Newsletter – Page 3

December 18-20 2023 – A healing vegetable

The Night, It Lasted a Lifetime

Afterwards, the door opened
And the sun, like a good doctor Invited me to enter
out

It tapped my back, the sun
Breathe deep

All clear, he said
Shining light into me
To my depths

Still, he prescribes
Lots of soil and water
And once a day, to lift my gaze
And focus on the light
to tears

Sivan Har Shefi

(English: Aliza Raz-Melzer)

_____________

When I was a child, my classmates at school were the old-fashioned, innocent type, and the stories we read were in old-time, vintage Hebrew with naive drawings in bright colors. I don’t remember any of the characters from one particular story, but I do recall that it was about turnips. The children in the story sowed turnips in the garden, or ate them for lunch. I can’t remember the plot, but I vividly recall our astonishment and wonder as children: what is this turnip?! It looked to us like some exotic European vegetable, grown in harsh winters (maybe the children in the painting were wearing coats?) with a heavenly taste (the children evidently looked pleased with their meal).
The turnip is an ancient domesticated crop that was known in gardens of old in Greece, Rome, China, and ancient Egypt, after originating in China, Central Asia and the Near East. In Israel, turnips have been grown for some 2000 years, at least since the era of the Mishnah, which repeatedly mentions turnips as a common garden vegetable. In his book The Origin of Words, Avraham Shtal notes that the word “turnip” was apparently a general term for all vegetables, not merely the turnip we know today. Vegetables were once eaten together with bread to season and pique its taste.

December 11-13, Hanukkah 2023

These are the days when the end of the harvest season is celebrated, when the fruit of probably the most modest and self-denying tree is gathered to the olive press. This is a tree that hardly requests a thing, satisfied with the little that is at hand. A tree that needs nearly nothing at all, maintaining its quality for years on end, whether scorched or rainy, hot or cold – the durable, resilient olive tree will endure and grow and and produce olive oil from which we can kindle a light, consume for our health, soften our skin, and heal our wounds and diseases.
Humbly, silently we harvest these hard fruits, which will burst with juice if we press hard on them, but not the kind of juice you want to lick off your fingers, like grapes, figs, pomegranates, or dates. This is a strange, bitter juice which will strengthen our bodies in the long run, much more than the sugar of sweet fruits. It is the one that will illuminate the long winter nights now upon us. In its humility and simplicity, the olive tree needs no sweet festivals; this is a time of winter and introspection, in the quiet calming silence that a thin, flickering candle flame brings us in the dark of night.

December 4-6, 2023- What I Learned from the Sweet Potato about Belief, Hope and Healing

How are you, sister, this morning? How are you sister?

This weather reminds me of oblivion.

It’s good the window’s open, you need to keep your cool

And your strength.

There’s not many reasons to rejoice, more to weep,

There’s almost nowhere to flee, you must yet wait.

A missing hand also gathers the crumbs of mercy,

And also the beatings.

When it’s hard for me to sing, and everything collapses upon my head,

Allow me to remember and remind: Forever

You have me

I have you.

We have ourselves.

There is one thing I already know by heart:

What is not born in tears, is not worth much,

What is not born in tears, will not be shortened in song

And not bring a cure.

Soon the heavens will be revealed, hide not your face,

Cease not your voice.

Naomi Shemer

Last week, the wheat fields of Kibbutz Saad in the western Negev were sown in tears. We want to hope and pray that in several months, when the grain turns yellow and ripens, it will be reaped in joy and bring healing. Even in normal times, farmers sow their fields with a tear mixed with excitement, doubts, faith and hope that they will harvest in joy. And now, all the more so.

A Chubeza crop that teaches us a lesson in faith, imagination, and hope, as well as in prevailing over and healing, is the sweet potato (aka yam). She began visiting us in fall, orange and gorgeous, yet our journey together actually began some four months beforehand. In the beginning of May, we received a package from Kibbutz Nirim, which we opened to find this treasure:

November 27-29 2023 – THOUGHTS ON FAMILY…

“The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.” Article 16 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

These are days fraught with thoughts about family, about families now divided between Israel and Gaza, about those who have lost a beloved family member, about families reunited after long days of insane worry, and of families whose father, mother, son, or daughter are far away on the battlefield.

In honor of all these families, we dedicate this week’s Newsletter to a distinguished family of the Winter Kings in Chubeza’s field: the Brassicae family.

November 20-22 2023 – Here comes the Sun(root)!

When the sun went out
above me
I myself had
to become the sun.

It was difficult, but now
What comfort.

– Anna Świrszczyńska

Along with the renewal of the New Year, Chubeza’s boxes have also begun to be renewed with gratifying, delightful fall vegetables. We started to tell you about them, but several weeks later on October 7th, the Simchat Torah holiday, we all descended into shock, sorrow and pain from the force of the cruel blow that was dealt. The crops in the field did not stop growing, the vegetable boxes did not stop, but the words did not want to emerge. Now we are returning, one step at a time, to tell you once again about the vegetables in the box, to move forward once again in the ceaseless rhythm of the seasons. This week, we feature one of the first vegetables to arrive with the coming of autumn, after almost half a year of growing slowly under the ground – with sunflowers growing above.

November 13-15 2023

The green is very green today

And the gray is very gray today

A bit of black

And no whiteness in town

The storm is very stormy today

And the past is in the past today

Some future lies ahead

But no present around

And it’s not easy to breathe yet

Nor is it easy to think

Against the gusts of wind

And waiting is so very hard

Eyelashes touched by storm

Each moment shatters to pieces

But the green is very green today.

Leah Goldberg

It’s not easy to breathe, and not at all simple to wait.

But yesterday the rain came and washed the dust, awakening the pungent scent of wet earth.

A walk in the fields is a stroll through a thousand shades of green, which have filled your boxes of late.

To help you identify each green Chubeza visitor, it’s time once again to send you the Guide to the Perplexed for Chubeza Winter Greens:

November 6-8, 2023

This week, we cease all words to dedicate a moment of silence and remembrance to Tamar Gutman, a member of our moshav Kfar Bin Nun, who was laid to rest yesterday after having been murdered, along with so very many others, on October 7th.

The grief is immense. We send a loving, supportive hug to her family – to Yaira, Dudi, Adva and Gidon and the entire family.

October 30th – November 1st – 2023

“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all –

And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –
And sore must be the storm –
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm –

I’ve heard it in the chillest land –
And on the strangest Sea –
Yet – never – in Extremity,
It asked a crumb – of me.

EMILY DICKINSON

In these days of east wind and heat, of storms and internal aridity, we too, with this featherd hope, pray for the renewal of the rain, for recovery from the injuries and distress, to grow and thrive again.

I wish.

October 23-25 2023

Just over two weeks have passed since October 7th.

In a certain sense, it feels as if time has stood still since that terrible day, the world has turned asunder, and things cannot continue at their normal rhythm and flow. And yet, in the field, the days trickle by one after the other, showers scatter from the heavens, autumn winds blow, the summer vegetables complete their tasks and gradually give way to the autumn and winter vegetables. The vegetables in the boxes have been joined by cool-weather greens – tatsoi and arugula, and the autumn roots of carrot, beetroot, radish, turnip, and daikon. Nature’s cycle of life continues, despite the actions of humans, while growth is steady and ceaseless.

We have no words in these difficult days. We send you love and vegetables, in the hope that they will boost resilience and rejuvenation for us all.

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