For the Love of Judaism
Rabbi Michael Pont, Senior Rabbi at Marlboro Jewish Center, shares his message of love, inspiration and Torah.
For the Love of Judaism
The Garden of My Life
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What happens when a working single mom from D.C. has the opportunity to live out her dream in the midst of a pandemic? She buys a farm in rural North Carolina!
That's the story of Wendy Rhein, owner of Chutzpah Hollow, a self-made homesteader who is part of a growing movement of Jewish farmers. This week Wendy took some time to chat with Rabbi Pont about how she came to move her family from the life they knew to the life she'd dreamed of in 2021, when the whole world was changing around her.
Don't miss this fascinating conversation.
Shalom. I am Rabbi Michael Punt, and this is for the love of Judaism. And today we're going to talk about Jewish farming because all over the country, Jews are reconnecting with the land. And some would say the Jewish farming movement is stronger than ever. So today on the program, uh I have Wendy Ryan bought a 10-acre farm that she named Chutzpah Hollow. I love that. Chutzpah Hollow in North Carolina. And she moved there with her sons in 2021. Wendy, it is great to meet you and to have you on the program today. How are you?
SPEAKER_01I am wonderful. And thank you so much for having me. I'm I've been looking forward to this conversation all week.
SPEAKER_00Fabulous. All right, let's dive in. So, Wendy, uh, you used to live in Maryland. Yes. And you decided to move to a farm in rural North Carolina, which is quite a departure uh from suburban Maryland. So, what what motivated you to make this major life change and why farming?
SPEAKER_01I, you know, I grew up in the suburbs of Detroit. I did not grow up in a family that farmed. You know, my grandparents had a victory garden, and uh, I remember walking through and picking tomatoes with them before dinner and things like that as a child. But I, you know, I grew up in the suburbs. There was there was no farming to be seen. And yet when I was in my early 20s, I really felt very disconnected from where my food came from. And it started more than anything out of a love of cooking and out of a love of sourcing ingredients and fresh foods and being as creative as I could be on a limited early 20s college budget, you know, and trying to find ways to just to be more creative with food. And in order to do that, I wanted to get to know the people that were growing the food. And so over the course of the next several years, I got more and more involved in the idea of what is homesteading and what is farming and how can I, as an untrained individual without land, without access to even a backyard at the time, start figuring out how to grow food, how to minimize the amount of pesticides that are in my food and on my food, and um saw it as a great way of learning more than anything else. And so since then I've been in a constant stage of learning about agriculture and raising livestock. And in uh 2021, with COVID, um, like many, many people, uh, I had an opportunity to basically live and work anywhere I could. And uh at that time we were living in the suburbs of Washington, DC, in a townhouse in uh in Maryland, and had several pots of plants and on our tiny little front porch, but nothing else. And uh I talked to my sons who at the time were 16 and 11, and they knew that this had always been a dream of mine to have more space to grow our own food. And my 16-year-old son said to me, you know, I can do anything for two years. So if you want to do this, if you want to move, let's do it. I can do it for two years, and then I will get back as soon as I possibly can, get back to a place that has a subway system, and I can go back to doing my own life and it'll be fine. My 11-year-old said, When are we going? Let's go. When are we going? And so we um identified this particular section of Western North Carolina. I'm about halfway between Asheville and Charlotte and found this wonderful piece of property, and I bought it without having set foot in the house. I bought it for the land. I bought it for the infrastructure that the land provided for us, and we up and moved. Wow.
SPEAKER_00Yes. Okay, so your farm is Western North Carolina. You said between Asheville and Charlotte. Charlotte, okay.
SPEAKER_01There were a lot of decisions in the idea of moving here. I'm um I'm a nonprofit professional, so I still have a day job, of course. Um, and I needed to be within an hour of an international airport. I needed to be able to travel if I had to for work. Um, I wanted really good and diverse public schools, um, which is not always easy to find in rural communities. And we have that in the county in which we live. It is racially, economically, socially diverse. Um, and I love that. And it was a great opportunity to be able to move, you know, from Maryland. I will say though, that it was a huge transition. My our whole town is smaller than my son's Maryland high school. So, you know, that was a really big transition for my kids to go from a you know 2200 person high school to a total of, I think it's 550 kids in the high school here.
SPEAKER_00Wow. Yeah. I'm sure you've heard this before, but uh, it is a little bit like that, you know, show from the, I guess the 50s or 60s, green acres, right?
SPEAKER_01Yes. Except for I'm not gonna wear a suit and a hat on my farm unless the hat is like a sun hat to block out the rays, but that's all.
SPEAKER_00Right. And for people who don't know North Carolina, North Carolina obviously is a it's a beautiful place to live. And Asheville is to the far western part of the state. And of course, Asheville and Charlotte are both, you know, major cities. So you're the farm is between Charlotte and Asheville, right?
SPEAKER_01I'm about an hour from each of them. Okay. So, um, and very close to the South Carolina border. So we're in this little triangle. My airports are my triangle. So it's Greenville, South Carolina, Asheville, and Charlotte. And we're basically in the middle of all of those places, right near the South Carolina border. You know, it is a beautiful place to live. It is a place that offers four seasons. We don't get snow except for maybe once a year for a couple of days, and then the whole world stops. But I can grow things basically 10 months out of the year here, which is really helpful when you're thinking about building a sustainable food system for yourself and your community to know that not just I can grow grass for our livestock almost 10 months out of the year, but also to be able to have, you know, functioning gardens for that time too.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's that's fabulous. And yes, I mean, I know personally it's a beautiful, beautiful part of the country. It is. Now, Wendy, um, you are a convert to Judaism.
SPEAKER_01I am.
SPEAKER_00So tell us about how what led you to want to become Jewish and tell us about your ongoing journey uh as a Jew.
SPEAKER_01I converted in my 40s, but I would back up to the point when I was around 13, 14 years old. And we lived in a in a fairly Jewish community, you know, for whether it's Southfield or Birmingham or Bloomfield, the area of Detroit in which we both grew up, had probably a more dense Jewish community than a lot of other places around the country. So Jewish life was always part of my life as a child. I went to a lot of bar and bat mitzvahs. I, you know, um knew a lot about the Jewish traditions and and Jewish faith. I remember having high holidays off of school, which was, you know, pretty unheard of, I think, in most places in the 80s. And I went to my first um Passover Seder, was maybe 13 or 14 years old. And it was really a transformative moment for me. I I remember just being blown away by um these cacophony of stories and songs and different opinions and arguments and you know, healthy discussion and laughter and people and families and thinking, gosh, this is really different than Easter at my house, and loving it. And the more I learned about Judaism as I grew up, um, my sister also converted. She converted for marriage when we were in college. On a couple of occasions, I was able to go to her conversion class or a Shabbat celebration as part of her conversion and participate in some of those things and listen and learn. It was home. It's it's really hard. Like I cannot explain it in simple words. It felt like home. The the music, the language, the stories, the discussion, the challenging of ideas and the way in which ideas were challenged in healthy conversation and in healthy debate, not in a way of like trying to prove yourself right over someone else all of the time, you know? Right. And I grew up in a Christian church that was really this like post-60s flower child kind of a community. But even then, as a child, I would stop saying certain elements of prayers. I stopped saying certain things that I just I couldn't believe. And it used to make my father crazy because I would just be silent all of a sudden in the middle of a prayer or in the middle of a hymn or something, because I was like, nope, not saying that out loud. Not doing that. So I talked about conversion in my 20s. I tried lots of different communities, Christian communities, and other. And I also, because of the job that I had, was moving around a lot. So I never in my 20s really sat down and went through the conversion process. Even during that time, I was doing a lot of reading and a lot of um just internal work around what would it mean to be Jewish? What would I be, quote unquote, giving up? Um, what would I be welcoming into my life, things like that. And then I became a mom. And I became a mother. And I was like, oh my goodness, I am responsible for the spiritual well-being of other humans. And um I was a single mom as well. And so I really wanted my kids to grow up in some kind of a faith community, um, a community of others that would share and reinforce the same values and beliefs that I had. So when my when my kids were young, after I had adopted my second child in particular, I was in my early 40s, we started regularly going to synagogue. We were not Jewish yet in that moment. Um, we had this remarkable community in Maryland, Temple Emmanuel in Kensington. And that community welcomed us as you know a single-parent, multiracial family. And my my youngest son was going to uh daycare early childhood care center there when he was two. And we just kept going. And then when he was about three years old, I sat and studied for my conversion. And that took about 18 months. And I was just overjoyed with, was just so happy, was just so happy to be able to align my social justice values, my um, my belief system that faith is something you practice in every moment of your day, and not just on Sunday mornings. Um, that there was this community of people that um that would embrace the diversity of who we are as a family, but just also who I am as a person, and felt um welcomed and celebrated in all of that, in that community.
SPEAKER_00That is really wonderful. You had a circuitous route to Judaism, and I think that's beautiful and it's heartfelt and genuine. What can I say? It is, I'm thrilled. I'm really thrilled.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's very interesting, especially now to live in a community where we are probably one of three or four Jewish people or even families that we know of in our in our county. Um, so I've I have embraced, I mean, I there's one thing about being Jewish, I think, in a community of Jews. There's a whole different thing about being Jewish when you live in a place where you are one of the only ones.
SPEAKER_00That's right.
SPEAKER_01It's a whole different experience. And I think that I, especially in the first year or so of being here, it was really challenging for me because I had not lived my Jewish life outside of a community of other Jews. And I I find now how very much my faith has become really internalized and personal and homebound, um, meaning that it it is something that we celebrate in our home and on our property. And I don't have to go somewhere. I don't feel like I'm only Jewish when I show up at a certain place anymore.
SPEAKER_00That's beautiful. You mentioned that you're one of the few, you know, Jews in the surrounding area. I mean, do you have neighbors that you know? Do they come and do they ask you about, you know, being Jewish and and your culture and you know, what what's that like?
SPEAKER_01I very proudly and always wear my my star around our community and just in general. And I don't even notice it anymore, but people will people do, in fact, will stop me and ask questions. I've had people, gosh, a couple of weeks ago, somebody was following me around a grocery store and it made me really uncomfortable. And he was like at the end of every aisle I was in, this man stopped his cart and I thought, okay, this is not all right. And I was leaving and he said, Hey, wait a minute. And I turned around expecting to, you know, have an argument with somebody. And in he said, I see your star. And I said, Yes. And he said, I am so happy to see that because I often feel so alone. Wow. And I was just like, so not today. You know, you don't have to feel alone today. Oh, and he just that's beautiful. He just smiled and turned around and got in his car. I mean, it was just like we didn't exchange names or anything, it was just one of those opportunities to recognize somebody else. But yes, I have neighbors that ask often boarding events for my kids or when I'm mostly around other people. I I have had people ask questions. Um, a lot of people, when they get to know us, will start saying things like, you know, oh, isn't tomorrow your holy day? You know, things like that, um, where they're asking and learning and wanting to know more. So I don't mind, you know, any of those opportunities. It's actually, especially since October 7th, it's been a wonderful way to engage people in some hard conversations.
SPEAKER_00That's really, that's really terrific. And that speaks very highly about the community to which you've relocated. You know, people are are open, honest, they want to engage with you. It's not just like not just about politics in a shouting match or you know, anti-Semitism or ignorance. Sounds that sounds really terrific.
SPEAKER_01I I really it's I expected more anti-Semitism. And yet I can say that people have been nothing but kind, nothing but respectful in asking questions, even. We've met people and they've said, you know, what church do you go to? It's a very common, you know, entry-level question to ask someone. I'll say, We don't go to church, we're Jewish. And then someone said, like, so Jews don't go to church. It's like, we go to synagogue, it's a little different, and we can have a very respectful conversation. Um, there's been no proselytizing, there's been, you know, none, no pressure for my kids to participate in activities, etc. And I think a lot of it is because you know, there are many people here that are involved in lots of different communities and may have come from other places as well, like we did. It's been heartfelt welcome, is what I've experienced. We had, um, we were part of a countywide homestead tour, uh, the weekend of October 14th, actually, um, where we were one of three homesteads that people from the community could come and tour anytime during a day. And we had more than a hundred people show up here on that particular day. And we wow, gave tours and they met the cows and, you know, all of the things. And I was nervous given that it was right after the issues in Israel on October 7th. And um, I remember speaking to the county coordinators and just saying, I kind of feel like I want to have a little security. I am, you know, I'm a single woman here with a teenager, and I just was a little nervous. I could not have been more surprised by the level of support that we got by people asking, you know, what does Hutzbo mean? That's often a very first question that I get from people. First is how to pronounce it. Right. Um, and then second, what does it mean? And then from a lot of deeply evangelical Christians, a lot of support. And it is, it goes back to what you were saying. Jesus was Jewish, and they believe that they are to emulate Jews in many ways. Uh, and so a lot of interesting questions and a lot of conversation around even things like what kind of foods do you eat on Friday night? And we would love to, you know, come to Rosh Hashanah sometimes or come to Passover Seder sometime and learn. So it was um surprisingly easy to be able to have those conversations with others, you know, complete strangers.
SPEAKER_00That's awesome. I mean, look, they're hey, anyone is welcome to emulate us as much as they want. They don't have to adopt all of our neuroses, but you know, I I've say I say this all the time. It is great being Jewish. I mean, it is so fabulous. We celebrate, we eat, we argue, we debate, we learn. I mean, what what could be bad? It's awesome.
SPEAKER_01There's nothing bad about it. We're just, you know, making different choices than in the end. And there is nothing wrong with that.
SPEAKER_00That's right. You know, Wendy, I have to say, in talking about, you know, your move to the farm, you talked about talking to your sons about the move. And I'm so impressed that back in 2021, you know, your 16-year-old said, I can do anything for two years, mom. I'm gonna do this for you. And then your 11-year-old said, you know, let's go. He was up for the adventure. They sound like great young men. Tell us more about them.
SPEAKER_01They're amazing young men. I am um the I'm sure many people feel this way. I'm the luckiest mom around. Um, I have remarkable children. Um, my eldest son is my biological child, and uh he has been, his father has not been with us from from the very beginning. So it's been us. And he is um, in his definition, multiracial. And I'm very cognizant of the fact that it needs to be his definition, not mine. And my youngest son, I adopted uh at birth. I was there when he was born, which was an incredible, humbling moment. Um, and he is African American. And so they have also had the experience of growing up as Jews of color. And I have had the remarkable gift of watching, um, watching their life experiences as just black young men and having, I do feel like it is an utter gift in my own social justice journey, in my journey as a parent, to be able to be a witness to the discrimination and and the issues that young black men encounter.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. No, I I I don't know what that's like personally. I can only imagine, but as a mother of of two, you know, two young black men, your sons, I I can only imagine what that must feel like. Concerns.
SPEAKER_01There are always concerns. I get more concerned, you know, especially it's interesting. Uh when we lived in Maryland, it was more of an issue than I feel like it is here. I would get nervous when they would walk out the door. And they have both really helped and and I feel like have contributed, especially my older son, who is just an old soul of a human being, contributed to broadening people's perspectives in our synagogue and in our Jewish world around issues of acceptance and welcoming of people of color in the Jewish community as well. And so I have a lot of pride in his in his ability to articulate things to adults, even when he was, you know, a younger person than he is now.
SPEAKER_00I mean, that's really that's terrific. Now you moved out to Chutzpahala, which of course, you know, I mean, that's just a great name. You moved in 2021, which was, you know, during the pandemic. So how did the pandemic impact your decision and the move? What what was that like?
SPEAKER_01Well, the pandemic enabled it. The pandemic absolutely enabled it. You know, I was I was working for a global nonprofit in Washington, D.C. And without the pandemic, I don't, I would not have been able to move because we all at during that time frame, many of us, not everyone, proved the fact that we could do our jobs remotely. Otherwise, I don't think I would have had that opportunity. And I had been saving and studying and bugging farmers at the farmers markets for years about what is this and how did you grow it? And where is your farm and what is your soil quality like? And, you know, asking all sorts of questions and doing farm visits and learning as much as I possibly could. But then with the pandemic, my kids were not in a school. So they were, you know, living at home, working at home, going to school at home. And it just seemed like if we're ever gonna do this, now is the time. And I was in my early 50s. And so I also thought if I keep putting this off, I'm physically not going to be able to do the things that I want to do. If I wait until both of my kids finish high school in Maryland, I will not be physically able to do the farming that I want to do. So that was also part of it as well.
SPEAKER_00Got it. Okay. Let's talk about the farm for a little bit. So you started this farm. Just tell us like what crops do you grow? Do you have animals on your farm? You're kind of like, you know, like a female old McDonald's. You know, tell us what what do you do down there in North Carolina?
SPEAKER_01I am far more interested and far more engaged in livestock than I am in gardening. Gardening to me is a necessary evil. Like if I want to can and have food for my family, then I have got to grow enough tomatoes over the course of a summer so that we have salsa all year round. So I have have to have a garden. So we have about a quarter acre garden here that with mostly raised beds and some things in the ground. And for the last each year, I try to expand it a little bit. Um, this year we're doing, we're bringing in strawberries, blueberries, and blackberries that will be perennial crops, crops that you can have year over year. So we don't have to keep replanting things. So I plan out my garden for the year based upon what kind of food I want to have in my pantry. That's that's how the garden gets built. And then we have right now dairy. Sheep, meat sheep, goats that are mostly for um landscape control. We have, I'm looking around outside as I'm saying this because I'm like looking at everybody. Um, we have egg-laying chickens, we have meat chickens, we have guinea fowl, livestock guardian dogs, and a cow. That's what we have right now. Different times of the year, there will be more or less of different things.
SPEAKER_00Interesting. So it's more, like you just said, it's more about the livestock. The gardening is really more of a personal pursuit to feed your family.
SPEAKER_01Is that accurate? Absolutely. I do produce things out of our garden that I sell at a farmer's market um year-round because I make more than what our family can consume. Um, I have a lot of joy in canning and drying things and processing herbs and things like that. And just this morning I was processing about 20 pounds of apples and making apple pie filling and apple butter and things like that, that I can then some of it stays here, some of it goes to the farmer's market. And then we also sell some of the meat to family and friends that we raise here, as well as, of course, stock our own freezer. And then a lot of our um meat sheep in particular, there's a it, it's a um unusual breed of sheep, and we sell starter flocks to other people that want to be able to have that same kind of flock. So at the end of every year, I usually sell five or six of our sheep to somebody else who wants them.
SPEAKER_00Wow. Um, everyone listening, Wendy and I are on Zoom, um, but this is just an audio podcast. But I licked my lips when Wendy talked about the apple butter and the apple pie filling. Um yeah. I might come out to North Carolina just to see your homestead and to go to the farmer's market. And by the way, selling at the farmer's market is great, right? Because that's such a great social connection with the people of the community, the other farmers. You have a chance to, you know, to talk shop. I mean, that's so how often does that happen, a farmer's market?
SPEAKER_01During the wintertime, like right now, it's every other Saturday. Um, and then from May to October, it's every Saturday for about three hours. And I really do it for those reasons. I do it for the connection because I live, you know, on these 10 acres. I work through my computer. It's fairly isolating. And so to be able to have this weekly connection with other people who are doing similar things and we buy from each other and support each other as well. Um, if my hens aren't laying, I, you know, know I can buy eggs from the woman who's next to me, et cetera. And it's also just great to see what people are buying. What are people in the community interested in? What kinds of products are they looking for seasonally? And then that might impact what I do next year.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's terrific. You know, Wendy, I recently listened to one of the episodes of your podcast, which is called So You Want to Be a Farmer. Yes. Uh, and it was great. Uh, and on this episode, you talked about the Jewish concept known in Hebrew as Shmittah. So could let's let's dive into that a little bit. Tell us what is Shemitah and how do you observe it at Chutzbah Hollow?
SPEAKER_01I feel a little um nervous about trying to define this in front of a rabbi, but I'm gonna do my best. So the idea of Shemitah is that every seven years we need to let the land rest. And I think of it often in the same way in which I think about Shabbat, right? Every seven days we take a day of rest and rejuvenation and reconnection to land and people and ourselves and spirituality. And so every seven years, we're supposed to let the land rest. And this is a holiday or a period of time. I don't think it's really considered a holiday, a season that is if you're outside of Israel, you're not required to do it. But I think that there are some amazing lessons in it for in the idea of Shemitah for anyone that is connected to or wants to be more connected to land. And for us here, um, Shemitah started in the fall of 2021. So we had only been here for a few months. And so what I decided to do as a way of observing Shemitah was to have one of our fields, one of our pastures, um, to not do anything to it. We didn't mow it, we didn't cut it, we didn't cultivate anything on it, I didn't reseed it, um, I didn't put any kind of soil amendments on it. It was just let it be, let it have all of the nutrients that are coming from those plants die back and go back into the land at the end of the season. We didn't harvest anything off of it. And you just kind of let things be and let the land take a breath. And from a very practical agricultural standpoint, it's an important thing to be able to do to let land rest and to, you know, regain nutrients and to not have us always as producers take things from the land. So this it's just from an agricultural standpoint, I find it fascinating that this is because for me, so much of Jewish tradition can be tied back to agriculture and to seasonality and to the land. And I find that all very fascinating. Um, and also there's the idea of gleaning and being able to have what you have in your field be available for people that cannot usually afford it or don't have access to land. So gleaning is the idea that at the end of a crop, people can come in and take what they need. And we did not do gleaning here, but we took 10% basically for that entire year of everything we raised and grew and donated it to our food bank. So that was our way. Instead of having people come on the property, we were then able to deliver 10% basically and make it available for other people.
SPEAKER_00Beautiful, beautiful. Um, now you're so you're a farmer, and most people listening, um, including myself, who are not farmers, but on your podcast, you talk about ways that even if you're not an you know an agriculturalist, there are ways that you can still embrace this mitzvah of Shmita. Can you tell us some of what you talked about?
SPEAKER_01I think that there are so many wonderful ways to be connected to the idea of letting the land rest and providing for others from your land. It could be something very simple, like I said, where if you have a house garden, if you have, if you're raising two tomato plants and you can give some of those away to a food bank or a community shelter or to someone that you know who is struggling, that's an incredible way of observing Shemitah. I think that not seeding your lawn and letting some meadow grow in your front yard instead of putting, you know, additional grass is another way. Being open to what volunteers, you know, so a plant that just shows up that would have been seeded maybe somewhere else, a plant that was not planned in this certain area of your garden or your field is called a volunteer. And there are ways in which I think you can see for yourself what volunteers in your life, what volunteers in your front yard, in your patio garden, in your, you know, your little balcony garden if you're in a high rise like I was for many years. What can volunteer if you stop trying to control it? If you stop trying to control everything, like I am a master list maker. If I stop trying to control every moment and I just am open to the possibility of what volunteers in my life, that to me is a really spiritual opportunity of observing the idea of forced rest, seeing what happens, and letting things volunteer in your world.
SPEAKER_00I love that. So the guard, it's like a garden is a metaphor for living your best life. Oh, that's terrific.
SPEAKER_01I think that the garden and and land, um, just the soil around us can easily be a metaphor for your own life. And and the fact that we are not obligated to observe Shemitah outside of Israel, to me says then I get to take a little bit of license in what I think Shemitah is, right? And so for me, I will turn that into what is the garden of my life? What is the garden of purpose? And if that means not trying to control it, not planning it out, not making sure everything is in neat and tidy little rows, what might volunteer if I create space for that?
SPEAKER_00Oh, that's beautiful. Wow, that's a whole separate episode of our podcasts right there. Um, and by the way, uh, you know, a mitzvah that's closely related to the idea of Shmitta is just the concept in general that as Jews, we are not supposed to destroy, which in Hebrew is known as Baltashchit, you shall not destroy. Um, and that's so important in our society today, where you know, many people feel that they own land or they own something, and so therefore they feel like they can just do whatever they want. Um, that's anathema to the Torah and to Jewish values. You know, this is God's world. We're blessed to live in it, and we're supposed to take care of it. And part of that is caring for God's creation and not just wantonly um, you know, destroying it. So that's that's another important concept. Seems like it should be obvious, but um unfortunately it's not so obvious.
SPEAKER_01I I love that because I I think that we have gotten so far away from um agriculture and land and food production and animal welfare. Um, you know, we are a meat-eating family, so animal welfare is hugely important to me. We've gotten so far away from those concepts as a society, but also as Jews, the idea that we, you know, I am a steward of this land. I am not the owner of this land. I am, you know, I am a shepherd to our livestock. I don't own the livestock. And I feel that, you know, this the property in which I live is indigenously Cherokee land. And I, because it is North Carolina, because there was a lot of, you know, crops and tobacco, and I can still see cotton fields from where we are, that I know that enslaved people worked this land. And, you know, I am I am very mindful of those things, you know, the persecution of multiple people that came before me that were on this property. So I feel like it is my obligation to honor that and to honor, you know, that this is, as you said, it was it's God's world and we just live on it. But it's also there were people that came before me. And I, you know, I I don't own this, not by a long shot.
SPEAKER_00Right, exactly right. Wendy, I want to ask you one last question. On your podcast, you said that you've been saying prayers while walking around on the farm. And to me, that is just such a such a wonderful moving image. Can you describe what inspired you to start, you know, praying as you're walking around your homestead?
SPEAKER_01Every morning, I usually get up, you know, earlier than everybody else, but I like to do a perimeter walk. I like to walk around just to check fences and livestock and what grew overnight, etc. After a couple of weeks of being here, um, I started singing Debbie Friedman songs in my head as I would walk around as Glee Club members back in the day. We both know this, like music can be prayer for me anywhere. And it was both a sense of just awe, I think. I think a lot of it was just so incredibly inspiring to see. And it's incredibly humbling. Being a homesteader, being a farmer is outrageously humbling. And you recognize how very little control you actually have. And I think that it is outrageously humbling to figure out what the weather did. You know, where's where all the rain that came and destroyed something or the sun that is burning your crops, or you know, whatever it is, that is impossible for me to not feel awe, gratitude, and humility every day.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you're really living it. I mean, you're depending on the, you know, the right rains and the right amount of sunshine. And if it doesn't happen, it could be calamitous, no question.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and you know, and livestock die. I have never been as surrounded by death as I am on this homestead. Things happen. You know, we had a lamb that was born early this week and lasted 24 hours and passed away. It was less than two pounds. It was itty bitty. And I knew it wasn't gonna make it. Like I could tell from the way it was born, but I could bring it into the house and have it under my shirt all day so that it was warm and comforted and had a bottle and a heartbeat to lean on and all of those things. And then no, at the same time, it's gonna pass away. And it, I feel like that's my obligation as the shepherd. That's my job is to make sure that things don't die poorly if they're gonna pass away, that they have a sense of kindness and compassion and respect if I can do that.
SPEAKER_00Oh, wow. All right. I'm I am flying you in to my synagogue on Yom Kippur because that is my Yom Kippur sermon. Yom Kippur, the liturgy says, you know, who will live and who shall die? Mi, mi yamut. I mean, that's it. You're living it every day. Every day. Oh, that's so powerful. Oh my god.
SPEAKER_01Well, and it's you know, we butcher our own chickens now as well. And I, you know, we we do Shakianu before we butcher our chickens. I say a prayer over each chicken before I kill it to thank it for feeding our family and the the amount of humility and um recognizing my role in both their life and their death, and what you know, how that will sustain my family over winter time. You you can't get more tied to the idea that we are not in control than when you are actually raising your own food and trying to nurture animals.
SPEAKER_00Right. And talk about humility. I mean, you are your life is dependent on that chicken, and you're showing humility and gratitude, thanking God for this animal that is going to help sustain your family. That it is no small thing that you are taking its life, no, which our tradition has given us permission to do, but really ideally, we're supposed to be vegetarians. We're allowed to do this because of human nature. That's a whole other conversation. But wow, to have you know that life in your hands and to feel gratitude um for the sustenance. Yeah, that to say Shahyana for that moment, that's incredibly powerful.
SPEAKER_01It's a really, I think it's incredibly important. And it's important for my children. We're talking about chickens that we have hatched, like we have raised them from birth. And wow, then it's also how are we making the best use of this life that has been given to us, that we have taken, you know, we have literally taken this life. So we use every possible element of that animal's body from making stock to using the bones to, you know, being able to use organ meat for our dogs. I mean, we we will use every possible element of that life because it's sacred. And I'm, you know, I'm not just gonna buy pre-packaged chicken from the grocery store and throw it away when nobody else eats it. It's like, you know, that that animal deserves better. And it is my responsibility if I am taking that life to be as respectful as I possibly can.
SPEAKER_00Um, Wendy, I just I want to thank you so much. This conversation has been so interesting, so inspiring. Thank you so much for your time today. And good luck with whatever the future brings at Chutzbahalo. I'll look forward to checking back with you and just finding out how things are going down in North Carolina.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. And thank you so much for the opportunity. I really, I really enjoyed this conversation. It was great.
SPEAKER_00Yes, thank you. Thanks. All right, everybody, again, that was Wendy Ryan reporting live from Chutzbahalo, her homestead down in western North Carolina. And I just wanted to reflect on our conversation. In 2021, Wendy said that, you know, it was during the pandemic, and that just seemed to present an opportunity to make this move. It was like a now or never moment. She was getting older, you know, and living on a homestead on a farm is physical, you know, physical labor. And it just reminded me of God calling out to Avram for the first time when he was at that point, he was 75. And God said to him, you know, lechlach, go leave your home and go to find your destiny. And I feel like that Wendy had that, you know, lachlachar or the feminine is lachhilach. She had that moment, like it was almost like the pandemic hit, which was awful. But God said, go. And she went and found, I think, her destiny. And she's still exploring that now. So I just feel like that image really fits for Wendy. And I hope that all of us, you know, find our Lechlacha moments to go and find out who we really are. Uh, Wendy also said that she feels like she is a steward of the land, that the land doesn't belong to her. And I believe that wholeheartedly. We don't own the land that we live on. And we were talking about the commandment of Shemitah, of letting the land lie fallow. And that's in the book of Leviticus. And in that passage where God talks about Shmittah, God also says, I own the land, the land is mine. You are merely, and he literally says, stewards, you are renters on the land with me. In Hebrew, God says, Kiliha arets, the land is mine. So it reminded me of that passage uh when the Torah talks about Shmittah, that we should have the kind of humility that Wendy talked about. You know, we don't own the land. God put us here uh to take care of it. We are supposed to be partners with God in the ongoing process of creation. And talking to Wendy, I mean, I myself am reminded that, you know, most human beings, or at least in the Western world, uh, most of us are disconnected from the land. Uh, Wendy is part of a movement of trying to reconnect. There's a whole Jewish farmers network that you can look up, but still many of us are disconnected. But if you look at the creation of the world, in particular Genesis chapter two, you'll see that God created the first human being, and God called that human being Adam. And land in Hebrew is called Adama. And that is by design. God created us from the dust of the ground. And so we are supposed to be intimately connected to the land. So Wendy is reminding us to do our best to maintain that connection in ways that we can, even if we're not farmers, even if we don't live on a homestead, like Wendy said, we can still grow gardens in our yards, can allow our yards to lie fallow, we can think about that concept of volunteers and see what volunteers crop up. Um, just such a great image. And finally, I'll just say if you look at Genesis chapter two, verse 15, it says that God put us here to till the land and to take care of it. La of da, Ulashamra. So we are supposed to work the land, we are supposed to benefit from it, but we're also supposed to protect it and take care of it. And there's a midrash based on that verse that says, God says to the first human beings, I have created this world, but now it is up to you. If you don't take care of it, no one will. And we should all heed that message now more than ever, as the climate crisis uh is here to stay. We need to act so it doesn't continue to get worse. And we should all, you know, heed that message. So everyone, I hope that we'll all channel our inner Wendy Ryan and try to do the best we can to make this world a great place and reconnect with the Adama with the land. So that's all for today, everybody. Thank you so much for listening and peace out.