The Kollel Begins

Happy Summer!

The Kollel finally began today, with 11 of us studying texts I had prepared from the tractate of the Talmud called Berachot, and it all went really well. There's a range of text ability here, and I am at the lower end of the spectrum, which made putting the texts together rather intimidating. We ended up having great conversations, though, about the blessings we are taught to say before we eat, and why we are instructed to say them. The Talmud gives many reasons as to why we are supposed to bless in this way, but the basic gist is that the food doesn't belong to us, even if we grew it--it belongs to God, and the way we redeem it from God is by saying a blessing. By blessing the food, we bring God into the world.

It was wonderful to finally begin this three week part of the journey; I was very nervous and tonight I'm feeling partial relief...

The study followed a great and hot morning of farming-- removing the suckers on tomato plants, planting purple peppers, and finally finishing the weeding of the kale in my plot.

My plot is turning over quickly; the beans are really done and will soon be plowed under; there are now four types of micro greens growing in the front of the plot, and more kale was planted where the spinach was. We're really transitioning from spring harvest to summer harvest-- there's actually a bit of a lull right now-- far less to harvest than there was in weeks past.