Earth-based Teshuvah

Hashivenu, hashivenu Adonai elecha. Venashuva venashuva. Hadesh Hadesh yamenu ke ke dem.

Turn thou us unto thee, Hashem and we shall be turned. Renew our days as of old.

We spent Thanksgiving Monday exploring, playing and planting at Shoresh's Bela Farm, a rural centre for sustainable, land-based Judaism in Southern Ontario.

Bela Farm

This year, Thanksgiving occured just after Yom Kippur and right before Sukkot. It seemed like the perfect time to have our first community event at the Farm.

Jewish tradition teaches us that the 10 days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are the most potent days for us to make teshuvah, to return to G-d. While at Bela Farm last week, I realized that through this amazing project, our community could return to G-d, to our roots and to Jewish tradition through the connecting with the Earth. Imagine Shabbat on the farm with beeswax candles from our hives! Imagine celebrating a wedding or Bar Mitzvah outside! imagine immersing in our spring-fed pond as a mikvah?

The Synagogue

It seemed auspicious to me that our first community event at the farm occurred immeditely after the days tof teshuvah and right before the harvest festival of Sukkot.

Envisioning the Possibilities

May Bela Farm grow and evolve to be a central gathering place that provides our community with 365 days of opportunities to make teshuvah, to return to days of old as well as a centre where we can harvest the fruits of our tradition and the fruits of our labour.

AMEN!

Shoresh goes to City Hall

Shoresh staff were invited to a Council Chambers meeting this morning by Councillor James Pasternak. Councillor Pasternak acknowledged the important work that we are doing in the community and congratulated us on being awarded an Earth Day Canada Environment Grant.

Sabrina Malach, Risa Alyson Cooper and Councillor James Pasternak

Today was a fascinating day to be at City Hall as City Councillors reviewed what core services would be cut later in the day. There were moments of tension and heated debate and it was very clear that the day's decisions would be difficult.

With the Toronto Environment Office and Riverdale Farm being on the cutting block, it is important for us to re-examine our relationship to the political process and become active citizens in the political process. At the very least, we should be conscious of the fact that policy affects food security. Regardless of where you stand on the spectrum, we invite you to take a moment to VOTE on Food and Farming here.

Shana tova! May it be good and sweet.

Party Time

In honour of our last day at Baycrest, we had a party. Here are photos from our celebration:

Frida's herbal brooch.

Rosemary's herbal corsage.

A gift from Baycrest for the Kavanah Garden.

We are grateful!

Queen wave.

A proud pickle maker and owner.

New friends

Shoresh's gift to Baycrest

I love my pickled beans!

Shoresh + Baycrest = True Love

Precious Pickling

Last week, we organized a pickling workshop with our friends and Baycrest. We harvested cucumbers from Baycrest's container garden and brought in beans from a local market. We all had a fabulous time and are excited to eat the pickled goods in two weeks at our end of season party.

The beans!

The cucumbers from our very own container garden.

The Garlic!

The Dill!

Filling the jars with beans, dill and pickling spices!

Tasting our fresh cukes!

Morris's beatiful jar of dilly beans.

Our not-so-secret recipe.

Morris the bean-master.

Oh my garden goodness!

Zucchinis! Tomatoes! Cucumbers! Oh my! The Kavanah Garden is thriving thanks to all of the many hands and hearts that have helped it grow and flourish.

Harvesting monster zucchinis for tzedakah.

Big zucchinis are fun to play with!

Art in the Garden

Our grape vines are happy! Only 1-2 more years until we can harvest them!

Harvesting our first batch of Kohlrabi for tzedakah

Weighing our cucumber harvest. Can you guess how many pounds?

Enjoying a wild black raspberry smoothies made on our very own bicycle powered blender.

Music in the garden at our Free Family Drop-In Program courtesy of Rythmic By Nature.

Making fresh mint tea in our solar oven at our July Family Festival

Black Raspberry harvest

Bicycle-powered blender at our July Family Festival!

Yoga courtesy of Marni Levitt at our July Family Festival.

Kavanah Kids are officially Shomrei Adamah (stewards of the Earth)!

Some of our 10 varieties of heirloom tomatoes. YUMMY.

Black-eyed Susans in our native pollinator garden.

Sampling garlic scape pesto at the Tikkun Adamah CSA.

Kavanah Garden Goodness

Kohlrabi in the Daled bed.

The Wandering Jews Are Looking to Root Down

We recently submitted an application to the Six Points Jewish Venture Philanthropy Fund. The Fund did a call to visionaries in the Toronto Jewish community asking for their next big idea that would move the community forward.

In our application, we asked for support to help find a permanent home for the Kavanah Garden. UJA Federation generously donated the Garden's current land to us for 3-5 years. Now, in our third year, we have to make a plan to move somewhere else.

As organic gardeners, we spend a lot of time building and strengthening the soil so that our crops can flourish without the synthetic fertilizers. It is therefore very important that we find land that we can stay on for a long period of time and build the soil up over generations.

We hope you enjoy our video. You can view it below or by clicking here: http://sixpoints.ca/project/kavanah-garden

If you or anyone you know might want to be involved in helping us root down, please be in touch.