That’s when it hit me – this is the future of environmentalism. When people start to turn the nature into boxes and measurements, we begin to comply with the separation of the natural world and the human world. In order for environmentalism to succeed, we need to eliminate this disconnect and recognize that both realms are one. Moreover, we (I) must learn to embrace the creativity in gardens as much or even more than yield based design. Gardening education should be an expression of our connection to the earth and the Divine, not just a rigid curriculum of straight lines and graph paper.

I wonder when I lost touch with this creative side of gardening. Perhaps it was when someone told me not to plant flowers and to opt for only growing edibles. Maybe it was when a second grade teacher told me that I wasn’t good at art. I think it stems from a cultural notion that we can, and should, control, box in, and measure nature.

I am so excited and grateful to be teaching a class of dreamers. Many pictures were complete with a smiling sun in the corner and many more had pictures of tomatoes, rather than the word, tomatoes, written in the beds. These dreamers want to grow sunflowers because they are beautiful. They want to donate produce to those in need because it is simply the right thing to do. I am re-energized to step away from an environmental movement designed by yield and pragmatic pessimism and into one full of passion, color, and dreams.

Jesse Rabinowitz is the Program Director for Adam V’Adam, a new educational farm to table movement in Northern Virginia.

It’s official, Camp Sprout Lake in changing the world through gardening. Today, the campers had a crash course in Rambam’s levels of Tzedakah, Pe’ah— a Jewish agricultural law regarding mandating the corners are the fields are left for the poor— and the pandemic of hunger plaguing the world. Campers began the activity not understanding the importance of justice, not willing to share their privileged lives in the form of tzedekah, or indifferent to it all. They left running up to other friends telling them we are all able to change the world with our own two hands.

Today we did not just discuss ideas; rather, we planned out our giving. The children, with no prodding from myself, decided to donate eighty percent of our yields to a food pantry in the area. After the summer ends, employees of the pantry will continue to pick fruits and vegetables to ensure that nothing goes to waste. Mishneh Pe’ah tells us that the minimum amount of land given to pe’ah is .0167 percent. These campers, ages 7-13 have chosen to donate 479 times more than the minimum decreed by halacha. Why? Are these exceptionally generous children? Maybe, but I don’t think so. I think these children have not been indoctrinated into our culture of sinat chinam, baseless hatred.

As the holiday of Tisha B’av approaches, we are never more reminded against the evils of baseless hatred. The Talmud tells us in Gittin 56a that the Second Temple was destroyed due Kamsa and Bar Kamsa, baseless hatred that resulted in untold death, sorrow and pain. In our world, we are socialized to distance ourselves from those who are different to us, to those we do not know, to those we do not stand to gain from. As Tisha B’av nears, let us strive to be more like these campers, open hearted, willing to give from their toils, able to love baselessly, striving to create a better world.

To those living in the world of social justice, the idea of a violent revolution seems repulsive. Taking the lives of many to improve the lives of others is oxymoronic, paradoxical, a nightmare. We live in the world in which we dream of peaceful revolution, one of love, respect, and gardens. To wrap up the first session of the gardening and environmental education at Camp Young Judaea Sprout Lake, I decided to welcome participants into the ever growing, ever changing revolution of Jewish environmentalism. To my heart’s dismay, when I asked the campers what came to their mind when they heard the world revolution, their minds only went to historical examples of war, bloodshed, and death. These children, ages seven to thirteen could not think of a single example of a large-scale change that happened peacefully.

Fortunately, that all changed one the last day of camp. It is the role of educators, parents and activists to inspire children to take part in our peaceful revolution, a change in the way that our country interacts with nature, food, and most importantly, each other. By teaching them the concept that every single person has a spark of the Divine in their body and soul is the way we must begin this revolution. No longer can Jewish education be focused just on formal prayer and text, we must begin to look at prayer as our interactions with others, the natural world, and with G!d. Through these ideas, we will give birth to a revolution of caring, one without war, and one of peace.

Gardens are the classrooms where these new concepts should be taught. The way campers took charge of the garden, nurtured the plants, and spoke about their work was proof that every person can learn to look out for the other. On our closing day, I challenged campers to take the time and energy they used to weed, water, plant and enjoy their plants and apply it to their interactions with all people. Teaching loving kindness and the importance to commitment at this young age will truly mold these children into caring adults who will lead our revolution.

As the words of this great American poet rang out, I began thinking
about the leaders, prophets and revolutionaries of my generation. I
looked to the campers, fawning over the newly budded baby watermelon,
those showing off the flowers they planted, and those spending real
time and effort into their letters. In today’s community and teaching
gardens, we are growing much more than food. We are growing tomorrow’s
teacher, poets, Rabbis and leaders. We must take the time to water
them with truth and to feed them with open minds and pure hearts. Most
importantly, we must nurture them with the knowledge that they truly
can make a change, that they can help the world.

I had all the campers write their own blessings for planting, our garden, and the earth. The prayers children, aged seven to thirteen produced were beautiful, on par with King David’s psalms, and full of hope. The extreme diversity of requests, thanks, and praises made me realize why there is no uniform blessing for planting, it would be too normal. In his work Conscious Community, Rabbi Kalyonymus Kalman Shapira critiques those who live on the level of the mundane, satisfied with repetition without challenge. The blessings we recite day in and day out become normal, unimportant. Planting, enabling another organism to live and to perpetuate life, is a holy activity that must not be relegated to the realm of the mundane.

The transformation of a space that was one minute barren and the next full of purples, greens, yellows and reds, proves that the Devine is everywhere, that it is our responsibility to bring holiness to places where it has been neglected, or disregarded. As we approach the holy Shabbat, let us begin to see the whole world as a garden, full of potential, life and holiness. Any spot that is devoid of visible beauty is simply a garden waiting to be planted, not an area forgotten by G!d.

Yesterday, while staking the pepper plants growing in our garden, I for the first time, started to understand Rav Soloveitchik’s z’l comparison between man and plant. Maybe it was the morning of dealing with homesick campers, but I began looking for meaning and support from the earth. I was able to prevent the plant, weighed down by a small green pepper, from toppling over with a two inch piece of twine. Just as sometimes all a homesick camper needs is an arm around the shoulder or someone to toss a Frisbee around with, we are all capable of helping the world by small actions. This is not to say that small actions are all that is needed. We need massive social change in order to become a world free of suffering. Still, we all need a place to start. Having campers connect with living plants and nurture them to maturity is an amazing teaching opportunity to illustrate that, through acts of caring and loving kindness, we can all have a profound impact on the world around us.

The Torah teaches us that no place is devoid of G-d’s beauty. We learn in Kohellet Rabbah that, when Hashem spoke to Moshe, it was not through a substance that many of us would deem to be beautiful. Rather, it was not a calm river or a serene sunset; rather it was a thorn bush. Yet this medium was holy enough for G-d, that he used it to change the course of Jewish history. Through hard work and teaching, I am hopeful that campers and staff alike will find holiness in the flowers of the watermelon plant, the worms crawling through the dirt, and the sweat of their brows as we continue to inspire change the world through gardening. Campers must learn that everything, like the thorn bush, is holy, Devine, and important.

It has been three days of hard work, blisters, and buckets of sweat, but it is almost time to sprout, literally. Next week, the campers of Young Judea Sprout Lake in upstate New York will arrive. For this eight-week summer, I have one goal in mind, to make clear the intimate connection our tradition has with the earth. As staff has slowly trickled in from across Israel, Canada and the United States, I am impressed by the continual excitement when they meet “the Garden Guy”. The desire to dig, plant and labor is ever present. I believe this spirit is driven by the idea of A.D. Gordon, a leader of labor Zionism, who coined the phrase, “To build and to be built.” If this camp experience is representative of a cultural change spreading throughout the youth of America, we may be able to break through the environmental barriers done by the generations past. I hope that we may have finally returned to a time where reward is not determined by ease and money, but rather one in which joy is found in a sore back, muddy boots and a ground tilled, planted, and alive.

We must be willing to get dirty. We must remember our roots— both literally and figuratively. Our roots as a people are tied to the earth. Regardless of personal Israelis politics and viewpoints on current events, to me it is clear that our religion and culture is tied historically to the land of Israeli. Our ancestors were able to make a desert flower, a wasteland grow. They were willing, driven and committed to getting dirty. Through working the land they were transformed into a people continually pushing past adversity, for they recognized that life is not easy, and it is not meant to be. We, as global citizens, Jews, humans, are meant to be challenged. Through challenge we grow as individuals. So too through toil do we make the land grow. As Jews we are must join together and remember that we are united by much more than we are divided. We must remember our roots, and we must plant them in fertile soil prepared by the sweat of our brows.

Psalm 126, which is traditionally said in the grace after meals, teaches us “Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy.” I pray that these tears are neither of hardship nor pain, but rather of hard work and determination, for only than may be truly build ourselves into the Chosen People.