Rosh Hashanah 12

Before I moved to Miami, I thought there was nothing south of South Beach (besides the keys). What those who don’t live here don’t realize is the vast amount of farm land we have in the Redlands south of the city. When Covid hit, so many farms ended up with crops and no way to get their produce to their normal distributors. So, many farms struggled to get the food harvested (no workers) and distributed (no drivers) and tons of food rotted and was wasted.

Our whole family piled into the car (we had not left the house in months, this was an adventure) and drove to a farm where we popped the trunk and the farmer and her family filled it with 10 pounds of blueberries and, yes I counted, 80 cucumbers. Besides learning how to pickle and how many cucumbers it takes to make “cucumber pants” as we buried each other in the green tubes, I also learned a lot about food waste.

We are more familiar with food waste that comes from not “cleaning your plate” or the stuff that spoils in the fridge. But a lot of food is wasted during each step of the food production process. There are books written on this, so I will just point you to one easy to read website and share one fact “If one quarter of the food currently lost or wasted could be saved, it would be enough to feed 870 million hungry people.” https://www.ozharvest.org/food-waste-facts/

Today’s daf discusses tithing our food. Tithing makes us think about how every grain, every grape, ever pea, is measured, counted, and distributed. None is wasted.

The mishna taught: And the first of Tishrei is the new year for vegetables. . . The Gemara asks: What is meant by the term: For vegetables? . . . But let him teach: Vegetable, in the singular. Why teach: Vegetables, in the plural? The Gemara answers: He means to include two categories of vegetables, as we learned in a mishna: With regard to a type of vegetable that is usually made into bundles before being sold, the time of tithing is from when it is bundled; and with regard to a type of vegetable that is not usually made into such bundles, the time of tithing is from when one fills a vessel with it. . . If it was the second year of the Sabbatical cycle going into the third year, the halakha is: From what he picked in the second year he must set aside first tithe, which he gives to a Levite, and second tithe, which he eats in Jerusalem; from what he picked in the third year, he must set aside first tithe and poor man’s tithe, which he gives to one who is needy.

We actually give even more than tithes to the poor when we harvest. We also have the categories of LEKET, SHIKHHAH, AND PE’AH (Heb. לֶקֶט, שִׁכְחָה, וּפֵאָה; “gleanings, forgotten produce, and the corners of the field”). Leket refers to ears of corn that may fall to the ground when reaping – those have to stay on the ground for the poor (the equivalent for grapes is called peret). Shikhḥah means forgotten and refers to one or two sheaves forgotten in the field by the harvester, which now belong to the poor (this also applies to trees that are missed in the harvesting). Pe’ah are the corners of your field. (There is a fascinating connection between pe’ot, or how the Ashekenazi pronounce it, pe’as, in that the men don’t cut he corners of their hair and how it’s a reminder not to harvest the corners of your land). We are biblically required to leave these for the poor so they can gather the food they need easily.

There is such a disconnect in our world today between the amount of food we waste and the amount of hunger in our world. There is enough food to feed everyone on the planet. Our tradition has brilliant ideas about how to fulfill “there shall be no needy.” What might that look like today?