26 And God said: ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.’ 27 And God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them. 28 And God blessed them; and God said unto them: ‘Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that creeps upon the earth.’ 29 And God said: ‘Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed--to you it shall be for food; 30 and to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creeps upon the earth, wherein there is a living soul, [I have given] every green herb for food.’ And it was so.  

7 For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths, springing forth in valleys and hills; 8 a land of wheat and barley, and vines and fig-trees and pomegranates; a land of olive-trees and honey; 9 a land wherein you shall eat bread without scarceness, you shall not lack any thing in it; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you may dig brass. 10 And you shall eat and be satisfied, and bless the Lord your God for the good land which God has given you.  

We thank You, Lord our God, for having given the heritage of a lovely, fine and spacious land to our fathers, and for having brought us out, Lord our God, from Egypt, and for rescuing us from slavery, and also for Your covenant which You sealed in our flesh, as well as for Your Torah which You taught us, and Your laws of which You told us, and for the life, grace and kindness You have granted us, and for the food which You supply and provide for us constantly, every day, all the time, and at every hour.

“You shall not boil a baby goat in its mother’s milk” [is written in Torah] three times:  Once for the prohibition of cooking (the two together), once for the prohibition of eating, and once for the prohibition of deriving pleasure (from eating the cooked mixture).   

Rabbi Ahai ben Yoshiya says: One who purchases grain in the market—to what may such a person be likened? To an infant whose mother died, and they pass him from door to door among wet nurses and the baby is not satisfied. One who buys bread in the marketplace—to what may such a person be likened?  It is as if he is dead and buried. But one who eats from his own is like an infant raised at his mother’s breasts. 

He used to say: During the time that a person eats from what he has grown himself—his mind is tranquil. Even one who eats from that which his father has grown or from that of his mother’s or son’s, his mind is not tranquil—and you do not [even] need to say [food grown] from that of others [non-relatives]. 

Our mission is to embody and inspire social and ecological responsibility by transforming our community through hands-on Jewish agricultural education. Our farm is designed in order to feature halachic demonstrations of Jewish farming laws, and much of our curriculum draws upon Torah teachings through hands-on farming. But there’s far more to our Jewish agricultural heritage than we can plant on our farm—a massive, yet largely abandoned body of Jewish farming texts lies [sic] waiting for us, if only we can muster the skills and strength to encounter them.

The Yiddish novelist Isaac Raboy was a Polish immigrant who emigrated to American in 1904. After spending a few years at a farm school and working on a farm in North Dakota, Raboy returned to New York in 1913 where he worked in a factory. The following is an excerpt from Raboy’s Yiddish novel called Herr Goldenberg, in which a Jewish man builds a farm in the Dakotas.

“Twenty years ago, Mr. Goldenberg, a young man full of energy, made his way out West. He left his young wife, Rachel, in the big city. He promised her that he would take his time and write to her when he found a good place and send for her.

[…]

The first day that Mr. Goldenberg brought his wife out West, he showed her the fields, hills, mountains and valleys of their new home. And they stood for a long time in the potato field. Rachel could not tear herself from the clean, neat rows of tall, healthily growing stems of dark green potato plants. And because she was thirsty from walking around, she went to the well and dipped a bucket into the water. She drank, rested, and drank again and she felt as though she had quenched a thirst that was deep in her heart. And then the two of them walked to the top of a hill and looked down on everything that they now called their own and at all that Mr. Goldenberg had accomplished in a short time with his own hands, and Rachel felt as though she had been taken from her little home and brought to live in a prince’s palace.”

“There is a semireligious inspiration behind the Jewish back-to-the-farm movement, for the Jewish civilization of the Old Testament was primarily agricultural. The three great religious feasts of the Jews—Passover, Pentecost, Succoth—are fundamentally harvest festivals. Though in the centuries of the Diaspora (dispersion) circumstances have forced most Jews into occupations from which they could pull up stakes at any time, there nevertheless have always been farmer Jews somewhere. Today there are 800,000 Jewish farmers in the world.

Of U. S. Jewish agriculturalists, Dr. Davidson—who is too busy to farm himself—says that most are immigrant Jews, most come from trades such as the needle and fur, most seek farms and remain on them because farming is a peaceful way of life. Because they are city-bred, Jewish farmers are apt to have more plumbing, electricity, furnaces, radios, telephones than the average U. S. farmer.”

The Jewish Farm School is an environmental education organization whose mission is to practice and promote sustainable agriculture and to support food systems rooted in justice and Jewish traditions. We train Jewish farmers, educators, and food justice activists, as well as inspire and support Jewish agricultural education experiences for the broader Jewish community.We are driven by traditions of using food and agriculture as tools for social justice and spiritual mindfulness. Through our programs, we address the injustices embedded in today’s mainstream food systems and work to create greater access to sustainably grown foods, produced from a consciousness of both ecological and social well-being.

I am Scott Hertzberg. With my wife Tanya, I have a vegetable farm in southern Maryland. We grow mostly for a CSA [Community Supported Agriculture] serving people close to us in Washington DC. As is the case for most Jews involved in farming today, we grew up in the suburbs and are new to farming. However, like a surprising number of American Jews we do not have to look far to find some agricultural roots. Tanya's father spent summers at his uncle's large and for a long time successful egg farm in Tom's River, New Jersey. My great grandfather briefly had a go at dairy farming in upstate New York and one grandmother had fond memories of visiting relatives on a farm in Muscatine, Iowa near her childhood home in Davenport.

The necessity to direct the attention of the Israelites of America to agriculture has long been felt. The exclusive pursuit of commerce and its cognate branches by our people, is often used as a reproach and it must be confessed with some good show of reason…A few trades have been entirely monopolized…the agriculturist however is entirely wanting. It is on this account that we are looked upon as transitory inhabitants, having neither the desire nor the capacity to settle as permanent citizens.

This view erroneous enough itself, is nevertheless justified by the exclusive pursuit of commerce, which permits the accumulation of wealth without the acquirement of permanent interest in the soil of the land.

…In order then to change this undesirable state of affairs, in order to create a taste for and encourage agriculture amongst our people, a calling so honorable and ensuring the greatest degree of independence and happiness and finally in order to employ the newly arrived emigrants…and to wean them from beggary and from becoming a burden to our charitable institutions, it is proposed to organize an association under the title ‘American Hebrew Agricultural and Horticultural Association.’

When our founders Drew and Myra Goodman came to California’s Carmel Valley back in 1984, they were determined young transplants from Manhattan, drawn to the natural beauty and richness of the land. Even before they turned over their first shovels full of soil, they believed strongly in doing the right thing.

They settled on a 2½-acre raspberry farm and decided that doing the right thing meant committing to farming the spectacular land organically, producing food they’d want to eat themselves and would feel good about serving their families, friends and neighbors. That labor of love became Earthbound Farm.

It wasn’t long before Earthbound Farm was doing a lot of the right things. Undaunted by those who said it couldn’t be done, in 1986,we became the first company to successfully launch prewashed, packaged salad for retail sale. When we introduced our mixed baby greens or “spring mix” to restaurants and supermarket produce aisles, we started a salad revolution. Today, gourmet salad greens and packaged salads have become staples of grocery baskets everywhere.