Hello readers and wonderers! Amanda Hoffman here, graduate of the latest cohort of Urban Adamah-ers. From September to November, I was awash in the intelligence, warmth, and enthusiasm of my housemates and our staff members. Everyone was so ready to receive the potential, the bounty, the wisdom of the people and world around them. So much so that when I stepped out of Berkeley for Thanksgiving, and into my hometown of Charleston, SC, I was inspired to deliver a D’var Torah – a commentary on the Torah portion of the week.

I love delving into texts and bringing out a dance of words and meaning, in order to break open the stories that we tell ourselves to make sense of our lives. It is so easy for me to assume that what I say will not fascinate or impact my fellow persons. But I held on to the attention and acceptance of my Urban Adamah community, and realized that if I took the chance, that journey of reading and exploring the text, that I would find exciting ideas that others could relate to. Below you will find the product of that journey:

Parsha Veyeitzei [translation: And He Went Out] details the journey of Yaakov as he goes out. This is a trip of new relationships to various places and faces, and so a fair amount of naming occurs. In digging into this theme, I was reminded of a beloved axiom from the Dao de Jing, an ancient Chinese text that, in its opening chapter, writes: “Naming that assigns fixed reference is not really naming.”  To clarify this statement, I ask myself, “well then what is REALLY naming?” The answer I pose is that REALLY naming must be establishing a mutual relationship of witnessing. Instead of defining, it allows for transformation.

What is the value and use of this transformation? We can explore the answer by examining its opposite – consistency, and predictability.

Predictability, in its solidity and stolidity, is comfortable. In fact, the parsha rests comfortably in its walls, as it is bookended by two stable stones – one where Yaakov rests his head and dreams of angels, and the other where Yaakov and his uncle Laban make a pact of beneficence.

To any caravan or passers-by, the stone is a mute monolith. But for Yaakov or Lavan, it is a witness to their covenant. The rock is a physical manifestation or landing platform for their self-consciousness. It is a great tool for self-control, as it provides a witness, a third party, an external force that Yaakov and Lavan can give themselves over to. It is sometimes easier to give yourself over to an outside force than your own will power.

It’s a relief to see Lavan brought into line in this way – just a few pages ago, Lavan made a different promise to Yaakov, claiming that he would allow Yaakov to marry his youngest daughter Rachel in exchange for seven years of labor. Then at the wedding, Lavan swaps Rachel with her older sister, Leah.

Yet it turns out that the same mechanism that binds Yaakov and Lavan to their future covenant at the end of Vayeitzei justifies this trick.  “It is not our practice here” to marry the younger daughter before the elder, claims Lavan. Lavan takes custom, tradition, past truths, and purposefully projects them into the future, the same as when he establishes a covenant with Yaakov – he is willingly shaping the future according the past.

The bookends of this parsha are stone, a piece of the present, unwaveringly projecting into the future. We live the same way, referring back to ideas we’ve established in the past, in order to understand and define our future. When I establish an understanding of something, I build a house of ideas, and live in it – everything I perceive afterwards is through its windows. This is a reasonable mode of conception and action – the future is built upon the past. What I do now will affect the future.

The metaphor of houses of ideas and understanding that we inhabit bring to mind another showcase for Yaakov: “Mah Tovu: how good are your tents, oh Yaakov, your dwelling places, Yisrael.” This song praises dwelling places, not houses or walls, but tents. Tents, rather than houses – though they are vulnerable, though they, as with Jews wandering in the desert, do not stay put.

A tent is part of a journey, while a house points to permanency, the investment and solidity of stone, brick, wood or Earth. A house speaks for itself, a tent is supported and moved by renewed intention. It demands an intimate relationship between traveler and place, just as Yaakov had when he rested his head on a stone. When Yaakov reached Lavan, he established permanent residence, and entrusted himself in the predictability of Lavan’s word. And what happens? He gets bamboozled – he realized the last 7 years had been a fantasy, a farce. He had been living in an idea. The way I see it though, is that in letting the air out of Yaakov’s hopes, Lavan brought Yaakov to solid ground, to the here and now – his head out of the cloud, Yaakov could see and feel right where he was. Focus and purpose are incredible motivators, but at what cost? We can imagine a certain effect out of our inputs, but if we don’t pay attention to the journey, than an ending that differs from the plan may be perceived as a total loss. In a way, God liberates Yaakov from predictability: the unknown future is the open future.

Amanda Jane Hoffman is a New York City native, a Charleston-raised southern belle, and a Brandeis University graduate. She loves to sing, laugh, play with children, hug trees, collect seeds, consider climate change, philosophize, and embrace life. She is currently living in Berkeley, CA.

by Kimmy Tomicich, Urban Adamah Fellow, Summer 2012

Hi there, my fellow lovers of food, sunshine, soil, worms, justice, and kindness! My name is Kimberly—better known at UA as Kimmy. I’m a San Diegan-turned-Oaklander who delighted in the Summer 2012 fellowship. I’m writing today to tell you about the magic of communal living during the fellowship. Many special seeds take root during three months of an Urban Adamah fellowship. The communal lifestyle is one of the seeds for which I was grateful day in and day out.

There is a certain vibe at Beit Adamah. If I were to describe it as a food, I’d imagine it as an Everlasting Gobstopper (organic and farm-raised—healthier than the ones in Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, and equally as magical). The flavors change from fellowship to fellowship, but the amazing sense of nourishment and community continues throughout. An unexplainable warmth develops when you’re farming, eating, cooking, praying, yoga-ing, learning, and exploring together for an extended period of time.

I expected communal living to be both fun and challenging, but I had no idea how rewarding and gratifying it would be. Of course there were growing pains and the occasional housemate disagreement, but overall, living with 13 other people was a bounty of beautiful blessings. Urban Adamah’s emphases on ahava (love) and chessed (kindness) shine through in the actions of its community members, and fellows take these values to heart in the lifestyle they create at home together. During my fellowship, I enjoyed both witnessing and receiving the fruits of communal living. The small acts of kindness and sharing moved me to write a poem for the community so dear to me.

The fellowship works wonders for kindred souls. The wonders I speak of emerge from an atmosphere of warmth, compassion, understanding, and openness. Random acts of kindness are truly abundant. They come in the form of a sweet note (on a tough day), an unrequested mug of tea (made with tea herbs grown on the farm), a shoulder massage (after a physically exhausting afternoon), an anonymous gift of flowers left on your pillow (just because), and extra sautéed tofu for lunch (because your housemate knows you really don’t feel like cooking today). …Simple things that show kindness, compassion, reciprocated love, and a shared interest in being good to one another.

Well, that’s it for now. Wherever you are, I wish that you may (now or someday) be filled with a special sort of joy that comes from living with people who do angelic deeds for you. Maybe you could even do it here at Urban Adamah. I highly recommend it.

Kimberly Tomicich is a native Californian who is slowly but steadily migrating north: from San Diego, to Los Angeles, and now Oakland. She enjoys hiking, biking, farming, and reveling in amazement at the intricate beauty of nature. She has developed a habit of surrounding herself with mainly two types of people: (1) people who have deep spiritual gratitude for all of life’s gifts, and (2) people who take it upon themselves to make positive, justice-oriented change for the world. She hopes to one day embody both of these aspects to their fullest extent. 

So many things, including lettuce!

But in addition to leafy-green season in the Bay Area and the start of the Jewish festival of lights, Hanukkah, winter brings transition time to Urban Adamah; for the farm, for the fellowship, and for this- our very new and exciting Fellow’s Blog.

At the farm, winter means shorter days, colder temperatures, and a fair amount of rain, fostering a very different growing climate for our vegetables than the rest of the year. Fortunately, winter is a part of the Bay Area’s 12-month growing season with no frost, so we’ll keep giving away produce at our Wednesday morning farm stand throughout these chilly and wet months. This means that we’ll keep growing food throughout this time, shifting our beds over to winter crops such as legumes, lettuces, and our favorite, kale. (Many winter crops are also nitrogen-fixers that regenerate the soil, preparing the farm for lots of planting in the spring. Sustainable crop rotation occurs naturally with the change of seasons! Nature is smart.)

The 12-month growing season means 12-months of farm maintenance, which begs the questions of who exactly is planting those fava beans and dwarf peas? Who is flipping our hearty compost and feeding our joyful chickens? Who is nursing our sprouts in the greenhouses and harvesting the abundance of kale?

During the spring, summer, and fall, seasonal fellows maintain the farm under the supervision of our farm manager (and Urban Adamah alum!) Rae Graber, but in the winter, there isn’t a fellowship. Fortunately for us, a group of Fall ’12 fellows chose to stay in Berkeley following the close of the fellowship, creating a kind of informal “winter fellowship” that is keeping the farm running with loving hands until March, when the Spring ’13 fellowship begins. (Last winter, a group of Fall ’11 fellows stuck around and ended up creating Urban Worm, Urban Adamah’s vermicomposting business. This year, who knows what could happen? A rainwater harvesting system? An interpretive dance menorah? Always a surprise with the fellows.)


When the Spring Fellowship gets started, this blog will be updated weekly by the current fellows, detailing their personal and collective journeys on and beyond the farm. Some spring highlights will include planting out brassicas (broccoli, cauliflower, and more!), the Jewish spring harvest holiday of Passover, and of course, the inspiring annual Hazon Golden Gate fundraiser and bike ride down the coast of California. (Sound like fun to you? Register for the bike ride or apply for the Spring Fellowship!)

Until that time, however, this blog will feature Urban Adamah alumnae and their fellowship-inspired musings and adventures. Some posts will be by the fellows who are taking care of the farm currently. Others will be from fellows who have moved on to new places, who can offer reflections on what their fellowship meant to them, or provide updates on how the fellowship brought them to where they are now. During this transition time, posts might include video performances, editorials, or commentaries on current events in the Jewish and agricultural world.

So until spring, enjoy these updates, inspirations, and reflections from past fellows.I promise, Urban Adamah alums are cooler than the flip-side of the pillow and they’re making splashes in the world bigger than the cannonball you made off the high dive when you were 10. Just you wait.

]]> http://urbanadamah.org/2012/12/08/its-winter-which-means/feed/ 0 http://urbanadamah.org/2012/11/25/urban-adamah-it-all-starts-with-a-seed/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=urban-adamah-it-all-starts-with-a-seed http://urbanadamah.org/2012/11/25/urban-adamah-it-all-starts-with-a-seed/#comments Sun, 25 Nov 2012 19:37:39 +0000 Hannah http://urbanadamah.org/?p=4472 by Hannah Catzen, Urban Adamah Fellow, Fall 2012 

How does Urban Adamah practice tikkun olam? In other words, how does a Jewish urban farm in West Berkeley, California, work to repair the world?

It’s simple. We plant seeds.

In some sense, vegetables, human beings, and societies all start from seed. Urban Adamah does its part to repair the world by making a commitment to plant these seeds—in the earth, in individuals, and in our community.

Daily life at Urban Adamah is structured around planting and maintaining seeds at the sadeh—the field, our 1-acre farm at the corner of Parker St. and San Pablo Ave. tucked between a dive bar, a used bookstore, and a Baptist church. Once a printing press, the previously abandoned lot has been transformed into a fully-functioning and completely mobile organic farm in less than two years, producing over 15,000 pounds of produce annually from 80 raised pallet beds and two greenhouses. The farm houses 19 chickens, 2 hives of bees, and most days, 14 fellows; young people in their 20’s who come to the farm to study urban sustainable agriculture and intentional, progressive Jewish living for 3 months. The fellows are seed-sowers, working on the farm each day studying everything from crop rotation to plant nutrition, and also seeds themselves. Participation in the fellowship is conditional on a personal willingness to grow.

We all came with our own story and own goals. Some of us came for the food justice curriculum. Others came for the farming experience or the internship opportunities. Still others came for the same reason that I did, to be in a place where you can work with your head, your heart, and your hands all at the same time. Ultimately, though we all came here to live in a supportive community and cultivate something within ourselves—a seed, perhaps—that will help us be who we want to be in the world. We do this each morning through Avodat Lev, or “service of the heart,” an hour of singing, movement, and mindfulness as a community, allowing us to connect to our bodies and our hearts even before breakfast. Another way we cultivate inner awareness is through “sharing gratefuls,” circling up throughout the day and sharing anything we are grateful for in that moment. (For the record, right now, I am grateful for my sense of smell/garlic, wool socks, and musically creative friends, among other things.)

At the community level, Urban Adamah plants seeds during our weekly farm stand, where we donate our produce to community members without access to healthy food or otherwise in self-identified in need. This past week, I met a woman, Maria, who joined me to harvest and bundle collards while waiting in line at the farm stand. We exchanged food stories, life stories, and recipes (hers, Mexican style polenta and pico de gallo, mine, soul-seasoned dino kale chips) while we worked side by side. But most days, we don’t have the farm stand, so we seed the community in other ways. When our neighbors look up from the trash-lined sidewalks and coughing exhaust pipes, they are greeted by bamboo trellises and hummingbirds, waved at by eager farmhands and warm invitations. A day does not go by on the farm without inviting a passing stranger to come in and eat a sun gold cherry tomato, notice the orange calendula blossoms, or take a deep breath in our oasis and maybe even plant a seed.

A teacher at Urban Adamah once described a seed as “a bundle of memory, possibility, and intention.” What we really do here is embrace that definition. We plant seeds in the earth with the memory of every seed that’s ever been grown to nourish our bodies and our planet. We plant seeds in ourselves with the possibility of growing into the people we want to be in the world. And finally, we grow seeds in our community with the intention of building the world we want to live in, founded on the same principles that we are, here at Urban Adamah: chesed, kindness, tzedekah, justice, and ahava, love.

… and kale, the fourth founding principle. We grow five varieties of it here on the sadeh and can’t wait to share each one– leaves, stems, and especially seeds–with you.

Welcome to the Urban Adamah fellows blog. Stay tuned for epic adventures at the farm, in Berkeley, and beyond.

Hannah Catzen is a Baltimore native and a 2011 graduate of Wellesley College. Prior to participating in the Urban Adamah fellowship, she meditated and organized at an ashram/non-profit in Varanasi, India, served as a pastry ninja at a bakery in Boston, and danced her way across America in the vintage swing styles of lindy hop and blues. In addition to trellising peas and observing pollinators, Hannah enjoys playing the oboe, biking everywhere, and devouring books. She is the editor of the Fellow’s Blog and can be contacted through info@urbanadamah.org.