Vegetating with Leslie

I like food, plant food, that is — I like to plant, grow and eat it. I like to serve it to others and recycle it to contribute to next year’s harvest. I like working and being outdoors, walking and hiking. I like to study Hebrew Bible, Tanakh, especially the first five books, the Torah. Most of all, I like to think about all these things and what they have to say about the meaning of life. I started my blog when I decided to explore veganism, and it has led not just to recipes and farming but to taking a look at the Hebrew Bible from a different perspective. It also gave me a chance to study the biblical perspective on modern themes like ethics, ecology, evolution, animal rights, and the human place in creation. I explore and refresh my own spirituality through these projects.

Animals in the Bible

On: December 12, 2017December 12, 2017 By: Leslie Cook

One of the things I have noticed and commented about as I have read the Torah story about animals is that they progressively lose stature in relation to human beings: “Gone are the days in the Garden when animals, as much as

Kidney Bean Jambalaya

On: December 10, 2017December 10, 2017 By: Leslie Cook

I used to make this recipe in the Cafe, but it has been a while since I last pulled it out. My associate, Jame, created it for a group I was leading on healthy eating. I asked him to use kidney beans

On: December 5, 2017December 7, 2017 By: Leslie Cook

PART I: The Joseph Story, Exile & Return, Promise to Fulfillment The rest of Genesis is the story of Joseph with the exception of one apparent interruption in the narrative with the story of Judah and Tamar. Before I take a look

On: December 4, 2017December 5, 2017 By: Leslie Cook

Part I: Speciesism I’ve spent most of the last year focused on the broader Torah story, its worldview as I understand it through my study. This worldview is expressed primarily through a human lens and involves the relationship of human beings with

On: December 1, 2017 By: Leslie Cook

In Toledot, we saw Jacob engaging in adaptive behaviors, the result of a “quiet man, dwelling in tents” growing up with a brother like Esau, favored by his father, strong, active, a hunter. Jacob’s tendency to strategize and plan, even resort to

On: November 14, 2017December 1, 2017 By: Leslie Cook

Toledot is “the story of Isaac, son of Abraham.” (Gen. 25:19) — yet it turns out to be the story of Esau and Jacob, even Rebekah, moving the story forward, while Isaac, old and blind, sits helplessly in his tent. After taking

On: November 13, 2017 By: Leslie Cook

In the biblical narrative, Chayei Sarah is a bridge between the story of Abraham and Sarah and the story of Isaac and Rebekah. The story begins with Abraham purchasing the Cave of Machpelah in Hittite territory so he can bury his wife,

On: November 10, 2017November 13, 2017 By: Leslie Cook

I watched a video this morning that amplified my growing understanding of how much that we do is shaped by our evolutionary history. That, in turn, is shaped by the drive to survive: http://www.ynharari.com/role-scientists-debate-animal-welfare/ Evolution is a topic that first interested me tangentially,

No creature left behind

On: November 7, 2017November 7, 2017 By: Leslie Cook

For some reason today, I thought about Zlateh the Goat, a beautiful story by Isaac Bashevis Singer. Of this book, including the story of Zlateh, the New York Times says, “beautiful stories for children, written by a master.” But they are not

On: November 1, 2017December 1, 2017 By: Leslie Cook

Part of what I want to understand as I read the Torah is how it rationalizes hierarchical relationships when its creation accounts share such an extraordinarily inspirational non-hierarchical vision, a vision in which no creature kills another for food and all of