Gardeners Reflect
Gardener friends share their thoughts on the spiritual meaning of gardening…
Gallery: Growing Up in the Garden
We call my friend’s enormous Northern California garden, “The Kibbutz.” What a paradise for children! Getting hands dirty in the garden is healthy fun for young and old Click on the picture to activate the gallery.
Return to the Gateway of Gardens.
Eden: The Once and Future Garden
Eden represents the idealized human past…and future. (more…)
Torah Study: Two Versions of the Creation Story
A Short Midrash: Don’t Mess Up the Earth
My Garden of Eden–And Yours
My own Gan Eden was not in the East by the Tigris and Euphrates, but 90 miles west of San Antonio in the Texas Hill Country near a small town with the improbable name of Utopia, on the cool, green Sabinal River. (more…)
Sacred Song of 42
Here is a beautiful chanting song of an ancient mystical prayer whose words include the 42-letter Divine Name. (more…)
Feet on the Earth: Take Your Shoes Off
When Moses stood at the burning bush, (Exodus 3:5), YHWH told him to remove his shoes, because he was standing on holy ground. If weather, terrain, and social setting permit, going barefoot can be a great way to make a fast connection with the earth (even indoors but all the better if you can do it outside on the ground). Take some time to feel the textures and temperatures on your feet and sense your connection with the earth.
Hands on the Earth: Find Your Own Garden Connection
Experience a taste of Eden by growing some of your own vegetables, fruits, or flowers. There are may ways to find your own connection to the vibrant energy of growing plants, wherever you may live. (more…)
Bitter and Sweet of the Garden at Passover
Passover, the Festival of Spring and Freedom, is a holiday associated with food. Matzah, of course, the flat unleavened bread (I recommend whole wheat), to remind us of the unleavened bread that our ancestors baked in their haste to leave slavery in ancient Egypt, with no time for the dough to rise. The other tastes of Passover have their own associations, bitter and sweet. Eating these symbolic and seasonal natural foods helps to literally internalize the Seder’s message of freedom.
Farming Tzedakah: The Gleanings and Corners of Your Field
The Torah (Leviticus 19:9-10) teaches that farmers must leave the gleanings of their harvest and the corners of the fields for the needy to come and collect This is an early form of tzedakah (justice, charity) that is elaborated on in the Mishnah, the foundational text of Rabbinic Judaism, and found in many Jewish siddurim (prayerbooks). The sense is that land is not strictly our property, but ultimately belongs to God (because “I am YHWH your God”). How can we do this mitzvah (good deed, divine imperative) today?
Community Gardens: Edible Towns and Gangsta Gardeners
Gardening today is becoming one of the most innovative areas of Tikkun Olam, healing and repairing the world. Community Gardens and sharing of garden harvests help the environment and feed the hungry while fostering community.
Gallery: A Synagogue Farm in the Suburbs
Congregation Sons of Israel in Briarcliff Manor, New York, founded the CSI Community Organic Farm on 1.5 acres at the back of the synagogue’s property. The farm offers communal gardening, a farmer’s market, and donations to the needy. Chickens are raised and their eggs are sold at the farmer’s market. The farm promotes Jewish traditions and values in areas such as ecology, agriculture, nutrition, wellness, spiritual connection, social and environmental justice. Check back for more photos as they grow!
Please share in the comments if you know of a synagogue farm or communal garden. (Return to the Gateway of Gardens.)
Sharing Circle: Your Garden of Eden
Join the sharing circle to share your reflections about any of the themes in this Gateway.
Did you have a special place in nature that was formative to your soul, your own “Garden of Eden”? What was it like? Do you have such a place now?
Is gardening a spiritual practice for you?
How can we share the joys of gardening, or share those special places of the soul with others? Is there any project you are working on, such as a community garden, that you would like to share with other visitors to Wellsprings of Wisdom?
CW Song about Dirt!
As a Texan, I often find wisdom in Country Western Songs, and here is one about the Adamah–Dirt!
The King is In the Field: A Meadow Gallery
Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi taught a parable of a king on the way to the palace, who can be approached by everyone in the countryside with ease. His expression, “the King is in the field,” characterized the late summer month of Elul prior to the New Year, as a time when it is easier to access our connection to the divine within. Contemporary Torah teacher Gavriel Strauss, suggests that at this time of year we literally go out in nature, to a meadow or field, as a wonderful way to feel that spiritual closeness. Click on the featured photo above to activate the gallery, a photo series scenes at Otter Creek Preserve, Mamaroneck, and Rockefeller State Park Preserve, Pleasantville, New York (the second Egret in Fairfield, Connecticut). Photos by Rabbi Julie Hilton Danan.
Shemitah: The Sabbatical Year
Shemitah, the Sabbatical year (Levicitus 25), is a revolutionary Torah commandment: every seven years the land will lie fallow and enjoy a Sabbatical year of rest and release. The land needs to rest just as human beings need a weekly Sabbath. (more…)
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