Food and Behar/Bechukotai

Do you know where your food comes from? I heard a clever discussion by a chabad rabbi once as he pulled out an apple from his bag.

He asked: “why do we say a blessing before we eat this apple? “ Because,” he said, “we need to become conscious of where this piece of fruit comes from.” He then went on to trace the journey of the piece of fruit back to its origins.

He bought the apple at the local super market. But to get it to that market, the grocer had to purchase it from a wholesaler, who had to buy it from the grower. For each of these steps, the apple had to be loaded onto a truck and shipped. Trucks need gasoline and that starts a whole other progression which starts from the oil well, refinery, shipped to the gas station into the truck etc.

But back to the apple. The grower had to harvest the apple; the apple had to be picked by machine or by worker. The tree that produced the apple had to be watered by rain or some form of irrigation, which required pipes and ditches that has its own progression back to the source of water. So this tree is watered, grown on the property of the grower; probably fertilized (often with fertilizer that itself is derived from petroleum, believe it or not) and sprayed with some kind of pesticide (made from chemicals; another progression). But the tree, of course, comes from a seed, but first the ground is plowed and then the seed is planted. Where does the land and the seed come from, asked the rabbi? Land and seed are the miracles; they come from God. Hence, the blessing.

Every piece of fruit in the grocery store has this progression. Sometimes the progressions are even more complicated because summer fruit, in our winter, has to be shipped from the places it grows; delivered by ship or plane, then by truck to the store. But the whole progession begins with the land and a seed and to say the blessing is to acknowledge these God given gifts of land and seed and hence, for all of our food.

In the Birchat Hamazon, the blessing after the meals, we recite: “’and you shall eat and be satisfied and bless the Lord your God for the good land God gave you.’ Blessed are You, God, for the land and for the food.”

In the parasha today, the Israelites are to make an adjustment in their relationship to the land. We read, “For six years you may sow your field and for six years you may prune your vineyard; and you my gather in your crop. But the seventh year shall be a complete rest for the land, a Sabbath for God; your field you shall not sow and your vineyard you shall not prune.” Notice the phrase, the seventh year will be a rest for the land and a Sabbath for God. The land and God are intimately related: in our tradition, you can’t have one without the other. The land (meaning here, the Land of Israel) is a representation of God. The land is alive; within it and from it comes Divine blessing. The land needs to be treated with reverence as we treat God with reverence. God is the source of all life; land is the source of all sustenance for all that is alive.

And there are serious consequences in the Torah for abusing the land and ignoring its blessing. In the second parasha of our combined Torah reading today, we read: “if you will follow My decrees and observe my commandments and perform them; then I will provide your rains in their time, and the land will give its produce and the tree of the field will give its fruit. Your threshing will last until the vintage, and the vintage will last until the sowing; you will eat your bread to satiety and you will dwell securely in your land…..but if you will not listen…your land will not give produce and the tree of the land will not give its fruit.”

If all is good, the Israelites will enjoy wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives and dates. Seven species of food: sufficient to support human life in the holy land. If all is not good: no rain, no harvest… famine. From the land flows either life or death.

If land and food is a matter of life and death, shouldn’t we spend some time thinking about it? What is our relationship to the food we eat and the land from which that food is produced? How does what we eat define who we are and the values and traditions we pass down to the next generation? Consider the Passover Seder? Rosh Hashana dinner? Pot roast, gefilte fish, chopped liver or matzah. Your grandmother’s kugel, latkes and kishke and corn beef on rye? Kosher, or not Kosher? How much do we eat? Is it healthful or not? With whom do we eat?

Jews are thinking about food, today, in deeper ways than before. You may not be aware that there is a growing food movement in the Jewish community today especially among the younger members of our community. Much to my surprise, I have caught my own kids watching shows on the various food channels: Iron Chef and the like. They find it fascinating as do millions of people who watch these shows. Cooking and baking and trying new tastes. More so than ever before, children of our congregation are entering schools like Johnson and Wales to become chefs. The Young Judea year program in Israel has a specialty tract on culinary arts, learning to cook and bake using ingredients grown in Israel. There is a Jewish food movement, spearheaded by a new organization called “Hazon,” which as they say seeks “An American Jewish community that’s measurably healthier and more sustainable and an American Jewish community that’s demonstrably playing a role in making the world healthier and more sustainable for all.” One the programs they support is called, “CSA’s” which is an acronym for Community Sustaining Agriculture. CSA’s provide a relationship with a local farmer to grow and sell to us organic vegetables. We pay ahead of time to support the farmer, and the farmer grows and delivers the vegetables in their season, native to local soils. We get a basket of vegetables each week and we take them home, cook them and eat them We support the local farmer; we eat vegetables that don’t need to be transported long distances (using less gasoline, less dependence on foreign oil, less support for tyrannical regimes in the Middle East, less pollution, global warming, less pesticides, fertilizer run off into streams, rivers and oceans…. the whole deal). We are also presented with vegetables we have never heard of nor ever seen before, and that makes things interesting in and of itself. We have a CSA program at the Alliance; the Dollin family signed up and we should be receiving our vegetables soon. I will let you know how they are. I am still learning what okra, bochchoi, chard, kohlrabi, collard greens and kale are. I am a cucumber and lettuce kind of guy but it is never too late to try new things.

We have also prepared a garden here at the synagogue. We designed 6 plots in which different families can grow organic vegetables. You have no idea all the issues that are involved. Fertilizer must come from the manure of animals that have never received hormones or antibiotics. The soil must come from land that has never been subjected to pesticides and/or unnatural fertilizer. Even the two- by- fours we use to mark off the plots and into which goes the soil and manure must be of untreated wood (wood from lumber yards is often treated with arsenic and copper and other unpronounceable chemicals; who knew?). We will have classes on how to create a garden, grow vegetables and then cooking classes to learn how to prepare them for our dinner tables. The idea is to get Jews back in touch with the earth, at least in some way, just as our ancestors were in touch with the fields of the holy land of Israel.

Lots to think about and lots to learn. This garden and our CSA are designed to be fun and designed, more importantly, for us to learn. We invite participation in any or all of it. Keep an eye on our website to find out more.

If God expects us to treat the land with respect and reverence and even awe, we need to learn, in a very personal way, what it takes to bring forth food from land. We have to trace our food back to its source of seed and soil. And perhaps even use our own hands to plant and harvest and cook and eat. And then we can for once recite the prayer with complete kavanah, with intention, "to bless the Lord for the good land He has given us, for the land and for the food."