Parshat Vayechi: Eating Holy Food in a Holy Way

BreishitParsha

Dec 1

Original author - Rabbi Julian Sinclair, edited by the GrowTorah Summer Inchworms 2021

Do we know who grows our food? Does it matter?

This question was first raised for me years ago when I was the Campus Rabbi at England’s Cambridge University. Invited to High Table dinner with the professors at one of the colleges, I was surprised to discover that most of the conversation among some of Britain’s leading minds revolved around the food.

“This venison’s inedible,” complained an irascible professor of physics.

“Absolutely,” agreed an elderly Nobel Laureate. “We had a cook here in the seventies who would never serve an animal he didn’t know personally.”

“Quite right too.”

As I smugly ate my triple-plastic wrapped kosher airline meal, the idea of having a relationship that is in any way personal with one’s food or the people who grow it seemed quaintly ridiculous. However, the preeminent Torah commentator, Rashi, on this week’s Torah portion of Vayechi suggests otherwise.

When Yaakov blesses his sons on his deathbed, he highlights characteristics that are unique to each of them, and to the tribes of their descendants. According to Rashi, five of these blessings focus on the specific economy and agriculture of each tribe’s territory in Eretz Yisrael.

For example, in Yehuda’s blessing, “Binding his foal to the vine…he washes his garments in wine,” [1] Rashi comments based on the Midrash, “It was prophesied about the land of Yehuda that it will gush forth wine like a fountain.”[2]

On the promise, “Zevulun shall dwell at the edge of the sea. His will be a shore for ships…”[3] Rashi remarks, “He will always be found on the shores by the ports to which ships bring merchandise.”[4]

Similarly, interpreting the blessing to Yissachar, “He saw a resting place, that it was good, and the land that it was pleasant,”[5] Rashi writes, “He saw that his part of the land was blessed and would produce good fruit.”[6] Yissachar, whose tribe’s destiny was traditionally understood as immersion in Torah learning, rejoiced in a portion where ready-to-eat food grew in abundance, and devotion to study would be practical.

Asher is blessed with fat bread, which Rashi explains is on account of the tribe’s many olive trees. [7] Naftali is likened to “a hind let loose,” and Rashi tells us that this means that just as a hind let loose runs very quickly, so too will the valley of Ginosar (in Naftali’s territory) have rapidly ripening fruit. [8]

Other rabbinical sources underscore this point. The Talmud Megillah tells how the beaches of Zevulun were home to the mollusks from which tekhelet dye could be extracted.[9] His territory was agriculturally poor but a lucrative resource for snail farming. The Talmud Ketubot also abounds in sensuous descriptions of the grapes and wine grown in the lands of Yehuda: “Any palate that tastes it says, ‘Give me! Give me!’”[10]

Two points stand out from Rashi’s comments. Firstly, Biblical food production is regional. Each part of Eretz Yisrael is known for the particular kinds of crops and produce native to it. Secondly, it is personal. We know that the members of the tribe of Yehuda grow our grapes, those in Asher make olive oil, those in Yissachar harvest fruit, etc. A biblical Jew could, if he or she chose, easily trace the short and transparent journey of each item from the ground, via the grower, to their plates.

Looking at our modern food system, it is hard to really sympathize with the system of Eretz Yisrael. We buy our industrially produced and packaged food in supermarkets that are identical from Brooklyn to Brookline and from Skokie to Silver Spring. As consumers, we have lost connection to the people who grow our food and to the places where it is grown – the typical item of food on an American dinner plate has traveled 1500 miles. [11]

At GrowTorah, we work to reduce the carbon footprint of all food in our community by teaching the next generation how to grow their own food and to appreciate the importance of local and seasonal cuisine. Our students learn that carrots grow deep in the soil, not in plastic bags; that rosemary grows on a perennial shrub (in most of our partner gardens), not in a plastic clamshell in a refrigerator at the grocery store.

How should we exercise the ethical responsibility that comes with knowledge about the sources of our food? Pollan writes about Polyface Farm, a pesticide and fertilizer-free farm where the animals are all free-range. Its owner, Joel Salatin, believes, “The only meaningful guarantee of integrity is when buyers and sellers can look one another in the eye.” Knowing the people who grow our food, we can take a measure of responsibility for how it reaches us.

Rashi’s description of a localized, personal agriculture may serve as a proper model for us. It offers direction on how to claw our way back from the tortured complexity of the industrial food chain towards a healthier relationship with what we eat. Maybe the crusty Cambridge professors were right: the degradation of our food is a worthy subject of conversation for anyone’s dinner table.

Suggested Action:

Learning about the nuances and frequently harmful practices of industrial agriculture is just the first step. Bringing that knowledge into your practice and your community’s practice is a powerful and important next step.

Research local farms and food producers near you and buy from them directly! You might find that, not too far from you, is a wonderful cheesemaker, a delicious jam producer, or an organic peach and berry farm where you can pick your own fruit. (Explore growandbehold.com)

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Notes:

[1] Bereishit 49:11

[2] Midrash Bereshit Rabbah 98:9; Rashi, Bereishit 49:11, s.v. osri lagefen iryo

[3] Bereishit 49:13

[4] Rashi, Bereishit 49:13, s.v. vihu…lichof aniyot

[5] Bereishit 49:15

[6] Rashi, Bereishit 49:15, s.v. vayar minucha ki tov

[7] Rashi, Bereishit 49:20, s.v. masher shmeina lachmo

[8] Rashi, Bereishit 49:21, s.v. ayalah shelucha