October 13, 2008
Cultivating knowledge of Jewish culture
Farm in Reisterstown seeks to make connection with faith's agricultural roots and traditions
In a Reisterstown field, a circular garden connects nature with the months of the Jewish calendar and ties agriculture to Jewish heritage.
The Gan Luach Zman, or calendar garden, is one example of how a Jewish retreat center in Baltimore County is marrying sustainable farming principles with the traditional practices described in Jewish texts to teach children and adults about Jewish culture and the environment.
The Kayam farm at the Pearlstone Conference and Retreat Center in Reisterstown strives to reunite Jews with their agrarian roots while drawing connections between people and the planet, social justice and stewardship. Kayam means "firmly established," or "rooted."
"We felt like we had such a wonderful opportunity in this setting to try to recapture some of those links and try to illustrate [them] to all the different kinds of groups that come here," says Carol Pristoop, Pearlstone's executive director.
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In recent years, a growing number of Jewish groups are focusing attention not just on whether meals are fit for consumption under the traditional dietary laws, but also expanding the definition to include the sustainability of the food source, a concept some are calling "eco-kosher."
For example, Jewish community-supported agriculture programs have been organized in 10 locations, including Israel, says Judith Belasco of Hazon, a New York-based Jewish environmental organization. A Washington group has begun the first such kosher meat program, she says.
"What we eat and the choices we make about food are very influenced by our Judaism as well," Belasco says.
During a recent visit to Pearlstone, children attending Camp Milldale planted cayenne pepper plants in the calendar garden, which is divided into 12 sections representing the months of the Jewish year. The peppers are a reminder of the pain of Tisha B'Av, a day of fasting that commemorates the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem.
Not far away, five small wooden boxes represent different expressions of rules governing the mixing of crops as spelled out in the first book of Mishna, part of the Talmud, a compilation of interpretations of Jewish scripture written thousands of years ago.
"It feels like a lab, sort of," says Gabriel Greenberg, a farm educator. "We're reading this really obscure text and trying to put it in the ground."
Aaron Shamberg, a landscape designer who studied Jewish farming in Israel and Baltimore, is leading the Mishna Gan sessions on Sundays.
"The goal is to learn these laws through experience as opposed to just reading the ancient text," he says. "For me it's about integrating a sense of Jewish history with land. We've lost touch with a lot of these principles and concepts."
"You cannot really be a conscious Jew without being conscious of the environment," he says. "Any faith that has the biblical tradition has to have a touch with nature."
From studying the texts, it's possible to see "how 2,000 years ago, 3,000 years ago, Jewish thinkers recognized how important stewardship of the earth is," Pristoop says. "There is so much material written in the Talmud about how you approach the land and what kind of crops you grow in proximity to each other."
Many of the rules govern responsibility to the underprivileged. For example, crops from the corners of fields are reserved for the poor, strangers and widows. Produce that falls to the ground is also the property of the poor.
The laws make people "not just conscious about agriculture and the environment but really conscious of who it belongs to," Helfand says.
"It means they have rights on the land just as you have," he says. "It's not charity. It goes beyond social justice. It's the rights of the poor."
At the Kayam farm in Reisterstown, that practice has been adapted for modern times. The farm has given about 10 percent of its yield to groups such as the Ahavas Yisrael charity fund, which provides food discreetly to needy families, and the Hannah More Shelter in Reisterstown.
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