With Sabbath candles burning and 12 guests seated around her dinner table, Joanna Arch held up a cup of kosher red wine and chanted the kiddush prayer in Hebrew:
“God blessed the seventh day and made it holy because on it he rested from all his creative work.”
As is the custom, the guests gathered in a Los Angeles neighborhood observed the holy day of rest with a meal, but with a twist: They were sharing a “sustainable” Sabbath dinner on this Friday evening, with food that was locally grown, mostly organic, and intended to elevate their practice of Judaism.
Arch and her husband, David Andorsky, passed around goat cheese — made at home — sprinkled with oregano, thyme and chives. Sarah Newman brought ratatouille, made with her home-canned tomatoes and vegetables from a farmers market.
The others, too, prepared food that was not only kosher and vegetarian, they explained, but also provided a way for them to strengthen their ties to their faith and to live out the Jewish commandment to protect the Earth.
The dinner reflected a powerful current in Jewish culinary consciousness: Growing numbers of people are choosing to express their values through the food they put on their tables, altering the most basic day-to-day decisions about nourishment.
The movement has become so popular in recent years that synagogues increasingly are forging relationships with farmers, farm education programs are starting up and Jewish sustainability conferences are attracting sold-out crowds.
“Food is the most intimate relationship we have to the non-human world,” said Zelig Golden, a San Francisco lawyer who co-chaired a three-day gathering in Northern California in December. It was the third food conference sponsored by Hazon, a New York-based environmental organization that in 2004 branched out into food issues. It has since become the primary force behind many programs in the sustainability movement — an effort to use natural resources responsibly, to avoid depleting them.
“Jewish tradition has a lot to say about the use of land, the treatment of animals and workers,” said Nigel Savage, Hazon’s executive director.
Even though Hazon’s efforts are aimed at Jews, the marriage of sustainability and religion reaches beyond the Jewish world.
The Presbyterian Church USA, for example, has designed a curriculum for young adults titled “Just Eating? Practicing Our Faith at the Table.”
The General Assembly of Unitarian Universalists Association last year selected “Ethical Eating: Food and Environmental Justice” as a four-year topic of study and action for its 1,000 congregations.
Such efforts are part of a larger movement in which advocates wrestle with ethical questions about the food they buy and eat. Rabbis and other Jewish leaders began picking up on the theme about five years ago.
For many Jews, the question was once whether to follow the Torah’s dietary laws. But for “eco-kosher” Jews, those laws have come to represent only part of the equation.
The recent neighborhood potluck here was one of a semi-regular series of “sustainable Shabbats” organized by Sarah Newman and Nadya Strizhevskaya.
“Shabbat is already a time to lead the most sustainable lifestyle possible,” said Newman, a researcher and blogger for the film company Participant Media. “If you are an observant Jew, you are already putting in the time and energy to make this ritual. We’re trying do the same type of thing with the meal.”
One afternoon before the dinner, Newman and Strizhevskaya met some of the other guests at a local farmers market, where they discussed what everyone might bring. It was to be food that was homemade and from local sources, preferably organic.
Later, on the sprawling table in Arch and Andorsky’s home were 20 or more dishes: homemade challah, sprouted-black-eyed-pea dip with garlic and lemon, cauliflower with curry yogurt dressing, and a pizza topped with tomatoes and caramelized onions.
Strizhevskaya displayed a quiche made with kale, peppers, onions, rosemary and marjoram — all from the farmers market.
“When we go through this very long process of preparation, we become more at one with the creation all around us,” Strizhevskaya told the group. “We stop taking God’s gifts for granted. For me, that’s what Judaism is all about.”
As dinner drew to a close, the friends sang the “grace after meals” in Hebrew:
“Because of his great goodness, we have never lacked food. You are blessed, Lord, who provides food for all.”