Planting Jewish Seeds

Peah refers to the corners of the fields that were not harvested by the owner of the field.  Instead, the produce of these corners were left for the stranger, the widow and the orphan.  (Leviticus 19)  There is a whole classification of produce: peah, leket, shichach –  the corners of the field, the produce that does not fall and the produce left behind that the Torah and later Jewish law declares to be for those in need.  These values mirror stories both in Judaism and beyond that all we grow in our garden is not our possession. Just like we borrow the earth from God or we seek to be partners in creation, these mitzvot and stories remind us that our garden experience flourishes when it always has a component of sharing, giving back or paying forward.   A Peah garden is a “food justice” garden.  Many communities grow vegetables to be donated to local food pantries and food banks. We can consider Jewish values of sharing our food with those in need.  As we care for this garden, we wrestle with what we need as opposed to what we want.  We have opportunities to understand sustenance instead of excess. We can find ways of paying our labor and blessings forward.

In the album, “You don’t have to be Jewish,” one of the comedy sketches is set at a funeral.  Even as the rabbi eulogizes the deceased, a Jewish mother interrupts.  “Give him some chicken soup” she declares.  When she is told that he is dead and it will not help his condition, “it couldn’t hurt,” is her retort.  Chicken soup is often called Jewish penicillin.  Its healing properties are not just in the nutrition in the broth, but in the fact that sharing chicken soup with someone else involves an act of bikkur cholim/visiting the sick.  Caring visits play a vital role in the healing process. A chicken soup garden does not have to involve chicken.  Instead, plant all the vegetables and herbs that you like to add to your chicken soup:  Carrots, onions, dill, parsnip, celery, turnip, kohlrabi, parsley…you don’t have to grow everything you need to make the soup but if some of the vegetables come from your garden the soup gets an extra bit of love.

For many years different educators suggested planting parsley seeds at Tu b’Shevat so that the herb greens would be ready for the Seder plate at Passover.  In the past, instead of just planting parsley, the students of Temple Beth Shalom in Vero Beach, Florida planted a variety of greens and herbs.  We had a number of choices of greens at different seders and had amazing discussions about karpas and maror, sweet greens versus bitter herbs.  You can plant and grow horseradish, both as a green and root.  Be careful planting it in a garden bed as it will spread out and is hard to remove once it is started. http://biblebeltbalabusta.com/2012/01/26/how-and-why-to-let-kids-plant-tu-bshevat-parsley/

Choose plants that speak to the five senses: Sight, Hearing, Smell, Touch, and Taste.  There are many plants that can connect two or more senses.  Dragon tongue beans have an interesting mottled purple and white color, a fuzzy texture and then a good bean flavor.  Cuban Oregano has big soft leaves, a distinctive smell, and slimy juice inside the succulent leaves. Burgundy Okra has large red and green leaves, woody prickly pods, and of course, typical okra gooeyiness and seeds in the pods. This garden has many uses.  You could grow cotton to be used for oil lamps on Shabbat.  Nasturtium which has edible flowers and leaves.  A wide variety of herbs can be used for Havdalah.  Not everything has to be experienced fresh from the garden.  What happens when we dry or press or preserve the produce?  Tempt each of the five senses.  Jewish tradition places incredible value on waking up to God’s presence around us (Jacob in Genesis 28 Parshat Vayetzeh or Balaam in Numbers 22) and collecting sparks of holiness.  This garden is all about practice and variety.  The more times we use our senses, the more we think about the how, when, why and what of our sense experiences the greater the number and weight of these experiences.

There are pictures of produce from a pickle patch being grown in an Amir Garden at Camp Barney Medintz in Cleveland, Georgia.  They are growing cucumbers, dill, and coriander to make wonderful pickles.  This garden draws one into Jewish experience as you discuss the American Jewish immigrant experience and the lower East Side.  You could also pickle other veggies and tune into regional food cultures.

http://jwa.org/blog/eating-jewish-pickling-dill-pickles

http://forward.com/articles/156287/pickled-to-perfection/

In garden circles you may come across the concept of a Three Sisters Garden.  The three sisters are from Native American lore and life, beans, corn, and squash.  The corn provides the trellis.  The beans give nitrogen to the soil and the squash offer shade and protection to the plot. All three are easily stored for long periods of time and staples of the Native American diet.  While different varieties are grown in different places, the three sisters were planted throughout North America.  Like Jewish culture, nothing is really done without a story.  There are a few different stories about the three sisters.  Like our Midrash, these stories teach a set of values, responsibility in growing food, the relationship between the plants…..This might not be a specifically Jewish garden but consider it for two reasons.  First, this is a quintessential American garden.  By learning what varieties Native Americans grew in your area, you learn about local history, agriculture, and environment.  Second, what can the way other cultures till and tend and the way they share stories about it help us find and share the Jewish stories and of gardening. http://www.reneesgarden.com/articles/3sisters.html

Deuteronomy 8:7 For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land with streams and springs and fountains issuing from plain and hill; 8 a land of wheat and barley, of vines, figs, and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and [date] honey; 9 a land where you may eat food without stint, where you will lack nothing; a land whose rocks are iron and from whose hills you can mine copper. 10 When you have eaten your fill, give thanks to the Lord your God for the good land which He has given you.

While they may be different varieties, or you may be growing them in different seasons, growing the plants of the 7 species can offer incredible insight into Jewish history, holidays and food culture. When you see a fig tree with its giant leaves you get a window into Torah from Genesis to Prophets.  You can see how the leaves would have been used for Adam and Eve’s clothes.  You can understand why one would think sitting under the tree would be the ultimate relaxation in the time of the Messiah.  Whether you grow wheat and barley or try your hand at growing olive trees or grape vines, each species has characteristics that give insight to stories in the Torah or illustrations of Jewish values. Of course, three of the seven species are part and parcel of every Shabbat: olive oil for lighting, bread, wine.  It is not just the plants or the produce, when we process the produce we have the components of many of our rituals.

Two of the first Hebrew prayer experiences of many Jewish children are the Hamotzi and the four questions of Passover. We praise God for the bread we eat and acknowledge that over the course of Passover we are to avoid our normative wheat eating experiences in order to remember the journey of our ancestors from slavery in Egypt to freedom in the wilderness.  There are five grains that are the bread grains of Jewish tradition:  Wheat, barley, oats, rye and spelt.  These grains must be treated specially in order to be consumed during the seven (or eight) days of Passover.  As the Jewish community has expanded beyond the boundaries of the Middle East we have encountered other grains or grain like products:  Rice, corn, amaranth, quinoa, and buckwheat.  Some are used in the same way as the “chametz” grains.  Others kitniyot/little stuff is treated very differently.  Ashkenazi halacha (Jewish law) stretches the fence to include kitniyot in the list of prohibited food of Passover.  In contrast, Sephardic sources of halacha allow the use of kitniyot during the same period.  What better way to learn about and appreciate the value of grain than by growing it.  On one hand, you could grow wheat and barley in order to make your own challah, matzah or pita.  Or, you could do the opposite.  You could experiment with other species to compare and contrast.  There are many places of discussion from Passover, to nutrition, biodiversity, gluten, and the history of grain cultivation in different geographic and cultural settings.

Bring the falafel stand into the garden.  We can not only stand on Ben Yehuda Street, we can go out to the kibbutz.  The Israeli salad, or falafel or pita with za’atar tastes a little different when we not only eat it, not only cook it, but when we grow it.  Try growing chickpeas, garlic, marjoram and hyssop for za’atar, or peppers, eggplant, tomatoes and cucumbers, parsley, or sesame. The list goes on and on.  As you cultivate these plants, you can research where in Israel they are grown and when and why they became staples of Jewish food culture.

In Genesis (25:29), a rivalry develops between Jacob and Esau. Esau is a hunter, while Jacob is a man of the hearth, cultivating crops and cooking food for the household.   Isaac favors Esau, while Torah tells us that Rebecca favors Jacob.  At one point, Jacob tends a lovely pot of “red stuff” (commonly thought to be lentil stew) as Esau returns famished from a hunting expedition.  Esau requests a serving of food.  Jacob bargains requesting claim to the family birthright.  “What use of the birthright do I have if I am about to starve to death,” Esau declares (with what feels like hyperbole). “My Birthright for a bowl of lentil stew!”

The rabbis agree, this unequal trade is proof of Esau’s boorish, impatient and unenlighted nature.  As we plant gardens, as we offer the words of Deuteronomy, eat, be satisfied and bless G!d for the good land that we are given (Deuteronomy 8:10), this story is one that should be on our mind.  Judaism is full of both slow cooking recipes and of rituals that slow us down so that we can appreciate the food we eat.   With this Jewish concept garden, we look for plants that can be used for slow cook dishes.  Our history offers the (red) stews of Genesis or the wide variety of tzimmes and cholent that is used on Shabbat.  From root vegetables to the spices, in these gardens we grow not just to garden with patience, but to eat with patience.

How much wheat does it take to make k’zayit (Olive’s bulk), the amount necessary to fulfill matzah? How much community/labor does it take to get bread to sustain a person, a family, a community?  With a wheat pot, patch or field, we can experiment with and experience the energy it takes to provide a staple of everyday life. 

While walking our campus, I found myself in one of our pollinator gardens. There is one plant, a climbing aster plant, that blooms in this season and always catches my attention. Not only for its beautiful blooms, but because the bees love it. I catch glimpses of motion as so many bees, wasps and assorted flying creatures zoom in and out, stopping only for a brief moment on the flowers. Even in that quick pause, these insects carry out vital Avodah (sacred work) in our world. As they drink the nectar to nourish themselves, they pick up and deposit pollen to help these plants with their cycle of life. Witnessing this complex of activity, I am appreciative of the relationship between flowers and pollinators. I glory in my opportunities to share sweetness and sustenance. When we emulate the work of pollinators, we become Malachim, angels, connecting people and places in powerful ways.  When we bring people together, when we deliver a crucial bit of information, or share a spark of vital energy, it may seem insignificant or passing in that moment, but in truth we are building a bridge that increases harmony in our world. Even as the pollinators teach us, we can support them.   By providing host plants and nectar sources, we help sustain these creatures that are so vital to the ecosystem.

In Deuteronomy we are reminded to blot out the name of our enemy who attacked us at our weakest and most vulnerable.  We bring this instruction to life on Purim as we use our voices and noise makers to call out anytime the villain is mentioned.  In Psalm 150 we read “Praise the Eternal with drum and dance. Praise the Eternal with strings and organ. Praise the Eternal with resounding cymbals. Praise Eternal with shouting cymbals.Let every soul praise the Eternal— Hallelujah!” Our tradition offers opportunities to generate sounds in celebration or to raise our spirits.  We can garden to bring the natural world into these moments and make them more sustainable.  We can make noise makers by finding the containers (gourds or bamboo for example) or growing (or collecting) the beans and seeds to make a noise maker for Purim or a rhythm instrument for moments of music. 

We have the opportunity to tie acts of sustainability into our value of dor vador, generation to generation.   Even as we consume produce, we can take the “waste” that is left over and turn it into the next generation of produce.   From Onions to leeks, potatoes, avocados, mangos, pumpkins, whether it is the roots or seeds, we can regenerate, germinate and replant from one generation of food into the next. Whether its using a potato from a latke menorah or planting the beans after using them in a Purim Grogger, this garden reminds us of the number of ways we can turn trash into treasure and reinvest the energy of the produce we eat and use.