To everything there is a season

To everything there is a season,
a time for every purpose under the sun.
A time to be born and a time to die;
a time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted…
- Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

At the Isabella Freedman farm, Adamah just finished the winter squash harvest. Plants that we set out in June spent the summer months vining all over our new vegetable field in the Kaplan Family Farm on Beebe Hill. We waded in to the knee-high plants every few weeks to pull out amaranth, lambsquarter, thistles and ryegrass that threatened the crop. Finally, the squash were ready, and this morning it took two trips in our big truck to bring in the harvest.

The sheer volume of the fall harvest is amazing to behold. As we move closer to the time when the ground freezes completely, we’ll pull up beets, red and purple carrots, rutabagas, potatoes and turnips. Our arms will ache from the heavy lifting, but our eyes will dance at the abundance – such a larder stocked for the winter! And so of course, we’ll throw a party. A feast, in fact: A Feast of Booths.

You shall keep the Feast of Sukkot seven days, when you have gathered in the produce... You shall rejoice in your feast... because Adonai your God will bless you in all your produce and in all the work of your hands, so that you will be altogether joyful.
- Deuteronomy 16:13-15 

In ancient Israel, the joy of Sukkot was so great that it became known simply as "The Feast." After a season of working the land, it is a gift and a miracle to see so much food in one place, and to know that the hard labor of another growing season is over. Sukkot is a time of celebration and indulgence, a time when nature’s bounty overflows the cornucopia, and we happily slurp it up.

But we don’t live forever in this abundance, and the temporary “booths” or Sukkahs in which we dwell for the eight days of this holiday remind us of this even in the midst of our celebrating. This is the harvest of an entire year. We’ve got five or six months to go until next year’s tender new shoots are ready for eating. Nature may lavish us with moments of excess, but Nature is really very frugal.

In contrast to the miracle of our modern food system (the planes, trains and refrigerated trucks of which deliver a year-round reassurance of freshly stocked supermarkets) the natural world has times of abundance and times of scarcity. Judaism celebrates this cycle. While supermarkets exist outside of the seasons, the Jewish tradition beckons us to live our lives in tune with Nature. Sukkot reminds us that a natural ebb and flow is healthy, and that we cannot always live at the peak. Just as there is a time to reap, there is also a time to plant; just as there is a time to work, there is also a time to rest.  

I have been blessed to spend nearly three seasons with Adamah, from seedtime to harvest time. I have planted many crops, and reaped wisdom and inspiration from the Sadeh (field), the Adamah fellows and my co-workers. And now, with the changing seasons, I’m preparing for a much bigger shift next season: setting up my own organic farm with my new husband, Naftali Hanau, in Rochester, NY. It’s been a blessing to grow so much with Adamah and to watch the program grow while I’ve been here: we’ve gone from a three-month fellowship to a year-round program that now includes vegetable and dairy CSA shares and a full-fledged critically-acclaimed pickle business.

Mostly, it’s been a blessing to live with the seasons at Isabella Freedman: to remember to cherish the moment of what is, to notice the changes in the landscape, in the produce, in myself; to live blessedly free of the virtual abundance of supermarkets, which mask the true and beautiful fluctuations in the calendar and in ourselves, and to celebrate the abundance of this land, in its own natural time. I encourage you to spend whatever time you can here at Isabella Freedman, to reconnect to the wisdom of the seasons and the Jewish calendar. Come celebrate the harvest with us during Sukkahfest, turn inward with us at our Silent Winter Meditation Retreat, or join us as we look forward to celebrating new growth here next Spring. 

May your sukkot be temporary, and your joy enduring,
Anna (Stevenson) Hanau
Adamah Farm Manager (Adamah Summer ’07)