Joyful Compassionate Abundance
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 a reexamination of the biblical text from a different perspective and to thoughts about ethics, ecology, evolution, animal rights, the human place in creation and more. I explore and refresh my own spirituality through these projects.
What we eat shapes ethical consciousness. It is a key to social and environmental justice and to restoring harmony in our relationships with our world and with G-d. It has the power to dull our senses or stir our sense of joy and gratitude. What we
After making soups and soft foods for weeks for Andy, I had a serious longing for something crunchy…and spring made me think of greens and other good garden veggies. A family member served up a wonderful salad yesterday, which I’ll share another
For G-d so loved a pattern that s/he created the world with a dazzling array of them. We have only two real jobs in life: to appreciate the diversity of patterns and to nurture the garden.
A Tale of Two Trees (Gen 2:4-3:24) Relationship, as psychologists tell us, depends as much on separation between entities as it does on connection. The Torah is a story of two trees and three domains. Through the symbolism of the two trees, it tells us
These delicious vegan stuffed mini-peppers are a variation of a dish I sometimes make when it’s not Passover using regular size yellow bell peppers, couscous and vegan pesto. For Passover, I replaced the couscous with quinoa. Happily raw pine nuts aren’t kitniyot,
I loved making this soup from The Green Panda’s Kitchen. The story that went with it was just as delightful. It was great fun and inspirational to watch The Green Panda’s group in Kenya put together this beautiful soup outdoors. I’m looking
“And thus shall ye eat it: with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and ye shall eat it in haste–it is the LORD’S passover” (וְכָכָה, תֹּאכְלוּ אֹתוֹ–מָתְנֵיכֶם חֲגֻרִים, נַעֲלֵיכֶם בְּרַגְלֵיכֶם וּמַקֶּלְכֶם בְּיֶדְכֶם; וַאֲכַלְתֶּם אֹתוֹ
Tzav continues the story of love, betrayal, jealousy and restoration begun in Ki Tissa, the Golden Calf episode. Ki Tissa was a remarkable account of “the deep wound in G-d that results from Israelite infidelity, a statement of the profound interdependence of the Israelites not
WHAT CREATION HAS TO DO WITH LEVITICUS The first chapters of Genesis tell a story about the creation of the world. It’s easy to read the story as a fanciful tale of a world without death, a world in which all of nature
Sometimes it’s more about what’s not said than what is. That is the case in the coming week’s Torah portion, a double, Vayahkel-Pekudei. AARON’S FALL FROM GRACE If the first half of Tetzaveh represented the apex of Aaron’s power and authority as high priest,