If suburban Connecticut doesn’t exactly scream “farm†to you, maybe you should look a little harder. Born and raised in Connecticut, I had a farm over the hill from my house and rode horses at farms nearby. Still, none of that prepared me for the option Hillel presented to its students for 2010 spring break: Jewish farm school.
For the past few weeks, I’ve been flipping through options for that week in March. Ideally, somewhere warm…maybe a beach…Aruba? Puerto Rico? Cuba? Then, an e-mail from Hillel popped into my inbox.
While this opportunity doesn’t necessarily appeal to me, the mission does. The Jewish Farm School was founded in 2005 and has burgeoned into a larger program. The school hopes to flourish into a program that will “entail farming, animal husbandry, natural building, and Jewish learning.†As anyone who pays attention to the increase of canvas bags in the supermarket knows, the green movement is increasingly important in the world today. It’s not just to combat the world’s carbon footprint or stick it to Fox News and prove that climate change does exist, either.
Believe it or not, Judaism has a long tradition of being eco-friendly. For one, the holiday of Tu Bishvat celebrates planting trees and reaping their fruits. There’s more to it than that, though. By planting a tree, one can increase the world’s oxygen source, but one can also promote unity. Bringing together people on one green mission will infuse the world with more oxygen and the Jewish community with a message of goodwill to renew themselves, too.
The Torah also says that humans are like trees. Now, I don’t know how to go out and plant a man, but Deuteronomy 20:19 states that “man is like a tree of the field.†It goes on to note that the righteous man will flower like a healthy tree. I like that metaphor, but taking it even further is equally applicable. If a tree flowers and bears fruit, so, too, will a moral person act righteously. That person’s actions and intentions may well rub off on those around him and influence them to act well, in turn causing a whole other orchard to spring up.
Whether or not someone likes different fruits is based on personal taste. So, too, will people choose to absorb different morals in respect to their own beliefs. For example, I enjoy the tartness of citrus fruits, but I’d prefer the tang of a lemon to an apple. In just that manner, people will use the “cafeteria†approach in selecting in what they will add to their moral code. We can encourage them towards the healthy food—the fruits and vegetables that spring from the earth—but they might well take the less nutritious, sugary stuff. If morals are relative and we can pick whatever we choose, then we might need a nutritionist to help show us the way.
That’s where groups like the Jewish Farm School come in. They see the good that comes out of the Torah and seek to reap what it offers. Enough with the agricultural metaphors! Even though I may not be attending the school, I can appreciate the value that it offers and wish it the best as it continues to gain participants in the future
