Last Sunday on Family Weekend we got to do our first plantings. Thanks to all the great families who helped out. We covered them up after planting and watering them so that the birds and small animals wouldn't eat the seeds before they sprouted. Dear Family Weekend Families...These onion-potato-and-sunflower-buds are for you!! In fact the occasion was so very special that I wrote my divar torah about it. Check it out...
“Each little seed, carefully placed…
This week at BBI we just begun the transition from the preparing of the soil to the planting for the spring harvest (I think we all remember the delicious summer corn). For anybody who has tried to work in the garden here, it is clear that this is not nearly as easy as it might sound. It is a necessary task that has involved hundreds of pick-and-shovel-wielding hours breaking up clay-baked soil square-foot by square-foot. On the plus side it isn’t nearly as bad as it could be because all of us get to participate in an hourly miracle. For every square-foot of soil that we turn, we reveal nearly twice the volume in rocks. Each rock is then lovingly cast in what seems to be an ever-growing mountain that I worry somebody might mistake for our attempt at a Tower of Babel.
For all this hard work we have just begun to see the first glimmer of reward, “and this was good.” We have begun the “the third day,” the planting. Each little seed, carefully placed in the ground and lovingly watered, each seed with the hope and potential of a beautifully perfect plant.
It turns out that this week is also the week of transition from Exodus to Leviticus, the first book to the second. Exodus, what could be seen as the preparing of the Jewish soil (soul, I meant soul) for Revelation-the creation of the world, the genesis of man, the patriarchs, 400 years in Egypt, etc. And Leviticus, a book primarily concerned with the Planting (Purity, I mean Purity) of the Jewish people through animal sacrifice and ritual.
What? Planting and Purity? Animal sacrifice? Stick with me. Leviticus contains nearly half of the 613 mitzvot and the burden of the statement “You shall be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy.” Leviticus provides almost 307 instructions on how to raise ourselves up to be like God. Biblical Jews needed a way to come close to God, and animal sacrifice was a way they could understand…in Hebrew the root of the word for ‘offering’ means ‘to come close,’ and for them-as for us-the giving of a gift help us feel closer to the receiver. For us, being good Jews (however we define it) might not always be so simple or so clear. Unlike us, EVERY seed knows exactly how to spread its roots and stem, so that it can grow to be as strong as it possibly can. A seed doesn’t need to be taught. People, however, have free will which creates a world of confusion about what is best for our growth. The conditions of our planting influence our choices, but in the end it is our decision how to act.
For me, I wonder if this was how God felt at the end of the Genesis, this feeling of exhaustion and hope and meaning. I wonder if this is what God meant when he said with booming voice “You shall be holy, for I…am holy.” That this is what it is like to be God.
This week I am celebrating the joy of the first planting. And from what I can see “it is very good.”
…each seed with the hope and potential of a beautifully perfect plant”
Ezra Flom
Sheva Fellow - BBI
