similar purpose. Consider the Counting of the Omer: Each night between the second day of Pesach and Shavu’ot, one recites a Hebrew blessing (“Blessed are you, Hashem, our G-d, ruler of the universe, who has made us holy with your commandments and commanded us regarding the Counting of the Omer”) and then declares in Hebrew, “Today is Day __ of the Omer.”

But what is the significance of Counting the Omer? In his classic book, Seasons of Our Joy, Rabbi Arthur Waskow explains that in ancient Israel, the grain harvest occurred in the Springtime. (Indeed, many scholars argue that Pesach and Shavu’ot began as agricultural festivals, before being effectively “rebranded” to commemorate the exodus from Egypt and the giving of the Torah, respectively.) The barley crop would ripen and be harvested first, early in the Spring—about the middle of Nissan. The wheat crop would ripen and be harvested in the late Spring—approximately 50 days later, in the month of Sivan.

To mark this 50-day period between the barley and wheat harvests, the Israelites performed the following ritual:

And from the day on which you bring the sheaf [omer] of elevation offering—the day after the sabbath—you shall count off seven weeks. They must be complete: you must count until the day after the seventh week—fifty days; then you shall bring an offering of new grain to the Lord. (Leviticus 23:15-16)

While the dates originally varied according to the weather and the status of the crop, the rabbis of the Mishnah eventually fixed the dates for Counting the Omer and for Shavuot, so that they fell on the same days every year. Even after the Second Temple was destroyed in 70 CE and it became impossible for priests to provide a grain offering, the tradition was kept alive through the symbolic practice of Counting the Omer.

Through the ritual of S’firat Ha’omer, Jews have maintained a connection—however abstract and tenuous—with our agricultural past. However, in my experience, few Jews who observe the Counting of the Omer understand and appreciate its agricultural origins. Even for those who do, the Counting of the Omer symbolizes something our ancestors did in ages past, something that has little bearing on our modern lives.

I would argue that the agricultural origin of S’firat Ha’omer is no less deserving of a personal connection than the liberation from Egypt or the encounter at Sinai. Obviously, it is hard to literally count sheaves of barley if we live in a place where barley does not ripen until Summertime. However, we are not required to make a pilgrimage from Egypt to Israel in order to relive the exodus, nor are we required to stand at the base of Mount Sinai in order to relive the giving of the Torah. Rather, it is through the performance of ritual and the cultivation of spiritual investment—equal parts memory and imagination—that we form meaningful connections to Pesach and Shavu’ot.

Therefore, I would like to propose the following kavanah (intention) for those Counting the Omer: “In every generation, a person must Count the Omer as though one personally harvested the barley.” Likewise, for Shavu’ot: “In every generation, a person must observe Shavu’ot as though one personally harvested wheat and brought it to the Temple as an offering.” For those of us who struggle to find a way of connecting Jewish texts and traditions with the hands-on work of farming and gardening, perhaps this blending of ritual, memory and imagination can provide a valuable link between our agrarian past and a sustainable future.

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On March 6th, we invited students on two Jewish Farm School trips in New Orleans to participate in a shechita, a ritual slaughter of chickens. Jewish tradition calls for all kosher meet to undergo a specific process of slaughter, always done in person by a trained and certified professional with a very sharp knife. All kosher meat produced across the world has been slaughtered in the same manner. Yet few people have had the opportunity to see it close and personal.

In addition to co-leading one of the groups, I served as the shochet (trained slaughterer). I saw my own first slaughter in the winter of 2009. I had applied to work at a Jewish farm in Connecticut, and they interviewed me while the farm was slaughtering and processing its flock of hens. That was the bloodiest interview I’ve ever done – and I got the job. At the time, I was a vegetarian, but I resolved that I wanted to learn ritual slaughter myself, and that I would eat the sustainably raised meat that I slaughtered.

Fast forward to 2013, in March, in the plot of an urban farm in New Orleans. We had purchased chickens from two local farms with whom we were volunteering that week. We offered some mental preparation for students, and we made sure there was an alternative activity for students who emotionally couldn’t be present at the slaughter. It’s not easy to see a slaughter – and it’s incredibly important. How many of us eat meat without ever knowing the work that goes into turning a live animal into a nourishing part of our diet?

I explained to students the procedure – lay down dirt, say the traditional blessing, and then slaughter in a focused and silent way, with no distracted talking. Once the gory stuff started, a group of students jumped up and ran to the other activity. After the slaughter, we dressed the chickens ourselves. During plucking and eviscerating, the mood changed – the chickens began to look more like the kind of chicken you’d see on your plate. A number of students returned.

At the end, one of my co-leaders led a circle where students shared their feelings. This felt like perhaps the most important part of the afternoon. I heard many students who felt confused. One person said he would have trouble eating meat for a while; another said she felt more excited to eat meat, knowing the process that went into it. Almost everybody expressed how important it felt to see and learn about this part of Jewish tradition and of a sustainable food system.

We served the chicken in a stew the following night, and we gave the one chicken that had been slaughtered in an unkosher manner to a neighbor who supports the farming project. With all the complicated feelings that people can have about eating meat, I saw some moments of self-revelation and deeper understanding during the session that helped remind me – this is why I do what I do. To feed a community, in body and also in mind and spirit.

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On March 6th, we invited students on two Jewish Farm School trips in New Orleans to participate in a shechita, a ritual slaughter of chickens. Jewish tradition calls for all kosher meet to undergo a specific process of slaughter, always done in person by a trained and certified professional with a very sharp knife. All kosher meat produced across the world has been slaughtered in the same manner. Yet few people have had the opportunity to see it close and personal.

In addition to co-leading one of the groups, I served as the shochet (trained slaughterer). I saw my own first slaughter in the winter of 2009. I had applied to work at a Jewish farm in Connecticut, and they interviewed me while the farm was slaughtering and processing its flock of hens. That was the bloodiest interview I’ve ever done – and I got the job. At the time, I was a vegetarian, but I resolved that I wanted to learn ritual slaughter myself, and that I would eat the sustainably raised meat that I slaughtered.

Fast forward to 2013, in March, in the plot of an urban farm in New Orleans. We had purchased chickens from two local farms with whom we were volunteering that week. We offered some mental preparation for students, and we made sure there was an alternative activity for students who emotionally couldn’t be present at the slaughter. It’s not easy to see a slaughter – and it’s incredibly important. How many of us eat meat without ever knowing the work that goes into turning a live animal into a nourishing part of our diet?

I explained to students the procedure – lay down dirt, say the traditional blessing, and then slaughter in a focused and silent way, with no distracted talking. Once the gory stuff started, a group of students jumped up and ran to the other activity. After the slaughter, we dressed the chickens ourselves. During plucking and eviscerating, the mood changed – the chickens began to look more like the kind of chicken you’d see on your plate. A number of students returned.

At the end, one of my co-leaders led a circle where students shared their feelings. This felt like perhaps the most important part of the afternoon. I heard many students who felt confused. One person said he would have trouble eating meat for a while; another said she felt more excited to eat meat, knowing the process that went into it. Almost everybody expressed how important it felt to see and learn about this part of Jewish tradition and of a sustainable food system.

We served the chicken in a stew the following night, and we gave the one chicken that had been slaughtered in an unkosher manner to a neighbor who supports the farming project. With all the complicated feelings that people can have about eating meat, I saw some moments of self-revelation and deeper understanding during the session that helped remind me – this is why I do what I do. To feed a community, in body and also in mind and spirit.

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March seems to be a busy time in New Orleans. The days are long and perfectly warm, the streets are full with beads and lawn chairs for the St. Patrick’s Day Parade and Super Sunday, and colleges throughout the country bring throngs of students on Service Learning Alternative Spring Breaks to rebuild the city that has suffered much blight in the wake of Katrina. Almost 8 years after the hurricane caused the levees to break and flood 80% of New Orleans white 15 passenger vans still hum in the streets steering volunteers eager to change the life of someone and in that process change their own lives.

The Alternative Break Service Learning Trip is a model for students to use the little free time that they have to do something radical to alter their college experience. This integrative experiential education offers a space for participants to challenge their preconceptions of areas and communities disparate from their own and in turn attempts to provide a substantial impact in community service for a particular area.

During my own spring break immediately following Katrina, I gutted houses and spent time in the Ninth Ward speaking with victims of the flooding that chose not to or couldn’t leave when the storm hit. This experience, coordinated by Hillel through the non-profit Operation Blessing, gave me an immense understanding of the reality of economic disparity in New Orleans and gave me a deep sense of fellowship in this service to strangers.

This past spring break once again the Jewish Farm School offered an alternative service learning model that brought students in direct contact with grassroots projects that are working to rebuild the soil, to bring life back into otherwise vacant and contaminated lots to feed the local community with sustainably farmed ‘groceries’ tended by neighbors. Urban Farming in New Orleans currently has turned 120 out of these 40,000 vacant lots into growing sites and local growers have the New Orleans Food and Farming Network to support, help fundraise and even train budding farmers. This volunteer organization has created a “network of local and regional activists, community stakeholders and non-profits to address issues of food security and equitable access to healthy, sustainable and culturally appropriate food.”

I was fortunate to co-lead groups of students from University of Pennsylvania, Loyola Marymont University, University of North Carolina and Washington University in St. Louis and in this week of first hand farming we weeded; pulled glass, rusted nails, broken tiles out of backyard dirt; planted new seeds in composted and mulched soil, rebuilt a greenhouse, kosher slaughtered three chickens, harvested bountiful amounts of kale, daikons, cabbage, oranges and cumquats; double dug new raised beds, hauled soil and free mulch; and all the while intentionally created space in community around food and our personal relationship with it in this very complex food system all through the lens of a Jewish kavanah (intention) for Tikkun Olam (mending the world).

This season in Louisiana is warm and blossoming – tomatoes are already showing true leaves, summer crops are readying in the greenhouse and the spring karpas (leafy greens) is not simply popping out of a melting snow ground but is vivaciously competing with cultivated plants for nutrients from the soil. As the second week of Alternative Spring Break trips began the night sky boasted the fact that the new lunar cycle had begun to bring in the month of Nissan and with it the season of Passover. It feels pretty resonant for me that the work that these groups were doing on this Spring Break Trip was ushering in Zman Cheiruteinu, the time of our Freedom.

The core curriculum that we focused on during the trip was based around issues of food justice and food security. These notions seek to ensure that there is fair and equal access to healthy and affordable food and though this would seem to be a fundamental right in the highly complex food system that we find ourselves today this is a messy and ‘oily’ business.

We visited areas of the city that are coined food deserts: areas whose residents do not have easy access to nutritious food because there are no grocery stores within walking distance, because their jobs prevent them from being able to shop at regular hours, because this food is too expensive or because the convenience stores down the street sell processed foods in boxes.

The New Orleans Food and Farming Network connected our group with urban farming projects that are taking this issue of disempowerment and reclaiming food sovereignty. We worked with Grow Dat Youth Farm that grows food for local residents while training high school teens in sustainable farming practices and social and environmental leadership. We worked with Ica at Our NOLA Garden that has three growing sites in New Orleans and grows food for the surrounding community. We worked with Ariel at P-Town Farms, a full-time Montessori school teacher that is transforming her concrete yard into a veggie, fruit and herb haven and we worked with Ramona at Lutz Farms who sells her produce to fine local restaurants so that she is able to sell her produce cheaper at market.

It wasn’t just the sunshine and the intense physical work out that was good for us, it was the honest passionate inspired stories of these farmers that truly affected and infected us. These urban growers have taken a system of food access that is mostly distant and anonymous and made it local and personal. They have reduced the amounts of petrol used to bring food from farm to fork and the amount of hands that food dollars meet before they reach the grower. They have created a space where community members can have hands on experience in growing food for themselves and each other and have created a bio-diverse environment in one that was otherwise desolate.

Students, some for the first time, were engaging in the issues of the multi layered food system with both their minds and their hands. By helping to further develop the projects of others that have taken a step to better food access in New Orleans we were engaging in a freedom from being slaves to agri-conglomerates that dictate where our food comes from and how much it will cost (financially and environmentally).

This is the liberation essence of my Passover. A time when I am completely turning my kitchen around and bringing a little more consciousness to the types of foods that I am eating. This empowerment is something I bring back with me to my East Bay home, an area with food desert issues of its own. One week is a seed – a seed to germinate in the right time with the right conditions. Whether this sprouting will result in these students buying a canteen to drink water out of, reading a label on an apple at the grocery store, seeking out their local farmers’ market, volunteering at their school’s student community garden, starting a composting system, growing a tomato plant in their dorm window, telling three friends about GMOs, or developing the world’s largest hydroponic food system, each participant has made a personal commitment with which to return home and these commitments are germinating out of the knowledge that there IS a food system of which we are a part and we can therefore choose where we wish to stand in this web. This knowing is a freedom in itself, the spring bud which welcomes new growth and as we bring in the season of our offering, chag haPesach, let our offering to our community be one where we continue to seek a sustainable system for ourselves and for the planet.

Spring can be a dizzying time, particularly for those who travel. At my home in Philadelphia, we have barely seen any snow all Winter. Crocuses and other early bloomers are already starting to appear in my yard. In Western New York, however, where I was last weekend, the landscape is still blanketed in a foot of snow. And when I lead a Jewish Farm School Organic Farm Alternative Break in New Orleans next week, I can expect an equally jarring transition to a totally different climate.

In a sense, we all live in numerous different worlds, each governed by its own distinct terrain and climate. This is particularly evident to gardeners, farmers, ecologists and anyone else whose work keeps them focused on nature and its cycles. The growing season in New Orleans, with its subtropical climate, is nearly year-round, while the growing season in Rochester is only a few months long. Thus the schedules, the rhythms and the rituals that we build around this work are guaranteed to vary as widely as the landscape itself.

I have written before about how the Jewish holidays—based as they are upon a 2,000-year-old, Middle Eastern, agrarian society—often do not line up properly with the locations in which Diaspora Jews find ourselves living today. How can we have a meaningful experience of Tu Bishvat in January or February, when our trees are not yet yielding fruit? How can we observe Sukkot authentically in May or early June, when the US wheat crop is harvested in mid- to late Summer?

In my more cynical moments, I worry that an authentic, sustainable and nature-based model of Jewish observance will be hampered as long as our holidays are out of step with the landscapes and climates in which we live. But what is the solution? Are we to modify the Hebrew calendar to fit our bioregion? What would be the effect of Jews everywhere living according to different calendars?

This question is particularly relevant as we approach Shabbat HaChodesh (Saturday, March 9, 2013): the Shabbat preceding Rosh Chodesh Nissan ("The Beginning of the Month of Nissan"), in which Pesach falls. Shabbat HaChodesh is last of the four special Shabbats called the Arba Parshiyot, which are observed with additional readings from the Torah. The first two of these days fall before Purim, and the other two fall before Pesach.

On Shabbat HaChodesh, the additional Torah reading is Exodus 12:1-20, the passage in which G-d describes the proper observance of Pesach (for example, eating matzah and abstaining from leavened food). However, the first two verses of this passage address the calendar and the sanctification of time:

The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt: This month shall mark for you the beginning of the months; it shall be the first of the months of the year for you. (Exodus 12:1-2)

This simple and unassuming passage is understood as the source of the lunar calendar, in which each month begins with the new moon. (In Biblical Hebrew, "chodesh" means both "month" and "new moon.") Even though the Jewish year begins in the Autumn on Rosh HaShanah, Exodus 12:2 identifies the Spring month of Nissan as the first month. (If this is confusing, think of the how the secular year coexists with an academic year or a fiscal year.)

The passage also receives significant attention in rabbinical literature. The medieval Torah commentator Rashi notes, "Rabbi Isaac said: 'The Torah could have begun with "This month shall mark for you…" [in Exodus 12:2], since this is the first mitzvah that was commanded of Israel. So what is the reason that [the Torah] opens with Creation?" (Rashi on Genesis 1:1) While Rashi has an answer to this rhetorical question, the question itself is testimony to the significance of this verse. Indeed, Exodus 12:1-2 it is the first time in Torah that G-d has prescribed a mitzvah for the Israelites as a distinct group. It is a significant step not only in their communal identity, but also in their relationship with G-d. In short, what makes them a people—and moreover a holy people—is their communal sanctification of time.

As with all commandments, the proper observance of this mitzvot has depended on a clear set of rules, rituals, laws and procedures. For the rabbis, this was the only way to ensure that the calendar and all the festivals that depend upon it would be properly maintained and universally recognized. According to Mishnah Rosh Hashanah, two witnesses would need to appear before the rabbinic court and testify that they had seen the first hints of the moon. They would be cross-examined by the members of the court, and if their testimonies agreed, the new month would be declared as sanctified. (M. Rosh Hashanah 2:6-7)

However, no system is perfect. In a particularly compelling story from Mishnah Rosh Hashanah 2:8-9, we learn about a conflict regarding the calendar: Rabban Gamliel, the head of the Sanhedrin (the supreme rabbinic assembly), accepted the testimony of two less-than-perfect witnesses, even though some other rabbis disagreed with this ruling. To resolve this potentially disastrous conflict, Rabban Gamliel ordered Rabbi Yehoshua, one of the dissenting rabbis, to appear before the Sanhedrin with his staff and his money on the day that Yehoshua believed to be Yom Kippur according to Yehoshua's own reckoning of the calendar. In other words, Gamliel demanded that Yehoshua abandon his individual observance of Yom Kippur and conform to the official calendar. After consulting with other rabbis, Rabbi Yehoshua came to a decision:

He took his staff and his money in his hand, and went to Yavneh to Rabban Gamliel on the day that Yom Kippur fell by his calculation. Rabban Gamliel stood up and kissed him on his head, and said to him, "Come in peace, my master and my disciple! My master in wisdom, and my disciple because you accepted my words." (M. Rosh Hashanah 2:9)

In this story, we are witnesses to a potential schism, a gut-wrenching struggle, a personal reconciliation between close friends and colleagues, and finally the resolution of a problem that might have torn the Jewish community asunder. Rabbi Yehoshua acquiesces to Rabban Gamliel's authority, not out of respect for that authority in and of itself. Rather, Yehoshua is moved by a recognition that questioning the court's judgment on this issue would fracture communal observance. Likewise, Gamliel admits his own error in judgment—Yehoshua's wisdom was greater than his, in this situation—but praises Yehoshua's willingness to put the good of the community before his individual observance.

Finally, the midrash on Exodus 12:2 offers an equally compelling argument about the importance of the communal calendar:

Another interpretation of "This month shall mark for you…": The angels said before G-d: "Master of the Universe, when will you fix the festivals?" [...] G-d said to them: "You and I will confirm what Israel concludes when they [calculate] the year…. Whether [Israel] proclaims them at the right time or the wrong time, I have no festivals besides these. (Exodus Rabbah 15:2)

According to this tradition, even G-d confirms the calendar of months and festivals declared by the People of Israel. We cannot fail to observe the holidays at their proper times, so long as we follow the tradition. The logic here is not that people are perfect, but rather than unity and integrity within a community is more important that abstract notions of truth or divine will.

Returning to my original question of how we are meant to engage in meaningful observance of Jewish holidays that do not match the natural world in which we live, the texts related to Kiddush HaChodesh ("Sanctification of the New Moon") clarify that the tradition itself recognizes that the calendar is not always perfect. At times, the organization of sacred time will not match the natural world. However, this does not mean that our calendar is wrong. So long as it is our calendar—the calendar of a people, not merely individuals—it is right. Like Rabban Gamliel, we have accept that at times our observance of tradition will not quite line up with what the natural world tells us is right or meaningful. Yet we must also be like Rabbi Yehoshua. We must accept that the religious experience that is most meaningful to us as individuals—that puts us closer in contact with the rhythms of the natural world—cannot replace the harmony that we strive to create within and through the communal experience.

Stockbox: Saving the Endangered Neighborhood Grocer
Post by Karin Fleisch, an independent food security consultant and Dean’s Scholar at NYU Wagner. She is a Kol Tzedek Fellow at AJWS and serves on the board of Uri L’Tzedek.

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Do you live in the US? Do you live more than one mile from a grocery store? Do you lack access to a vehicle? If you answered 'yes' to all three questions, welcome to the club – you live in a food desert.

It's not a particularly desirable club, unfortunately. Nor an exclusive one: In 2012, over 2.3 million American households lived in food deserts. These Americans suffer from much higher rates of obesity and diabetes, as compared with the general population. In fact, in some food deserts, over 30% of the population is obese. That's right – nearly 1 in 3. It's an astounding rate but perhaps should come as no surprise, instead of grocery stores and sit-down restaurants, food deserts are often home to convenience stores and fast-food outlets.

What to do about this problem? Grocery stores don't want in, since food deserts are often located in rural areas with lower population density (fewer customers) or urban areas with fewer car owners (so customers buy a small quantity of products at a time). Furthermore, since food deserts are nearly always located in low-income areas, grocery stores – fearing crime and low sales – are reluctant to open up shop anyway.

Enter Stockbox.

Based out of Seattle, Stockbox is a small-format grocery store. During the 2012 Hazon Food Conference, Anna Goren, Stockbox's Business Development Assistant, represented the innovative start-up on a panel entitled "Reversing Hunger: Local Responses."

Launched in 2011, Stockbox brings good food and dollars into communities that, largely, lack both. With one prototype store in Delridge, an active store in South Park and another on the way in a to-be-revealed downtown Seattle location, Stockbox is growing.

Unlike your typical grocery store, Stockbox dedicates significant resources to community-building, partnering with neighborhood associations and health organizations. And before a new store opens, the company extensively surveys and interviews locals to assess needs. Communication continues after a store launches, ensuring that items in stock reflect both customer preferences and company values of carrying real, wholesome food. Happily, these goals coexist neatly – Anna reports that when customers initially asked for culturally-specific foods (South Park has a large Latino population), the company quickly responded. Because it's small and independent, Stockbox can respond swiftly to customer requests, something large grocery chains can't do. And, when possible, Stockbox sources locally and organically, frequently procuring from Marra Farm, located right in South Park. The physical infrastructure of the store is also environmentally-sound: the abandoned shipping container model, used in the prototype, up-cycles a discarded product (of which Seattle has many!), while the storefront model, used in South Park, obviates the need for new construction, with its attendant waste and destruction.

Keeping prices low remains a challenge – grocery stores operate on a slim profit-margin anyway – but Stockbox ensures that prices are competitive with Safeway, the nearest big-box grocer, and typically offers better deals on fresh produce. Where Stockbox clearly beats the competition is on shopping experience. In lower-income areas, grocery shopping can be demoralizing – stores are often unkempt and impersonal, produce is rotten or flavorless, and staff are clearly unhappy. But because there are no alternatives, shoppers are stuck. Stockbox is dedicated to creating a positive shopping experience. From the community bulletin board that greets entering shoppers to the free cooking classes, the customer is clearly valued. Scaling up such a local, grassroots project will present its own challenges. Even within various neighborhoods in Seattle, Stockbox has had to continually adjust its model; housing the store in a shipping container didn't make sense in South Park, for example. But in a country teeming with food deserts, any oasis – no matter how small – is warmly welcomed.

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After five years at the Food Bank for NYC, during which time I monitored over 400 food pantries and 200 soup kitchens, I thought I knew everything there was to know about local responses to hunger. Happily, It turns out I was wrong.

So what's new in the world of emergency food? Over the next three weeks I will profile three projects in this column. Together, they were showcased in a panel entitled Reversing Hunger: Local Responsesat last month's Hazon Food Conference. They represent some of the exciting local anti-hunger initiatives happening right now.

And just in time too, because this Saturday is Tu B’Shvat! One of the most enigmatic holidays in the Jewish calendar, Tu B’Shvat is, according to the Talmud, New Year’s Day for the Trees. Historically, it demarcated the calendar – if a tree began to flower prior to Tu B’Shvat (the 15th of the Hebrew month of Shvat), it was included in a tithe for the previous year. If a tree began to flower after Shvat it was counted in the following year. In this way, our ancestors determined, in accordance with the laws of shmitta (2), when the land would rest from work, its bounty ownerless and available for anyone in need.

Yup, every seven years land would become liberated from ownership and decommodified – produce could be harvested for nourishment and enjoyment, but could not be sold for profit.

These days, anti-hunger projects that empower those who are hungry are, unfortunately, the exception. While soup kitchens and food pantries do vital work in treating the symptoms of hunger, they’re often structured in a hierarchical benefactor-recipient framework.

Thankfully, this new crop of projects exemplify some of the best practices for fighting hunger – preserving dignity, growing skills, pooling resources and creating community across class lines. Let’s start with Eden Gardens, based out of Detroit.

Eden Gardens

In downtown Detroit, Chava Knox and Blair Nosan are transforming an abandoned lot into a productive vegetable and flower garden. Yet Eden Gardens, as the project is called, is cultivating something far deeper. Chava (R) and Blair (L) are bringing two communities together, and empowering both in the process.

The project, a collaboration between the Isaac Agree Downtown Synagogue and a neighborhood block club also called Edan Gardens, was born just last year, during a Women's Circle meeting at the synagogue. From there it has grown to hosting volunteer work days, which unite Jewish and African American communities. Once neighbors in downtown Detroit, the city is now divided, the vast majority of Jewish families having decamped to nearby suburbs.

Today, the Synagogue and Block Club members are planning dinners, in which community members share and draft visions for the garden and the intentional community. There are trainings, in which community members give and receive support in entrepreneurship, community organizing and digital media. And there is – or will be – food. In this winter season, mulch and compost cover the garden floor, nourishing and protecting it from frost. But come Spring, thousands of carefully planted seeds will sprout and the vegetable bounty will feed those who need. With over 30% of Detroits resident’s living in poverty,(2) the need is great. Detroit is also well-known in food security circles for being home to some of the worse food deserts in the country, in addition to startlingly high rates of obesity.(3) Yet Eden Gardens inspires hope by pursuing systemic change. In contrast to a traditional food program, this method is slow, deliberate and small. Yet it offers deep, sustainable rewards.

May we all enjoy the sweet fruits of community and connection this Tu B’Shvat!

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(1) Fascinating info on shmitta here: http://www.hazon.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Shmita-Booklet.pdf

(2) http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/26/2622000.html

(3) http://www.michigan.gov/documents/mdch/Obesity_chapter_283600_7.pdf

Tu Bishvat is not a biblical holiday. In Mishnah Rosh Hashanah 1:1, the early rabbis describe four different New Years occasions. One of these is Rosh Hashanah La’ilan—the New Year for Trees—which the School of Hillel places on the 15th of Sh’vat. (In Hebrew, “Tu” is an acronym for the number 15, so “Tu Bishvat” means simply “the 15th of Sh’vat.”) Why was a New Year for Trees necessary? Leviticus (19:23-25 and 25:1-12) and Deuteronomy (14:22-15:1-6; 26:12-13; and 31:10-13) establish a number of agricultural prohibitions, tithes and other regulations (including Sh’mittah) that are calculated according to annual cycles. In order to observe these mitzvot properly, the early rabbis instituted fixed, universal starting points for determining the beginning of each agricultural year. While Rosh Hashanah (the 1st of Nisan) is the New Year for vegetables and general produce, trees bear fruit at a different time of the year. The solution was a unique New Year for Trees.

As we might expect, finding an appropriate and effective date for dividing one year’s fruit production from another’s is hardly a simple matter. The Babylonian Talmud states that the year to which a fruit tree’s tithes belong depends upon whether the chanatah of its fruits occurred before or after Tu Bishvat (Rosh Hashanah 15b). However, commentators on the Talmud disagree about the precise meaning of the Hebrew term chanatah. Rambam (Maimonides) understands chanatah to mean the stage right before the fruit ripens (Hilchot Ma’aser Sheni 1:2; Hilchot Sh’mittah 4:9). However, Tosafot argues that chanatah actually refers to the earliest stage of fruit formation, when the bud is just visible (Rosh Hashanah 12b).

In his commentary on Mishnah Ma’asrot, the 19th-century Talmud scholar and kabbalist Rav Eliyahu Guttmacher of Greiditz offered a convincing explanation for and solution to this disagreement:

The concept of chanatah held by many people is highly questionable; for they interpret the chanatah mentioned in the Talmud as meaning the buds that the tree brings forth. It seems that this error has arisen because of the fact that in our part of the world (Eastern Europe) it is somewhat common for trees to bring forth buds in the month of Sh’vat…. They do not realize that in the Land of Israel in the month of Sh’vat, though it is winter, the fruits are at the [nearly ripe] stage described in the Mishnah. I myself received from Jerusalem two partly grown pomegranates, and although they were taken from the tree (two months earlier) in the month of Kislev, they had already reached the size of a goose egg; and if they had remained on the tree, (by Sh’vat) they would have been much bigger….

Rav Eliyahu’s custom of enjoying fruit during the Polish Winter was not unique. It can be traced at least as far back as the 16th-century Tikkun Yissachar, a compendium of laws and customs related to the days, months, seasons and festivals of the year: “Tu Bishvat… is the New Year for Trees. On [that day], it is the custom of the Ashkenazim to indulge in different types of tree-fruits to honor the name of the day.” (TY Daf 25; quoted in and popularized by Magen Avraham 131:16 and Mishnah B’rurah 131:31)

Of course, obtaining such fruit was not easy. In The Rebbe’s Daughter: Memoir of a Hasidic Childhood, Malkah Shapiro recalls a Polish acquaintance shouting at people departing for Palestine, “Remember to tell our people in the Holy Land to send fruits for Tu Bishvat.” And in his introduction to Rav Shlomo Yosef Zevin’s The Festivals in Halakhah, Meir Holder explains that Tu Bishvat “was the only day in the year when most Jewish families [in Eastern Europe] indulged themselves in the unheard-of luxury of eating as many kinds of fruit as were available, and especially fruits that came from Eretz Yisrael.”

The surreal situation faced by Ashkenazi Jews who wanted to enjoy fruit on Tu Bishvat will be familiar to anyone who has attempted to observe Jewish holidays or implement Jewish agricultural practices outside of Eretz Yisrael. The seasons, weather, landscape, flora and fauna mentioned in the Torah, the Mishnah and the Talmud simply do not describe temperate North America. We want to celebrate Tu Bishvat as the New Year of the Trees—a Festival of Fruit—yet doing so can seem artificial and confusing in the Winter, when the trees are bare and the ground is frozen solid.

American Jews—myself included—are increasingly embracing and reclaiming the seder as a meaningful way of observing Tu Bishvat and its connection with fruit. Yet the Tu Bishvat seder—specifically, the mystical practice of contemplative eating outlined in the Sefer P’ri Eitz Hadar—was invented by kabbalists in Eretz Yisrael. While relatively unknown in Eastern Europe until recently, the seder was popular among Sephardi and Mizrachi Jews, who lived in climates that supported a wide variety of fruits and nuts that could be enjoyed on Tu Bishvat. Although I would hardly suggest that we abandon the Tu Bishvat seder, I do think it is important for those of us in temperate North America to note that in our eagerness to form meaningful connections with fruit, trees and food, we have adopted a ritual that encourages—if not requires—us to import out-of-season fruits.

This is a dilemma that we face not just on Tu Bishvat, but every time we shop for produce. In The Ethics of What We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Matter, Peter Singer and Jim Mason explain our out-of-season eating practices in sobering detail:

The average distance traveled by food that is consumed in developed nations has increased, partly because international trade in food has quadrupled since 1961. That increase has allowed people in the wealthier nations to enjoy foods all year-round that once had a limited growing season. For example, in the 1960s, North Americans ate grapes only when North American growers, mostly in California, could supply them, roughly from June through December. Now almost half of the grapes eaten in the United States are imported, many from Chile and other Southern Hemisphere countries, so grapes are available in the northern winter.

Eating locally produced food—either purchased at a farmers’ market or a food co-op, through Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), or grown in a home garden—is an excellent way to reduce the massive carbon footprint associated with transporting food across such vast distances. Moreover, eating locally—learning what grows when and where—will almost certainly deepen our connection with our food and our bioregion. For those wondering what such an experiment might look like, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life beautifully chronicles Barbara Kingsolver’s experience of eating only locally produced food.

Alas, we must bear in mind that becoming a locavore is not a flawless solution. For example, Singer and Mason point out that eating out-of-season tomatoes grown in a fossil-fuel-heated greenhouse just down the road likely consumes more energy than eating in-season, organic tomatoes shipped by boat from the Southern Hemisphere. There are many variables that we must account for when making ethical food choices.

As we prepare for Tu Bishvat—and possibly begin to plan this year’s seder—may we be ever more thoughtful about the fruit that we eat. While we sanctify our food through our blessings and our reverence, may we also consecrate it through enlightened choices and honest reflection. Where was this fruit grown? How far did it come? How did it get here? Might this fruit grow near my home? How else might I obtain it in the future? After considering all these questions, does eating this still feel holy? If it does not, what must I do to make it so?

As Chanukah draws to a close, we enter the month of Tevet (December 13, 2012-January 11, 2013). For many American Jews, this is a challenging time of the year. Christmas may seem ubiquitous, whether framed as a specifically Christian holy day or as a secular, commercial, all-American holiday. While some American Jews celebrate Christmas with relatives, others feel deeply alienated and alone. For many of us, December is the month when our difference and minority status are most pronounced.

However, American Jews are not the first to have struggled with what Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan termed the challenge of “living in two civilizations.” The rabbis of Roman Palestine tackled this very issue in Avodah Zarah (“Foreign Worship”), the tractate of the Mishnah concerned with idolatry and relations with non-Jews. To ensure that Jews would not be even indirectly implicated in idolatry, the rabbis forbade business transactions with non-Jews during the three days preceding and following Roman festivals (M. Avodah Zarah 1:1-2). Among these idolatrous festivals were Calenda and Saturnalia, which the Babylonian Talmud defines more specifically: “Rav Chanan bar Rava said: ‘Calenda is eight consecutive days following the Winter Solstice; Saturnalia is eight consecutive days preceding the Winter Solstice.’” (T. Avodah Zarah 8a)

Immediately after Rav Chanan’s explanation, the Talmud offers an intriguing story about the origins of Calenda and Saturnalia:

The rabbis taught: When Adam, the first man, saw the daylight gradually decreasing [during the first Winter of creation], he said: “Alas for me! Perhaps because I sinned the world is darkening for me, and it is returning to a state of ‘unformed and void’; this is a death sentence decreed for me from heaven [for my transgression].” So he got up and engaged in fasting and prayer for eight days.

However, once he saw the Tevet Solstice and saw that daylight was gradually increasing, he said: “This is the nature of the world!” So he went and established eight festival days [i.e., Calenda]. The following year, he established as festival days these [i.e., the eight days of Calenda after the Solstice] and those [i.e., the eight days of Saturnalia before the Solstice].

He established them for the sake of Heaven, but they [i.e., non-Jews of future generations] established them for the sake of idolatry. (T. Avodah Zarah 8a)

What are we to make of this bizarre tale? First of all, it contains a strikingly humane concern. Adam—a brand new human being living in a brand new universe, with no knowledge of how it functions—sees the daylight waning and experiences a deep sense of terror and existential dread. He fears that the orderly natural world is disintegrating into a state of “tohu va-vohu” (“unformed and void”), the same Hebrew phrase used to describe the primordial state preceding Creation in Genesis 1:2. While this may seem like a comedic overreaction, we must remember that for those without access to light and heat—whether two millennia ago or today—Winter is a potentially life-threatening time. The rabbis of the Talmud appreciated this, and perhaps this is why they recounted a midrashic tale of hope and faith in the natural order. If comfort and survival are not guaranteed during Winter, at least we can trust in Spring’s inevitable return.

Second, the rabbinic view of Calenda and Saturnalia as corrupted versions of Adam’s festivals is particularly baffling. In a tractate devoted to distancing Jews as much as possible from the corrupting influence of idolatry, why claim any connection whatsoever between the idolatrous festivals of Rome and the holy sanctification of G-d’s Creation? Were the rabbis attempting to retain a monopoly over the sanctification of Creation? Was it easier to charge Rome with appropriating and perverting Adam’s Tevet Solstice than it was to admit that Rome had independently enshrined the Winter Solstice as a sacred occasion? If the latter approach risked putting the Roman god Saturn on the same level as the G-d of Israel, the former ensured that the G-d of Israel remained supreme.

The path of theological supremacy represented by the former approach may be useful under siege, occupation or exile, but it is of limited use to those of use committed to living as Jews in a pluralistic society. Rather, we need to formulate, refine and maintain strategies that enshrine our Jewishness without engaging in theological chauvinism that sees our G-d as better or in cultural separatism that demands disengagement from non-Jews during their religious holidays.

Even as the approach suggested by Avodah Zarah is obsolete and impractical for Jews in America, I would argue that it does offer us a kernel of meaningful relations with non-Jews. The common element that the rabbis recognize in both Calenda/Saturnalia and the festivals of Adam is the Winter Solstice. Likewise, many Christmas traditions actually preserve pre-Christian celebrations of the Winter Solstice: December 25 was the birthday of the Late Roman sun god Sol Invictus; gift giving was part of the Saturnalia festivities; and the Yule Log was a component of the Germanic pagan mid-Winter festival of Yule. Like the light-giving Yule Log, candles were an important component of Saturnalia, which some ancient sources describe as a “festival of light.” Many contemporary Christians light Advent candles in the weeks leading up to Christmas. Jews light candles on Chanukah, which straddles the months of Kislev and Tevet. And the relatively new African-American holiday of Kwanzaa features a candle-lighting ritual, wherein each candle represents one of the Seven Principles of Kwanzaa.

The gods are different, the cultures and languages are diverse, and the worldviews may even be incompatible if not outright antagonistic to one another. However, what all of these holidays share is the goal of helping believers survive the shortest, coldest and darkest days of the year; of cultivating hope and trust in the face of uncertainty and fear; and of linking the individual, the community, the natural world and the Divine in a web of deep and vital meaning. Their common element is a belief in the natural world as a place of holiness and purpose, a sacred realm of seasons and cycles. If we can cultivate a Jewish environmental ethos—a system of values, wisdom, rituals and skills that enable us to better inhabit and steward the natural world—our Judaism will certainly be more fulfilling. It would also enable us to converse and cooperate even more effectively with non-Jews who are engaged in similar work in their own traditions. I can think of no better common ground than the Earth itself.

Fermentation is more than just a preservation technique. It is a dance with micro-organisms that enables us to eat delicious, healthy, locally grown foods throughout the entire year. It is a practice that has been going on for millennia and is a crucial component of a sustainable food system.

Sandor also shares some bigger picture thoughts about the importance of fermentation. "The practice of fermentation involves collaboration with invisible forces. When you stir your mead or sourdough over several days to incorporate wild yeasts into it, it is largely an act of faith. …. Tuning in to the importance of microbial life and learning to work with it increases reverence for life in general, invisible forces in our lives, and the dynamics of transformation."

Visit FeastForward.org to watch the video and checkout resources on what Jewish tradition says about food and fermentation.

Let’s face it. Our Jewish communities are failing miserably to respond to the greatest threat that humanity has ever known. For a people that (rightfully) prides itself on the utmost value that our tradition places on the preservation of life, our unwillingness to respond collectively as a people in any significant way to the threat of global warming is as hypocritical as it is suicidal. With each new report that points to how little time we have left if we want to try and sustain life on this planet as we know (and like) it, the persistent Jewish narrative about our being “stewards of creation,” rings more and more phony.

Until we as a community in some sincere, organized and bold way step up to the plate and actually behave in ways that are consistent with the notion of being shomrei adamah (protectors of the Earth), we should stop telling ourselves and the world that Jews care about creation—because we just sound foolish. What will it take for our community to live up to the standards that our tradition has set for us? What will it take for us to actually internalize the singular message that is articulated in hundreds of different ways in the Torah and throughout rabbinic literature—namely, that the “Earth is God’s and everything in it.” (Ps. 24:1) What will it take before the Torah’s basic premise that “ki-li ha’aretz, ki gerim v’toshavim atem eemadi,” (“For the Earth is mine (God’s), and you are but strangers and temporary dwellers with me”) (Leviticus 25:23) is a notion that informs how we actually live?

I wish that I was more optimistic about the Jewish community stepping up to the plate. Our relative economic comfort and privilege makes the necessary behavioral changes and political decisions particularly challenging. There is a global movement to solve the climate crisis that is gaining momentum. It is being led by activists like Bill McKibben and his 350.org grassroots organization. Judaism was once a radical movement led by prophets who, like Isaiah and Amos, spoke truth to power and were willing to sacrifice their popularity and personal comfort for the noble pursuit of justice. Do we have prophetic leaders who are willing and able to shake our people from our complacency in the face of impending catastrophe or will our community continue to turn its back on our tradition and humanity’s future?

Chanukah—the Festival of Lights—offers us a joyous, eight-day respite from the cold, dark month of Kislev (November 14-December 13, 2012). Beginning on 25 Kislev (sundown on December 8), Chanukah commemorates the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem, following the successful Maccabean Revolt against the Seleucid Empire in the 2nd century BCE. (In Hebrew, “Chanukah” means “dedication, consecration.”)

Perhaps the most notable Chanukah tradition is the lighting of a nine-branched menorah (candelabrum), which symbolizes the well-known miracle of Chanukah. According to the Babylonian Talmud:

When the Greeks entered the Sanctuary they defiled all the oils that were in the Sanctuary by touching them. And when the Hasmonean monarchy overcame them and emerged victorious over them, they searched and found only one cruse of oil that bore the seal of the High Priest undisturbed by the Greeks. And there was sufficient oil there to light the candelabrum for only one day. A miracle occurred and they lit the candelabrum from it eight days. The next year the Sages instituted those days and made them holidays with recitation of hallel and special thanksgiving in prayer and blessings. (Shabbat 21b)

It is curious to note that this Talmudic discussion of the history, laws and customs of Chanukah is actually a brief tangent in a far more extensive treatment of the laws that govern the suitability of various wicks and fuels for Shabbat lights. Clearly, the holiness and purity of various oils and fuels were crucial to Temple worship.

As Jews concerned with the environment and sustainability, how might we understand Chanukah’s oil-related miracle? Rabbi Arthur Waskow suggests that the miracle of Chanukah represents “G-d’s conservation of energy….The story teaches that G-d worked WITH the earth, made it possible for one day’s worth of oil to last eight days.” For Rabbi Waskow, Chanukah enshrines the value of conservation and teaches us to trust in the bounty of Creation. This is certainly an attractive interpretation and an indispensible lesson, but I am afraid that I do not find it particularly convincing.

Much more thought-provoking, in my opinion, is the observation of Rabbi Yaakov Yehoshua Falk, an 18th-century Polish-German Talmud scholar. In Penei Yehoshua, Falk points out that, presumably, there was sufficient impure oil to light the candelabrum for a number of days. According to halakhah (rabbinic law), it would have been acceptable to kindle the Temple candelabrum with this impure oil, particularly under the circumstances of widespread war and death. So why did the priests opt to use their only cruse of pure oil? The answer, Falk suggests, is that the priests wanted to rededicate the Temple according to the most stringent standards of purity. Likewise, “the miracle, which made it unnecessary to use impure oil, demonstrates the great love that G-d has for His people, Israel.”

This notion of striving for purity and, in doing so, consuming the last pure quantity of something hardly seems like a convincing model of conservation. After all, the priests had no way of knowing that the oil would miraculously last for eight days, until more pure oil could be procured. In their quest for the highest degree of purity, one might argue, they rejected perfectly acceptable fuel and apparently hoped for the best. Does the fact that G-d rewarded them for this with a miracle make their choice any more acceptable or responsible? What does this teach us about the relative merits of hope and purity, both as moral values and as strategies for responsible, sustainable living?

I am afraid that such questions do not invite easy answers—neither from our Jewish traditions nor from contemporary discussions about environmental sustainability. They do however shine some light on the dangers of blind faith and vain hope. In Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet, environmentalist Bill McKibben writes: “By burning every gallon of oil and cubic meter of gas and ton of coal we could find, we’ve managed to end the climatic stability that’s marked human civilization. We’ve also managed to bet our entire economy on the belief that these supplies will last forever, a bet we’re now in the process of losing.” Similarly, physicist and editor of Climate Progress Joe Romm has criticized Bill Gates’ 2010 call for “energy miracles.” In Romm’s opinion, hoping for miracles or other game-changing solutions usually just serves to defer critical action to major problems. McKibben and Romm certainly would not dispute the importance of hope, but they refuse to wait for miracles in the face of daunting challenges that demand immediate action.

Returning to the story of Chanukah, we know in hindsight that the priests’ gamble paid off: They chose only the purest and best oil, which miraculously lasted. Through their faith and their hope, they succeeded in shedding light in a dark place, during a dark time of war, suffering and death. Stories about miracles and long-shot victories are indispensible for driving away despair and sustaining our vision of a brighter future. And yet, I have to hope that if the miracle had not arrived—if the flame of the Temple menorah had begun to flicker and fail—the priests would not have been too proud to compromise with their ideal notion of purity and to accept that there are few convenient or comfortable answers to the problem of how we can keep the lights on, both literally and figuratively.

In this week-long, service learning experience, participants will explore the relationship between Judaism, agriculture and contemporary food justice issues. This unique seminar will include farm work, text study and meetings with activists, community leaders, and business people. On the farm, you will gain hands-on experience in sustainable agriculture techniques such as planting, harvesting and soil building. In the bet midrash (study hall), you will explore a variety of Jewish texts relating to contemporary environmental and food justice issues such as food security, worker rights, and land stewardship.

When: Sunday, June 3-Sunday, June 10, 2012
Where: Sustainable farms in the Greater Boston Area and Hebrew College, Newton, MA

Who: Anyone interested in food, farming and Judaism.
How: Tuition is $1000 + transportation; generous fellowships are available.

*College credit available for interested participants*

To apply click here.
To find out more about Fellowships available contact Rabbi Or Rose, 617-559-8636
To find out more about this program contact Rabbi Jacob Fine, (877)-537-6286 x3
Application Due: May 1st, 2012