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Daphne Lazar Price

Growing in the land

Photo credit: Daphne Lazar Price
Photo credit: Daphne Lazar Price

Growing up in Canada, and living in the mid-Atlantic, Tu BiShvat never quite aligned with our local seasons. But during my most recent (extended!) trip to Israel, I experienced the seasons differently.

On any given day, I would travel for a meeting with a colleague; study with incredible women in various batei midrash (houses of learning), or visit with a friend or relative. Whether it was Tel Aviv, Netanya, Rishon Lezion, Alon Shvut, Beit Shemesh, Jerusalem, the Dead Sea, or Beit Sha’an, the landscape, foliage and temperature would change — sometimes drastically — from city to city.

I also had the privilege of spending time with my dear friends, Devorah and David Katz, “planting” myself at their hub, Meshek 48 with my laptop in tow, and watching (in real time) with keen interest and deep admiration, their entrepreneurial and mission-driven passion for building a hub for gathering, connecting, learning, and living their love of “The Land.” From the lush herbs growing in planter boxes in the windows to their newly acquired field, and the transformation from barren parcel to one where seedlings of grass sprout from week to week, it was an ecological and environmental adventure that felt wondrous to behold.

In addition to making Israel our dwelling place, our physical and spiritual home, we are also instructed extensively in how to be responsible stewards of this holy land, as individuals and as a nation.

The Torah is imbued with deeply rooted connections to the land of Israel — how we work and harvest the land, leaving aside leket (gleanings) and pe’ah (corners), both mentioned in Leviticus 19:9-10, and shikhecha (forgotten produce), mentioned in Deuteronomy 24:19-21, for the poor; observe shemitah, the Israel’s sabbatical year (Exodus 23:10-11) and yovel, the jubilee year (Leviticus 25:10-11), and more. Our relationship to and with the land itself is very much at the heart of Jewish identity and religious observance. In addition to making Israel our dwelling place, our physical and spiritual home, we are also instructed extensively in how to be responsible stewards of this holy land, as individuals and as a nation.

The name and idea of Israel is so central to Judaism that it conjures up countless vivid images of our history, religion, culture, and politics. For my kashrut-observant family, visits to Israel also mean food marathons. We race from falafel stands to food courts. Every visit to a tourist attraction ends with ice cream. Time with friends and relatives is scheduled around breakfast, lunch, and dinner — the more restaurants in a day, the better. We spend our vacation gorging ourselves on meal after snack after meal — and by the time it’s all over, we are ready to return to more balanced eating habits. We know that living like this is simply unsustainable.

But on one especially memorable trip back in 2011, food took on a whole new meaning for us. While planning the trip, we explored a variety of creative, engaging, age-appropriate activities to undertake with our (then) young children. A friend recommended that we participate in a project with Leket Israel, the National Food Bank. She described volunteering on a farm situated 45 minutes outside of Jerusalem, and spending a few hours picking citrus fruit with her own young children. The yield of that crop went directly to a food bank. I was sold. I contacted Leket’s volunteer coordinators and scheduled field time early one morning.

Upon arrival, our guide met us and gave us a short history of Leket (formerly known as Table to Table). Over its now 20 years in existence, the organization has steadily increased its capacity to meet more and more need. Today, in 2023, it is shocking to learn that one in five Israelis
lives below the poverty line, and one quarter of all Israeli children live in food insecure households. Project Leket’s more than 100 employees, and tens of thousands of volunteers, rescue approximately 1.7 million prepared meals annually, from IDF bases, hotels, catering companies, and restaurants, and distribute the unused food to local food banks. Staff and volunteers also work with farmers and landowners to pick perfectly good produce that wouldn’t otherwise enter the market, due to “imperfections” in size and color. Project Leket helps salvage over 26,000 tons of perfectly good, nutritious fruits and vegetables donated directly by agricultural producers each year.

Leket, gleaning fields, is mandated in the Torah. Among other places, Leviticus 23:22 reads: And when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap all the way to the edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest; you shall leave them for the poor and the stranger: I the Eternal am your God.

All told, Leket brings surplus foods to approximately 223,000 needy people each week, through its network of partners throughout Israel. At the same time, for countless families, this hands-on volunteer experience puts the problem of food insecurity into tangible perspective, and puts it into action.

Our volunteer group consisted of four men from an Israeli tech company that requires its employees to spend a certain number of days volunteering for endeavors like Leket (an example North Americans can learn from!), along with my husband, mother-in-law, our two small children, and me. We were led to the end of a large farm and instructed to collect potatoes. Our only guidelines: leave the damaged or soft ones – otherwise, leave no potato behind. (The potatoes that did not get picked were designated as “ma’aser” and would get fed to the cattle at the neighboring farm.)

Every potato that we picked would bring nourishment to someone who needed it. We spent two hours in the heat, on our knees, gathering potatoes, putting them into baskets, and then hoisting the baskets into a larger container.

While we picked, we watched as trucks picked up other crops and returned empty bins from past yields. I quickly developed a newfound respect for farmers. By the end of our time, our sweaty, dirty and parched group had amassed a respectable 2,000 kilos (4,400 pounds) of potatoes. Our guide explained that our two hours of toiling in the field would help feed roughly 700 families the next day. It wasn’t a morning of leisurely picking grapefruits in the groves – but it was incredibly satisfying.

Leket, gleaning fields, is mandated in the Torah. Among other places, Leviticus 23:22 reads: And when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap all the way to the edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest; you shall leave them for the poor and the stranger: I the Eternal am your God.

For my family, gleaning was an incredibly meaningful and powerful experience that brought home the significance of leket. It reinforced the importance of bal tashchit, of not being wasteful. It was a lesson in sustainable agriculture. Of course, it enhanced our appreciation  and enjoyment of countless meals while visiting Israel. Most importantly, it helped create a relationship between myself and the dust of the earth, in a way I had never experienced before.

You don’t have to wait to go to Israel to participate in a gleaning program. Check out the Let’s Glean! toolkit for more information on gleaning in the United States, and where to find additional resources.

For my family, gleaning was an incredibly meaningful and powerful experience that brought home the significance of leket. It reinforced the importance of bal tashchit, of not being wasteful. It was a lesson in sustainable agriculture.

Always, but especially in Israel, we’ve taught our children the importance of giving – taking them to buy toys for children confined to bomb shelters in Sderot, or putting tzedakah into the hand of a poor person.

For me, these experiences – both at Meshek 48 and with Leket Israel – have taken on an additional level of giving and growing, and teaching the deep importance of treating all of creation with respect and dignity. 

On many of my trips, I have tried to tap into an experience that I could only have in Israel. I meditated at the top of Masada; recited Psalms at tombs; studied Torah with incredible scholars at world-famous Israeli batei midrash and institutions, and slipped notes into the Western Wall. 

But for me, working the land for Leket, and bearing witness to the growth of Meshek 48, has fostered a more authentic connectedness to The Land — and the closest I’ve felt to doing God’s work.

About the Author
Daphne Lazar Price is the Executive Director of the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance (JOFA) and an adjunct professor of Jewish Law at Georgetown University Law Center. She is active in the Orthodox community in her hometown of Silver Spring, MD, where she lives with her husband and two children.
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