Why does the Torah choose these two foods as the symbols of the land of Israel?
They are (so I just read today) the only two food stuffs that are totally selfless, created for the sole purpose of nourishing their young - and nothing else. For them, being eaten and consumed is not a loss, a death, or a clever dispersal strategy.
It is rather the fulfillment of their existence.
Even more, they are fashioned in and brought forth from the parenting bodies themselves. They are seen by cultures around the world as nature's only two substances that are in their being-and-essence food.
And in their offering, they forge the unmediated bonds of one generation with the next.
For the land of Israel to be seen this way is stunning: it is the mother gathering us in her arms, sustaining us on food from her body that she desires to give us as much as we desire to drink from her. It is as if to say we are her natural offspring - there to celebrate and eventually tend to her.
And while milk sustains the life of the very young, honey sweetens and preserves the youth of the old.
This is a lesson we can also take beyond the boundaries of Israel to all humanity. For we need to regain our intimate relationship with the earth, and care for it in a tender and loving way so it can care for us the same.
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
Tuesday, June 17, 2014
Tree trimming
Three branches fell on my property recently. Two in the front and one in the back. I am thinking the week of rain that was so good for my vegetables was a death knell for the branches. It likely caused water to enter a crack of the weakened or dead limbs and hastened the inevitable. Maybe more fell that I haven't seen but I was home for the ceremonious fall of those three.
There is something arresting, even a bit alarming, in branches falling.
First you hear a rustling, as if someone is moving about in a distant part of the house. It is both faint enough, and familiar enough, that you hardly notice. Except, it dawns on you, that there is no one else at home; or the ones who are home are sitting right next to you!
Then there is that heart-stopping crack - and an aching, desperate pause as the last remnants of bark still clinging tenaciously to the trunk finally succumb to the will of gravity. The limb begins its graceful disembarking (if we can call it that), brushing past and through its neighbors below. In summertime, with the leaves plumped out, it is as if the limb is celebrating its liberation, giving high-fives - leaf to leaf - to all its tree-bound brethren as it now plunges past.
There is a delight in witnessing the drama of the wilds being played out in your presence. But the problem is - it is hard to discern exactly where this massive and potentially bone-crushing act of nature is happening. So it is with great relief and no small exhalation of breath that you soon discover that the noise has ended, and this time at least you were not a victim of nature's arboreal sloughing.
We buried a cousin of Avram's yesterday - a woman a few years younger than we. There had been a faint rustling of disease, the awful crack of awareness of the inevitability of its course, and the plunge into death through the outstretched arms of her family and loved ones. A limb of the family tree loosed forever.
I suppose there could be a better way to shed our frail and spent bodies. But this is the hand we were dealt. I find that thinking of life through the symbolism of trees, such as those celebrated in Judaism, is comforting.
We are but branches, offshoots, of a massive Tree of Life. When young, we are nurtured and held tight and protected by its massive structure. And as we age (if we are so blessed), we nurture and hold tight and protect those who come after us. And through it all, through our comings and goings, the Tree stands.
There is something arresting, even a bit alarming, in branches falling.
First you hear a rustling, as if someone is moving about in a distant part of the house. It is both faint enough, and familiar enough, that you hardly notice. Except, it dawns on you, that there is no one else at home; or the ones who are home are sitting right next to you!
Then there is that heart-stopping crack - and an aching, desperate pause as the last remnants of bark still clinging tenaciously to the trunk finally succumb to the will of gravity. The limb begins its graceful disembarking (if we can call it that), brushing past and through its neighbors below. In summertime, with the leaves plumped out, it is as if the limb is celebrating its liberation, giving high-fives - leaf to leaf - to all its tree-bound brethren as it now plunges past.
There is a delight in witnessing the drama of the wilds being played out in your presence. But the problem is - it is hard to discern exactly where this massive and potentially bone-crushing act of nature is happening. So it is with great relief and no small exhalation of breath that you soon discover that the noise has ended, and this time at least you were not a victim of nature's arboreal sloughing.
We buried a cousin of Avram's yesterday - a woman a few years younger than we. There had been a faint rustling of disease, the awful crack of awareness of the inevitability of its course, and the plunge into death through the outstretched arms of her family and loved ones. A limb of the family tree loosed forever.
I suppose there could be a better way to shed our frail and spent bodies. But this is the hand we were dealt. I find that thinking of life through the symbolism of trees, such as those celebrated in Judaism, is comforting.
We are but branches, offshoots, of a massive Tree of Life. When young, we are nurtured and held tight and protected by its massive structure. And as we age (if we are so blessed), we nurture and hold tight and protect those who come after us. And through it all, through our comings and goings, the Tree stands.
Thursday, June 12, 2014
Lessons from my garden
I planted a vegetable garden again this year. Which should not seem like a big deal. Humans, after all, have been doing that since the era of agriculture began, which, according anthropologists was about 10,000 BCE and, according to the Bible was always. Adam, after all, was a tender of the soil.
But there are three reasons why this IS significant.
1) I have been bitten by the zeitgeist. Food is a hot topic today. Local food, homegrown food, organic food, foraging, food systems, genetically modified food, community gardens, CSAs, farmers markets So it is not surprising, but it is telling, that I planted a vegetable garden this year. It is only my second; the first being last year.
Now, I am not particularly adept at handling potted plants, so why I have been inspired to dig up part of my front lawn and put in two garden plots is a mystery. (And a no-no, for in suburbia, gardens should be tucked away in back yards - but my front lawn, all the way up by the street, is the only place I can put the vegetable garden. I think my neighbors regret not renewing our covenants.)
I am most interested in knowing what historians 50 years from now will say about this latest home-grown rage. We understand the Victory Gardens of World War II - which were said to provide Americans with 40% of their produce during the war years.
What is motivating and catapulting this homegrown movement forward? Distrust in and dislike of the chemical and production procedures of agro-business? Our government's inability to properly supervise the safety of our food? Healing and overcoming our alienation from the land? A desire to reclaim a sense of belonging to place even as we increasingly live in the cyberworld of portable screen technoogies? The desire to witness natural life - its majesty, mystery, rhythms, slowness - even as we live more and more in a quickening world of manufactured things?
Whatever it is, this movement is significant and powerful (especially if it has managed to snare black thumbs like me!), and we should not let it pass without acknowledging it and wondering why.
2) Gardening is a great teacher. I wake up every morning and wonder about the weather. Not so I know how to dress or whether to take an umbrella. Rather, so I will know how to tend to my plants. Will they need watering today? Will they get enough sun? How did they manage in last night's storm?
That is, one of my first thoughts is about something else, something other than me. Jewish tradition teaches us that if you have animals, before eating breakfast, you must go and tend the animals. I don't have animals but I do have my garden. And if I don't tend it first thing in the morning, I may not get to tend to it at all that day. So my first morning task is to tend to my plants.
It is a great spiritual exercise, even a spiritual discipline, to know that upon arising each morning, one of your first tasks is to think about the welfare of something other than yourself. How are they doing, why are they doing this, what do they need, what can you give them, what will it take?
It tends to color your whole day, so that in meetings or chance encounters or when speaking with colleagues and co-workers you find yourself asking, How are they doing? Why are they doing this? What do they need? What can I give them? What will it take?
3) Different gardeners have different attitudes toward "sharing" our harvest with our furry and feathered neighbors. Those who have fruit trees and fruit bushes seem more resigned to sharing their haul with their non-human companions. Often there seems to be enough to go around. Those who labor over vegetable gardens are much less forgiving of their non-human raiders. I lost my garden last year to furry robbers, despite double netting the plants. This year I put up a cloth barrier to try to protect my hard-earned veggies. Time will yet tell if anything survives for my family's consumption.
But either way, it reminds me that we humans must devise ways of sharing this earth. We cannot simply wipe out predators or competitors because they annoy use, like we did with the buffalo, or like we tried to do with the wolves, or weeds, or even insects and others that then created a cascade of food chain degradation that threaten the functioning of the chain of life. What is happening to the bees, the primary pollinators of our fruited food? And the plants surrounding the Round-Up Ready and infused grasses?
Annoying as my local deer and rabbits are, they remind me that accommodation and harmony must exist among all earth's creatures, else we upset the balance, and thus the healthy functioning of life.
But there are three reasons why this IS significant.
1) I have been bitten by the zeitgeist. Food is a hot topic today. Local food, homegrown food, organic food, foraging, food systems, genetically modified food, community gardens, CSAs, farmers markets So it is not surprising, but it is telling, that I planted a vegetable garden this year. It is only my second; the first being last year.
Now, I am not particularly adept at handling potted plants, so why I have been inspired to dig up part of my front lawn and put in two garden plots is a mystery. (And a no-no, for in suburbia, gardens should be tucked away in back yards - but my front lawn, all the way up by the street, is the only place I can put the vegetable garden. I think my neighbors regret not renewing our covenants.)
I am most interested in knowing what historians 50 years from now will say about this latest home-grown rage. We understand the Victory Gardens of World War II - which were said to provide Americans with 40% of their produce during the war years.
What is motivating and catapulting this homegrown movement forward? Distrust in and dislike of the chemical and production procedures of agro-business? Our government's inability to properly supervise the safety of our food? Healing and overcoming our alienation from the land? A desire to reclaim a sense of belonging to place even as we increasingly live in the cyberworld of portable screen technoogies? The desire to witness natural life - its majesty, mystery, rhythms, slowness - even as we live more and more in a quickening world of manufactured things?
Whatever it is, this movement is significant and powerful (especially if it has managed to snare black thumbs like me!), and we should not let it pass without acknowledging it and wondering why.
2) Gardening is a great teacher. I wake up every morning and wonder about the weather. Not so I know how to dress or whether to take an umbrella. Rather, so I will know how to tend to my plants. Will they need watering today? Will they get enough sun? How did they manage in last night's storm?
That is, one of my first thoughts is about something else, something other than me. Jewish tradition teaches us that if you have animals, before eating breakfast, you must go and tend the animals. I don't have animals but I do have my garden. And if I don't tend it first thing in the morning, I may not get to tend to it at all that day. So my first morning task is to tend to my plants.
It is a great spiritual exercise, even a spiritual discipline, to know that upon arising each morning, one of your first tasks is to think about the welfare of something other than yourself. How are they doing, why are they doing this, what do they need, what can you give them, what will it take?
It tends to color your whole day, so that in meetings or chance encounters or when speaking with colleagues and co-workers you find yourself asking, How are they doing? Why are they doing this? What do they need? What can I give them? What will it take?
3) Different gardeners have different attitudes toward "sharing" our harvest with our furry and feathered neighbors. Those who have fruit trees and fruit bushes seem more resigned to sharing their haul with their non-human companions. Often there seems to be enough to go around. Those who labor over vegetable gardens are much less forgiving of their non-human raiders. I lost my garden last year to furry robbers, despite double netting the plants. This year I put up a cloth barrier to try to protect my hard-earned veggies. Time will yet tell if anything survives for my family's consumption.
But either way, it reminds me that we humans must devise ways of sharing this earth. We cannot simply wipe out predators or competitors because they annoy use, like we did with the buffalo, or like we tried to do with the wolves, or weeds, or even insects and others that then created a cascade of food chain degradation that threaten the functioning of the chain of life. What is happening to the bees, the primary pollinators of our fruited food? And the plants surrounding the Round-Up Ready and infused grasses?
Annoying as my local deer and rabbits are, they remind me that accommodation and harmony must exist among all earth's creatures, else we upset the balance, and thus the healthy functioning of life.
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