As we speak, the Senate is debating the contents of the Farm Bill, which will substantially affect the next five years of US food policy. It is upon us to call our Senators and let them know that as Jews, we and our organizations support Farm Bill legislation that:

• reduces hunger and improves nutrition in the United States.
• promotes conservation and proper stewardship of the land.
• enables farmers in both the United States and the developing world to earn sustainable livelihoods.

Every call makes a tremendous difference! The Jewish Farm Bill Working Group just delivered a petition of 18,000 signatures for a Just Farm Bill to the House. By this Shabbat, dial the Senate switchboard:(202) 224-3121 and ask to be connected with one Senator from your state, and then call back and ask to speak with the other Senator. Share who you are, what you care about, and your support for some of the following amendments in the Farm Bill:

1. The Coburn and Durbin Amendments, to limit wasteful subsidy giveaways. Senators Coburn (R-OK) and Durbin (D-IL) have introduced an amendment that limits insurance subsidy payments to the largest farmers.
2. The Cardin Amendment, to protect soil and wetlands. Senator Cardin (D-MD) has introduced an amendment that restores a requirement that farmers receiving subsidy payments follow basic environmental protections.
3.The Gilibrand Amendment, to protect healthy food and nutrition. Senator Gilibrand (D-NY) has proposed an amendment that restores billions of dollars in cuts to the federal food stamp nutrition program, and provides more funding to put fruits and vegetables in schools.

4. You may also wish to support the Brown Amendment, to support small farms and rural development, the Tester Amendment for new organic breed research, the Grassley-Conrad Amendment to reduce corporate control of the slaughterhouses, the Merkeley Amendment, to make crop insurance available to organic farmers, the Leahy Amendment, which would increase institutional support for local food systems.

At the very least, ask them to Hold the Line on Farm Bill Conservation Funding, which is severely threatened by budget cuts. Then go home and tell 2 friends about it!

http://youtu.be/0ezZepNft2g

Did you check out the sky today?

If one Jew sins, all of Israel feels it….This can be compared to the case of men on a ship, one of whom took a drill and began drilling beneath his own place. His fellow travelers to said to him:what are you doing?’ He replied: ‘What does that matter to you, I am drilling only under my own place?’ They continued: ‘We care because the water will come up and flood the ship for us all.

Midrash: Vayikra (Leviticus) Rabbah- 4:6

First off, open http://www.facebook.com/jewsagainsthydrofracking in a new window and like us. Now read on:

This teaching of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai seems especially fitting for the launch of our action group, Jews Against Hydrofracking. In July, the Forward reported that four Jewish summer camps had leased their land to gas companies, who had offered large sums for the right to drill wells to extract methane gas using the controversial new technique known as high volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.

The land beneath our feet is quite literally being drilled into swiss cheese, while our water, the blood of creation, is being poisoned with carcinogenic and toxic chemicals. Extreme profits are available for multinational gas companies who seduce our elected officials, eager to revive the economy with promises of new jobs, and willing to let these companies foot their campaign bills. So the wells are drilled: more than 1,000 new wells in PA last year. Companies in Texas are making a mint, paying no taxes. And what do we get out of all this: stillborn calves, radioactive salts in our drinking water, and water that can be lit on fire.

Even if this were purely an environmental issue, we would be forsaking our duty as Jews to be stewards of the earth, to 'tend and protect' her. Even if this were purely a matter of resource exploitation, of modern day pharoahs using people and land for the sake of accumulation, we would not be living up to our legacy as champions of freedom who serve only the highest good. But this is in fact a public health crisis, and utmost among Jewish responsibilities, above all other mitvot and obligations, is to preserve life.

New studies draw strong links between breast cancer and proximity to gas wells in Texas, and a reports of neurological problems in humans and animals are now a common tale.

And its coming to our backyard…unless we, as Jews, as humans stand up to it and assert that clean water is a human right and a holy duty. That human life is sacred and worth fighting for. That the earth and water, and air are more than inert matter to be bought and sold, but the holy clothing of a living, breathing universe.

These sacred elements do not know property lines, borders, divisions of denomination, race, politics. What we do to one, we do to all. What somone does over there affects us over here. The logic of markets, a few hundred years old, cannot and will not trump 6,000 years of the deepest ethical committments of our people.

This is happening now. Here. On November 21, the Delaware River Basin Commission will vote to lift the moratorium on fracking and allow the construction of 10,000 new gas wells in the Delaware River Watershed, source of drinking water for New York and Philadelphia, more than 15,000,000 people total. People will get sick. Unless we act now.

What can we do? What are our responsibilities? Join the conversation. Head to Trenton on November 21 with the Jews Against Hydrofracking Action Team. Submit public comment at various upcoming hearings. Call your elected officials and tell them exactly how you feel.

but first, like our facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/jewsagainsthydrofracking and tell us what you think!

In monoculture, most iconically pictured in a dense stand of identical, chemically fertilized corn stalks, modern techniques of mechanization and chemical pest control are employed to make single commodity production as ‘efficient’ as possible. In reality that efficiency is only possible through the use of fossil fuels, to power the combines that have replaced human hands, and to be converted into chemical fertilizer that has replaced living soil. Every aspect of the plant’s life-cycle is isolated and controlled.

Forest gardening does not isolate, it invites. On Sukkot, we invite ushpizin, exalted guests, into our dwelling place. According to the Lurianic Kabbalists, each of the teacher/ancestors we ask to sit with us in our Sukkah represents one of the seven ‘lower’ sefirot, emanations of divine energy. In the same way, when planting our forest garden, we create plant guilds, inviting a connected but diverse cast of characters that each bring their own strategies for survival and reproduction, their own ecological specialties, their own medicine, their own invertebrate friends, their own tastes and smells, their own unique divine presence into our community.

In addition, when starting a new plant guild, we often add mychorhizal inoculant, a concentrated pro-biotic syrup to help transform the rocky clay that makes up the majority of our land into rich dense, living, soil. These microbes (fungi, yeasts, and bacteria) allow organic matter in the soil to break down, allow tree roots to absorb nutrients and moisture more efficiently, and enable certain plants to pull nitrogen out of the air and ‘fix’ it in the soil, making it available for other plants. Trusting in their invisible power and utter precision, we can feel with great depth the immaculate orchestration of the life support systems that make our earthly existence possible.

On Sukkot, we remember the precarious balance of our existence, that all our structures are in fact temporary, even King Solomon’s Temple. At the same time, we revel in the immense abundance of the earth itself, which nurtures and supports us with utter grace and forgiveness. By planting fruit trees, by turning baseball fields and suburban lawns into little gardens of Eden, we are creating a home in the deepest sense. We are not just receiving shefa, divine abundance, but making it our practice, our way of existence. In this sense, we are students of the apple tree and the shiitake mycelium and the winter squash, and even the sun, whose very innermost nature it is to give.

Understanding this, we may choose to shift our thinking from a rhetoric of scarcity, so pervasive in the wider culture today (recession, terrorism, resource scramble), to an ethic of abundance. In fact, studies have been done that show that calorie for calorie, small scale diverse vegetable production is in fact more productive on the same land than fossil fuel based conventional agriculture. And that is just in terms of food production, without factoring in “externalities” such as climate change and poisoned water from pesticides. The ‘fact’ is that the earth wants to feed us, a lot, a lot of lots of different things! In permaculture, we call this overyielding, that by mimicking natural plant communities and working with nature, we are actually more productive than when we attempt to isolate, control, and work against her. This practice is a combination of faith, gratitude, observation, sweat, and participation in the processes of life.

On a deeper level, on Sukkot we combine the four species (myrtle, willow, palm, citron) through the waving the Lulav, in an act of theurgy, a drawing down of the divine, that celebrates this life force by mapping it onto the six directions. As in other earth based wisdom traditions, we honor the sacred directions, the Arba Ruachot, the four winds. The word ruach is commonly used in the context of the life force, or flowing spirit, within our bodies and this is precisely the energy that we invoke in the the waving of the lulav, combining the fragrant and fertile abundance of the etrog with the active, extensive quality of the lulav, traditionally the center protrusion of a date palm. We shake the lulav in mystical extension of the divine flow to the four corners of the earth, as well as outward and inward, tuning the channels of manifestation, and allowing the garden to grow, in ourselves, and all around us.

At Eden Village, our Hebrew Calendar Garden, a technology for exploring living time, is also calibrated to the directions. Large spiraling beds for the months are inhabited by symbolic and seasonal plants. Tevet and Shvat are towards the north, representing the solitary wisdom, and creative potential, of Winter. Adar and Nisan are in the East, drawing forth the inspired energy of Spring. Tammuz and Av are in the South, active and intense in the heat of Summer. And Tishrei, the season of Autumn, is in the West. Our Tishrei bed contains winter squash, an apple tree guild, bee balm, purple violas. In an individual guild, we like to map out physical correspondences between the plant personalities we are bringing in and the energies of the directions. The calendar garden thus allows us to use plants to observe living time and to explore the symbolism of the festivals and the Arba Ruachot.

Sukkot is a great gathering in, as we honor and celebrate the physical and spiritual work of the summer that has culminated in our harvest. The autumnal, westerly qualities of reflection and celebration are present throughout the month of Tishrei, and the High Holy Days in particular, but it is the harvest festival aspect of Sukkot that is most resonant to us.

The Sukkot that we build hearken back to two different ecological relationships that we have lived as Jews. During Temple times, this period was the busiest time of the year, not only sewing next year’s grain, but harvesting as well, and thus huts were built and lived in close to the field while preparing for the pilgrimage to the great harvest festival in Jerusalem. At the same time, Sukkot also carries the older mythical-historical connotation of remembering our passage from Egypt and our wandering in the desert, when we truly lived according to the precarious balance of the elements.

Rabbi David Seidenberg quotes from Yalkut Shimoni, Pikudei: “When Israel was encamped the pillar of cloud was…like a sukkah and made a canopy over the tent from without, and filled the tabernacle mishkan from within…and this was one of the clouds of glory that served Israel forty years in the wilderness: one on their right and one on their left and one before them and one behind them and one above them and the cloud of the Shekhinah between them.”

As the waving of the Lulav honors the great directions, the schach with which we cover the Sukkah reminds us of the wild itself. It must be composed of cut, live branches, and must not be bundled or secured with artificial materials. It is living, natural, wild, and yet is part of our structure. Like a forest garden, it is both wild and domestic. It both shelters us and reminds us of our balanced and temporary existence on this Earth. It must provide shade and dwelling space, and yet remain open to the stars, and open to the rain.

During Sukkot, the rainy season is just beginning in Israel, and we contemplate the joyful and precise balance of our life on this gift-planet. That the rains may come in their proper time, in the proper proportion, not too much, not too little, as we we pray in the latter passage of the V’ahavta and with great emphasis in the latter part of Sukkot. There was a time when our grandfathers and grandmothers were so connected to the rain, that it was a matter of life or death. Eating has always been a holy act for Jews, but in modern times, we have let our agriculture leave us and become industrialized, let our eating leave us and become commercialized. We have lost some of that direct connection to the earth and thus to the water, but have remained a profoundly land based people despite ourselves. Honoring the earthly rhythms in our yearly festival cycles and singing them to life, however deeply encoded in our liturgy, we practice an ancient panentheistic agricultural religion whose purpose is to elevate our earthly existence and breathe unity back into a world that keeps forgetting itself.

But the circumstances of the world are beginning to shake us out of our complacency, that tendency to forget. The wool over our eyes is quite wet, in some parts of the world, and quite on fire in others, and dry as a bone in still others. So we are beginning to feel the effects of our actions, of disconnect, of treating the water, the land, and animals as a material resource to be bought and sold and used and used up. We are feeling the effects of a hundred years of the physical and spiritual monoculture of consumer culture.

By planting trees, by restoring degraded land to garden-kingdom, and by honoring the balance of the elements by dwelling in our sukkat shelomecha, our canopy of peace, we are restoring our human potential, our ability to bring forth. Forest gardens sequester carbon, restore biodiversity, increase water availability, and feed animals and humans for generations into the future. Generational continuity and memory is a foundational principle of Judaism, and can be beautifully expressed in the planting of trees who have productive lifespans in the range of hundreds of years.

One day he was going along the road, when he saw a man planting a carob tree. Honi asked, “In how many years will this tree that you are planting bear fruit?” The man responded, “In seventy years.” Honi asked, “Are you sure that you will live seventy more years to enjoy the fruit of this tree?!” The man said, “I was born into a world with carob trees. Just as my ancestors planted for me, so I plant for my descendants.”

Talmud Bavli Ta’anit 23a

As we allow the joyous gathering in energy of Sukkot to infuse our winter with life and possibility, may we draw inspiration from the wild places, and bring them into our dwelling places, plant a wild and abundant garden for future generations, and remember and praise the source of our provenance.

{Cutting a red oak for Shiitakes, preparing community dinner, transplanting tomatos, flattening steel struts to build our geodesic dome}

The first week we saw the Peah garden on our tour of the farm. A few days later, we were thrilled when given the chance to plant this year’s vegetable crop in it. Our educators from the Jewish Farm School not only taught us about the technique in which these plants needed to be planted, but they also taught us about the beauty of the Jewish agricultural law of Peah, leaving the corners of our field for the hungry. It was incredible to see this effective educational tool turn into a dense sea of green after just a few days of rain, and we all felt a great sense of satisfaction knowing our actions would one day feed local hungry people. The next week, a group of Jewish home-schooled children came to the farm for Jewish Farm School's Youth Program. As we planted trees a few yards away in our orchard, we were proud to see these children learning about Peah in the garden we helped plant.

{planting our grape arbor, making granola bars, just being kids, planting in the High Tunnel at our neighbors, Glynwood Farm}

Another memorable experience from our internship was inoculating red oak logs with shitake spores. We learned the value of hard work as we cut three-foot logs from a felled red oak tree in the forest in the pouring rain. The next week we drilled holes in the logs and poured in sterilized woodchips mixed with shitake spores. The mushrooms will take a year to sprout, but we felt that this was a way to give back to the farm community that had welcomed us so warmly. We hope that these mushrooms will help the farm’s amazing chef continue to cook his mind blowing vegetarian and vegan food next year.

{Sourdough Bread Baking and Text Study with Rabbi Jacob Fine….on ABC television, planting sorrel next to an apple tree in our permaculture orchard}

{Dome is REAL!}

Now that our internship is coming to an end, we plan on taking the skills we have learned back to our communities. We have each mapped out ways in which we hope to add to our peers’ knowledge and understanding of the deep seeded connection between Judaism and ecology. If Eden Village and the Jewish Farm School have taught us anything, it is that education is the key to create change. We would like to take this opportunity to reiterate our thanks to everybody on the farm for opening our minds to the beauty of our world and for awakening within us the potential to mend the world and environment.

Best,

Coby Sloyer and Jacob Vivek Einstein

I want to share an excerpt from our daring Jewish Ecological Masterpiece Theatre, wildly acclaimed by elementary day school students across the South. The scene is this: Adam and Eve in Gan Eden, enjoying the incredible Edible Forest Garden:

God: A long, long time ago, in a garden far, far away…

{Adam and Eve play tropical paradise ukelele and flute music.}

Adam: Mmmmm, I’m telling you, Eve, this is the life! Almonds, grapes, pomegranates, apples …and figs…, I can’t believe all this food just grows on trees!

Eve: You said it, Adam. Which bountiful flowing river do you want to go swimming in this afternoon? My favorite is the Pison, with all that gold glittering on the banks…

G!d: Adam! Eve!

Eve: Whoa, what? Adam, did you hear that? What was that booming voice?

G!d: I am Hashem! I am the source of life! I… created you!

Adam: Created!?! Well. Why are talking to us? We’re just people.

G!d: JUST people?! You are the whole shebang! You’re IT with a capital I! You’re the last piece in this whole STORY!

Eve: Great. ‘Cause he really needs the ego-boost.

Adam: Wait, what do you mean, what story?

G!d: Let me tell catch you up on some recent developments. In the beginning, there was nothing. With a capital N. The Void. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Tohu Vavohu.

Adam: Really? But just look at this place now. Its poppin!

Eve: Ohhh yeah. I think I’ve heard this story before…

G!d: In the beginning the world was empty and without form, until, I created light and dark. V’yomer elokim – yehi or, v’yehi or…Then I split the ancient waters above and below, adamah v’shamayim, creating the earth and the skies…and it was gooooood.

Out of the nothingness, I imagined LIFE, creatures that grew in cool forms, grass and flowers and tall trees that grow and make more of themselves!

I gathered the light into galaxies and supernovas, quarks and planets and black holes, and globular clusters that shine through the darkness. And I created the moon and the sun, the source of energy for all life.

G!d: Then, from the waters, I brought forth more life! The waters teemed with slinkers, sinkers, floaters, bobbers, swimmers and chompers. And then I created creatures of the air. {Children toss various stuffed animals onstage, laughing uproariously} And in the air zoomed soarers, gliders, screechers, circlers, drifters, and laughers. And then on the land walked even more creatures! There were sneakers, stompers, slitherers, leapers, bounders, racers, hoppers and so many more.

Each kind of creature walked, swam, or soared in its own way, and was able to make more creatures just like itself. Each creature thrived as part of the food chain, each was adapted to its own unique environment, and each had its own special gift. Each had its place in the circle of-

Adam: The CIRCLE OF LIII-

G!d: {cuts him off} please let me finish. and it was goooooooooooood. And then, Adam, I created you and I created Chava – Eve – and it was veeeeeery good.

Adam: It sure is… But, why are we so important? I mean, We’re not as big as that mountain or as bright as that star.

Eve: We’re not as fast as that cheetah, or as mighty as that tree! Why are we the final piece to this whole story?

G!d: You are the final piece because I have given you the ability to think , to be aware of the life around you and the choices you make.

Eve: Be aware huh? How about being aware of my feelings once in a while… (interrupted by adam)

Adam: You mean it’s all for me?! I can do whatever I want with it? I can chop down trees? I can use llamas as

pillows? I can play soccer with chickens? {BukkAAAAWWW! Adam kicks one of the animals} Ch-ching! Who let the dogs out! Oooh Ooh Oooh. {Adam grabs an apple from the branches of tree, takes a bite, throws it behind him.}

Eve: Not only did you just interrupt me, Adam, you also just created the first piece of garbage in the world!

{…and scene….}

Adam and Eve go on to discover their SACRED MISSION! L’ovdah u’l’shomrah! To work in service, and to protect the land! In the process, participants in our program are introduced to the the basics of ECOLOGICAL DESIGN, learn how to KEEP IT IN THE CYCLE, and explore how they can BE THE CHANGE by making decisions to positively impact the environment.

…For more Jewish Ecological Masterpiece Theater, stay tuned to www.topsyturvybus.org and see when the Teva Topsy Turvy Bus Tour, is coming to an area near you. And for more cuting edge Jewish ecological education including our groundbreaking farming and wilderness based summer programs for ages 8 through 18, be sure to check out edenvillagecamp.org. In closing, I want to share a photo collage of EVC campers stretching their minds, and turning their thinking upside down, from last summer’s Topsy Turvy Bus Program at Eden Village Camp.

And as they say here, down south, remember to keep it between the mayo and the mustard….

One afternoon Choni HaMe’agel was walking beside a road. He saw an old man planting a Carob tree, and asked him: “In how many years will this tree bear fruit?” The old man replied: “70 years!”. “70 years!”, Choni exclaimed, “Do you think you will be alive then?” The old man replied: “I found this world with Carob trees. Just as my ancestors planted for me, I am planting for my children.”

Tu B’Shvat, the Rosh Hashanah for The Trees is coming this Thursday, January 20, full moon Shvat. I will be celebrating in Moshav Aviezer, a beautiful little community in the hills west of Jerusalem, and although weather.com reports that it is currently snowing on our freshly planted fruit trees at Eden Village Camp, I thought I would take this opportunity to share some of the most exciting aspects of our permaculture orchard within the mystical and historical context of Tu B’Shvat.

Last Fall, at our Sukkot Harvest Festival, campers, families and friends gathered to plant twelve fruit trees in the Edible Forest Garden style: guilds of edible and useful plants working together to imitate the natural community relationships of a forest. We have American Persimmon, Summer Apple, Asian Pear, Pawpaw, Mulberry, Peach, Hardy Kiwi, Highbush Blueberry, Gooseberry, Pink Currant, Elderberry, Cranberry, Winecap Mushrooms, Oyster Mushrooms, a host of medicinal herbs, perennial vegetables, and much more!

With productive life spans ranging from 50 to 300 years, these trees will provide abundant nourishment for the next seven generations, the timespan we must consider in order to make good decisions, according to the Iroquois-speaking cultures who peopled the Hudson Valley for countless generations before New York State existed.

The old man in the Talmudic tale above also reflects such a long range ecological understanding, linking the natural divine generosity of trees with the deep generational continuity that exists within our own culture. We Jews are the holders of an intact and multifaceted earth-based wisdom tradition, and although we have lived in Diaspora for much of the last two millenia, the ecological and social wisdom of our people has been preserved (and enriched) as we have journeyed through modernity, sharing it with our children through such imaginative festivals as the Tu B’Shvat Seder.

The incredible history of Tu B’Shvat reflects this journey: from its beginnings as a calendrical demarcation that ensured the proper tithing of fruit trees in Mishnaic times, to the transcendental and symbol-laden Kabbalism of the school of Yitzchak Luria in Tzfat in the 16th century, to the planting of trees in Eretz Yisrael as a part of the Zionist project in the last century, to its role as a Jewish Earth Day in the contemporary environmental movement, Tu B’Shvat reflects the complex and beautiful relationship between the Jewish people and and the trees which have provided us such abundant fruit and such deep wisdom. Our permaculture orchard, accessible to hundreds of kids every summer, is a living example of this understanding, and serves as a space for humans to learn and grow; as a home for birds, insects, arachnids, and reptiles; as a free air purification and carbon sequestration station; all while providing abundant fresh organic berries, medicinal herbs,vegetables, and fruit for many future generations of human children.