Jewish Farming FAQs

Jewish Farming FAQs:

What makes Jewish farming Jewish?
Does it involve praying in the fields in Hebrew? Taking ancient biblical land management techniques into account when designing a farm? Stopping work on Shabbat (the Sabbath)? Debating how a particular Jewish law about tree fruit production applies to pawpaws? Learning the Yiddish names for certain herbs? Just being on a farm with other people who have a relationship to Judaism?

Yes! and No!

Simply put, there are as many meanings to the term Jewish Farming as there are people with a connection to Judaism who farm.

Jewish farmers might consider any or many of the following to be the Jewishness of being a Jewish farmer: having a spiritual relationship to land through Jewish text and/or tradition; seeking a connection to ancestors in working with plants they might also have grown; studying the intricacies of Jewish laws and applying them, or not, to modern farming; grappling with the story of Jewish immigration to colonized land; saying Shehecheyanu (the Jewish blessing for first-time occasions) when pulling the first carrot in spring; simply being a Jewish person who is also a farmer. 

Is Adamah only for Jewish people?
No way! Plenty of the members of our CSA, tour and workshop participants, food pantry clients, ​and countless others in the Adamah community have no particular relationship to Judaism at all. We grow food for our community, regardless of religious affiliation.

Participants in our residential fellowship program (Adamahniks) each have a deep interest in spending three months in Jewish community, whatever that means to them. We do not have any requirements around particular Jewish affiliation, just that participants are seeking an experience of engaging with Judaism while in the fellowship.

What are some ways that I might encounter Judaism at the Adamah Farm?
Signs: 
You might drop your apple cores and orange peels on our compost piles to be transformed into powerful organic fertilizer for our next crop. On the fence above the food waste you see a sign: "The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone." The placement of this quote from Psalms 118 above a steaming pile of compost invites us to think about the role of the things we throw away and their relationship to the future if we rethink their potential. Signs like these adorn the fence posts and gateways of the farm, lending context and color to our days on the farm.

Shabbat: 
Friday afternoons on the farm are a time of lots of hustle and bustle. We finish up as many projects as we can and then jump in the lake or river for mikveh to transition to Shabbat. From sundown Friday to sundown Saturday, the only farm work we do is the necessary bits for animal health or keeping crops alive in a pinch. The twentieth century Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel spoke of Shabbat as "a palace in time," an opportunity for awe, reflection, joy, and rest. 

Holidays: 
Where is everybody? Its a random Thursday in July- why isn't anyone working today?
Adamah pauses work on the farm for Jewish holidays including:
Spring: Tu Bishvat, Passover, Shavuot
Summer: Tisha b'av
Fall: Rosh Hashana (the Jewish new year), Yom Kippur, Sukkot (the Jewish harvest festival)
These holidays celebrate the seasons, commemorate historical events, invite spiritual reflection, mark the spiraling of time, and bring stories and traditions to life.

Hebrew words: 
We call our high tunnel (the unheated greenhouse where we grow greens and tomatoes) the chai tunnel because chai means life in Hebrew. One of our pet goats is named Kochav which means stars. We don't collect tools and put them into the truck or bring crates of tomatoes from one end of the field to another- we schlep them. You may hear Hebrew  words (or Yiddish, or Ladino, or Arabic words) tossed around in the middle of sentences here and there. 

Shmita
We are inspired by the ancient biblical practice of releasing the land back to its wild state every seven years, a practice that echoes many of the themes of regeneration core to our farming practices, and have put our own spin on it. Our 'shmita plot' takes up about 1/7th of our land and includes wild flowering plants and wildlife habitat and we make sure that at least 1/7th of the produce we grow is for people experiencing economic challenges.

Does Adamah have a Rabbi?
You may have noticed a certain vibe to Adamah's approach to Jewish life- it's not about following the leadership of any individual but rather about the way a particular community of individuals in a particular moment come together. We do not have a rabbi and we have all the rabbis! We are a pluralistic, evolving, vibrant Jewish community of farmers, learners, eaters, singers, and space-sharers partnering with the plants, animals, land, and people where we live.