While living on the farm, one thing that is talked about and done on a regular basis is composting food (and sometimes other materials). Compost is a natural process of recycling organic material, like leaves and food scraps, into a soil mixture. It helps retain moisture of the soil and enables vegetables to withstand common diseases, among other benefits.
It is pretty remarkable to witness the full cycle of composting while living at the Isabella Freedman. After harvesting vegetables and eating these foods for meals (or otherwise served to retreat participants spending a weekend out in rural Connecticut), we dump the remains of the food, as well as compost-able plates and plastic-ware into a special compost bin. We take the compost out to the chicken coop, where the chickens may eat the food they desire while we cover the food with leaves and dirt. After doing this for several weeks, we begin a new compost pile (or rather one that already exists but hadn’t been used in a while), allowing the food in the first pile to slowly decompose. A tilling truck then gathers the dirt from the newly fertilized pile and dumps it evenly throughout the field, allowing farmers to begin planting again for the next round of harvesting. There are scientific details involving nitrogen and natural, nutritional substances that enable the process of compost to occur, and keep the soil healthy, but this is a process I haven’t quite grasped yet.
The idea of composting food at the Isabella Freedman, providing a healthy environment and diet for people, the plants and animals relates somewhat to a topic discussed and argued about extensively among Adamah-niks- Yiddishkeit (the Jewish religion and traditions). While the Orthodox population generally tries to preserve the Torah (Bible/ The Old Testament) and keep the laws in the highest and strictest fashion, more secular communities may perhaps decide to tweak these laws to fit their lifestyles and needs, and the modern way of life. In preserving that which the religious community feels is the "right" way, or the only way to abide by the halachot (laws), it enables the new fertilizer, the new plants (in this case, modern life) to grow and flourish in the way that is completely aligned with G-d’s desires- still turning out to be deliciously natural home-grown crops.
But hearing from others who were not brought up with an Orthodox background makes me wonder whether my knowledge and understanding surrounding these laws is complete, accurate, and even sufficient. While we want to ensure that every extra piece of knowledge is used the right way, to follow in the ways of G-d, sometimes this “composting” is so automatic that not until someone unfamiliar with these laws asks about the reasoning for these traditions, do I wonder whether I even understand them myself. Is it important enough for me understand that the compost is put in one pile for weeks before being used as new fertilizer, without knowing why? How does nitrogen play a role in the process of decomposing the organic matter? Does it matter? My friend who observed her first Shabbat while on Adamah had many questions about why things are done the way they are in Judaism, according to Orthodox law. Is the Torah a patriarchal society, in which only the forefathers are privileged to be mentioned in the Amidah (Jewish prayer), but not the mothers? Why do we light a candle at the conclusion of Shabbat… does it have to do with the concept of having an extra soul on the seventh day of creation, holding on to that light before it leaves us as we enter a new week?
So many questions, so much to learn- things I may have thought I knew having grown up in a religious home, but never thought to question... and elements of the farm which I am much less accustomed to, and question every day.
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