This week marked the change of both a month and a year, as Kislev made way for Tevet, December for January, and 2024 for 2025. Such times are indeed moments for reflection – on what has happened over the past year, and on where we now are heading.

Chanukah, our very own festival of lights, celebrates the victory of the tiny light over the great darkness, manifested by the Greek occupation that inflicted its culture on the Jewish residents of the land. Antiochus the Greek saw his Hellenistic culture as far loftier than the local Jewish culture he deemed barbaric. He sought to create unity among the peoples he conquered. After all, what forges unity better than one strong, beautiful and divinely prescribed culture to bring about identification and loyalty? He therefore deprived the conquered nations of their religious and cultural freedom. In the Land of Israel, the Temple – the Jew’s symbol of spiritual expression and sacred practice – was desecrated, defiled and rendered impure. The Greek statue placed in the Temple and the religious prohibitions against practicing sacred Jewish rituals were intended to proclaim the supremacy of the Greek culture and the defeat of local beliefs.

Turns out, this didn’t actually work… The affront to culture and religion spawned a fierce rebellion, the conquest of Jerusalem by the Maccabees, purification of the holy Temple, the restoration of Jewish religious worship, and some 80 years of autonomous Hasmonean rule in Judea.

 As a child, the story of Chanukah highlighted the victory of nationalism and religion. And perhaps, historically, that makes sense. But today when I return to the story, I can see the power of the aspiration for freedom and unique local self-expression. A unification of culture cannot survive for long. We all need our identity and communal expression, and when there’s a broad diversity of identities, opinions, and cultures – that’s when the great light prevails.

Even on our plate, without such diversity and differences, our vegetable salads, or the entire meal for that matter, would be quite dull and uniform. In diverse places round the globe, many types of food and crops were developed and cultivated, and the synergy between them, without cancelling out one another, has created the marvelous richness of our vegetable boxes. So in honor of Chanukah, I shall sing praises to the freedom to grow homegrown vegetables that are diverse and interesting, and dedicate the next two newsletters to the tale of worldwide agricultural culture.

In the beginning, humans were nomadic hunters and gatherers. They did not fence themselves in, did not build houses, or work the field for agricultural cultivation. Instead, they moved from place to place, scavenging whatever they found along the way: herbs, grains, cereals, leaves, roots and fruit. Each season introduced additional crops, and people moved according to the weather, like the migrating birds wintering in warmer climates and escaping the great heat by drifting to cooler places in summer. Seeds of grains and fruit and hard roots which could be preserved for longer periods of time were sometimes stored in preparation for harsh winters.

Over time, human beings began to settle down and domesticate plants and animals by gathering the plants they enjoyed (not too bitter or toxic) closer to them to grow and cultivate. Around the house, the soil became rich in nitrogen, generated by animal and human wastes, which enriched the earth to make it extra-perfect for agriculture.

In time, people discovered the crucial secret of plant reproduction: if you save the seeds the plant produces, you can sow them in the earth and a new plant will emerge. From season to season, seeds from the more successful crops were saved according to their use – those with extra-large leaves, large roots or fruit; those tastier than others, sweeter or stronger flavored, and those that proved strong and resistant to pests and weather hazards. Thus, humankind   developed more and more successful varieties for their needs and uses, quite naturally, with some personal intervention.