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. Community Gardens are springing up...
Gardens
Gardens
גנים
At the heart of a retreat center there is often a garden.
When I think of Elat Chayyim retreat center in Accord New York (now incorporated into the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center in Connecticut), I picture the large organic garden. Earthy scents, warm soil, the buzzing bees lulled me into a state of peace each time I stepped inside its gate. The garden produced much of the food for the retreat center’s scrumptious vegetarian meals, and it also provided a spot for meditation, whether at work pulling weeds or sitting in stillness.
For some people, a garden is a place to grow food or flowers and connect with the soil. It’s a place to be most human because Adam, the first human being, was shaped from Adamah, earth. A garden may be a large and lavish backyard mini-farm like that of many of my friends in Northern California, a plot in a bustling community garden, a container garden on a city balcony, or a even a houseplant jungle.
Choose your favorite Pathway, or follow them in order:
Community Gardens: Edible Towns and Gangsta Gardeners
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...
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...
CW Song about Dirt!
As a Texan, I often find wisdom in Country Western Songs, and here is one about the Adamah--Dirt! Share some of your thoughts about your own Garden of Eden or return to the Gateway of Gardens.
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...
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. Deuteronomy 15 adds a...
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