Judaism’s ecological lens

VICKY TOBIANAH

Environmental sustainability is a concept deeply rooted in thousands of years of Jewish thought, but it’s only in the past decade or so that Jewish communal leaders have brought sustainability back into the mainstream Jewish dialogue.

“Judaism is really rich in ecological wisdom in a number of different areas,” said Risa Alyson Cooper, who serves as the executive director of Shoresh, a Jewish environmental group based in Toronto. “One of the areas is the Jewish agricultural laws … and the agricultural significance of Jewish holidays…. There’s a lot we can learn from Jewish texts and teaching.”

Judaism is perhaps the oldest still surviving proponent of the environmental movement, yet there’s little emphasis on environmental education in most Jewish day schools. If it is taught, the curriculum tends to touch on a few narrow areas, such as the Jewish agricultural laws, which students learn are only applicable to those living in Israel. Often, what’s behind those laws is neglected – principles that perhaps have more relevance for contemporary lives. So, when Cooper moved back to Toronto in 2008, after spending a number of years in the United States, she wanted to bridge the gap between Jewish tradition and environmental education.

She revived an older Jewish organization called Torat HaTeva, changed its mission, put together a new board of directors and renamed it Shoresh (root in Hebrew). Their mission is to build a “more connected and ecologically sustainable Jewish community, through educational programs and grassroots initiatives rooted in Jewish social and environmental values.”

What sets them apart is their focus on hands-on learning, and one of their projects, Kavanah Garden, launched in 2009, just found a permanent home in Toronto, at the newly created Toronto Lebovic campus. Its grand opening was held a few weeks ago. The garden was initially created as a temporary program and features more than 100 varieties of organic fruits and vegetables, herbs grown specifically for Havdalah, an outdoor kitchen and a greenhouse. Eighty percent of the food grown in the garden is donated to people in need in the community.

“The community response was absolutely tremendous,” said Cooper. “We started hosting weekly free family drop-in programs which are always very, very full, we have field trips for elementary day-school programs, which have been very well received. Our programming calendar is continually booked up every spring and summer.”

Indeed, there are few other organizations like Shoresh that understand that being good to the land is a requirement for healthy living, and then actively teach how to do that. Kavanah Garden was named one of the 50 most inspiring and innovative Jewish projects in North America, according to Slingshot:A Resource Guide to Jewish Innovation.

“One of the areas we focus on is the Jewish agricultural laws,” Cooper noted. “My friend calls the Torah the Jewish farmer’s almanac – it’s a blueprint of how to live a Jewish life. The Torah gives a clear set of rules on what to eat, how to grow food, how to share that food with the community, and how to give thanks to the community.”

The most well-known Jewish environmental laws are the ones that we think of as not being applicable to Jews living in the Diaspora. “For a lot of us living outside Israel, some of the agricultural laws are no longer seen as relevant, but there’s a lot of wisdom we can take from [them],” Cooper explained. “The agricultural significance of Jewish holidays – we’ve been focusing on the stories of the holidays, but a lot of holidays are rooted in agricultural cycles.

Pesach, Shavuot and Sukkot are harvest holidays. By focusing on the harvest aspect, it becomes a really meaningful way to connect Jewishly to the food we eat.”

The demand for environmental education is gaining momentum in Toronto’s Jewish community. In 2012 alone, Shoresh reached more than 2,750 people through hands-on workshops and programs, partnering with 35 different organizations and providing 3,500 pounds of local, fresh produce for community members in need. It’s just the beginning for Shoresh, which has also started working on a new project, Bela Farm, located in southern Ontario, which offers the community an opportunity to grow their own food, raise livestock, and offers learning programs.

This year, they’ve launched the Kollel series, a multi-day event allowing community members to tent on the land, take part in a communal, outdoor kitchen, while also doing serious text-based learning. Some of the other initiatives taking place at Bela Farm include a set of beehives, and the planting of 12 guilds of perennial ecosystems. “We’ve attached to it the narrative of the story of Jacob’s children – one guild for each of Jacob’s sons and, in the centre, we’re creating a meditative space for Dena, focusing on health and healing there, with herbs and plants,” said Cooper.

While they won’t be practising the full letter of the law of Jewish agricultural halachah, Cooper said they will definitely be using Jewish laws as a guideline. “We want to do a shemitah year fully,” she said, “but the idea of rest – what could a shemitah year look like in southern Ontario? It’s an ongoing conversation.”

The goal is to take Jewish concepts and bring them into practice. “The teaching of tzedakah, for example: it’s not charity, it’s justice. You’re morally obligated,” and one of those aspects “is ensuring that those in our community receive food. We have this idea that tzedakah is about donating money to people in need, but we have a lot to learn about how to support the most vulnerable,” she said.

These overlooked ideas are ones that many Jews want to work to revive and they are looking to community leaders for guidance and support.

“The rabbis were deeply interested in providing for the poor,” said Rabbi Adam Cutler of Beth Tzedec Congregation in Toronto, who also spoke at Shoresh’s annual food conference last year. “None of these laws [about tithing for the poor, for example] technically apply to us here but we can learn the lessons.”

He noted that the Talmud goes into great detail about the laws for the poor – such as peah, which means you must leave the edges of your field for the poor to take, leket, which means that if you drop some of your harvest while you’re gathering, you’re forbidden from picking it up, and it again belongs to the poor.

“This is not about charity. This is about social justice,” he explained. “You’re not giving to the poor – it’s about letting the poor take what is their right.” It’s radically different from how we generally view charity in our society.

“Only in the past few years did people realize how environmentally conscious Judaism was,” said Cooper. As she helps to expand the organization, she hopes to bring more awareness to how Canadian Jews can eat, live and exist responsibly within the larger environment. “We came in with a vision and we let the community help shape and form our vision as we went,” she said. “That’s what we’ll continue doing.”

Vicky Tobianah is a freelance writer and editor based in Toronto and a recent McGill University graduate. Connect with her on Twitter, @vicktob, or by e-mail to [email protected].

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