Quinoa porridge is often served with breakfast at Eden Village Camp

The first time I learned about quinoa was in Bolivia. The locals would boil it, mix in some sugar, and drink it for breakfast. Some believed it was a sacred grain and had extraordinary powers.

The name ‘quinoa’ comes from its Inca name ‘kinwa.’ The Inca people referred to it as ‘chisya mama’ meaning ‘mother of all grains.’ It is a complete protein, which means it contains all 9 essential amino acids.  Plus, it’s full of antioxidants and fiber, plus a host of other vitamins.

I spent nearly five months traveling around Peru and Bolivia, and quinoa became part of my staple diet. Off course the question I had was, “What bracha do I make on quinoa?” Quinoa is not one of the five grains listed in the Talmud nor is it related to a semi grain like rice or millet. Quinoa’s closest edible relative is perhaps beets. Thus the bracha on quinoa is ha’adama when eaten whole and shehakol when ground up.

I bring up this quinoa issue now, because here at Eden Village it is often served as a hot cereal for breakfast. It is extremely nutritious and a great food to start the day with.

A spread of delicious organic kosher vegetarian Indian food including specialties like palak paneer, dahl, and kofta are served one day as dinner at Eden Village Camp and remind us of our time in India.

Being vegetarian or vegan seems to be gaining popularity in the U.S., but it definitely doesn’t seem to be all the rage in the kosher communities.  In fact, more often than not I find myself having long conversations about why I’m vegetarian with all the meat-eating religious families who are kind enough to host us for meals.

From a practical point of view, it doesn’t matter how much you like meat, if you’re planning to do a lot of traveling you’ll be really restricted if you can’t go without meat.  During our three months of travel in India, we only encountered meat twice: at Chabad of Hampi during a special occasion and at Chabad of Varanasi, and both times only chicken was available. If you’re looking for beef, don’t expect to find it being served in India or Nepal! In fact, in certain very religious Hindu areas of India, such as Pushkar in Rajasthan, it is not possible to serve meat.  In Pushkar, canned tuna is only able to be served because the Indian employees don’t know that it’s fish! So if meat is a vital part of your diet, your travel will be extremely restricted unless you learn how to kill the animals kosher yourself.

Another practical point is that if you really want to travel, you will at some point be in places without a Chabad House, Bayit Yehudi, Lev Yehudi, or other Jewish institution to provide you with food.  Depending on where you go and for how long, you could be weeks without encountering other kosher travelers.  In India, Rabbi Ben and I generally went for about 2 weeks at a time without seeing a Chabad House.  During that time away, you’ll have to fend for yourself and make your own food.

After taking a special course, the resident baker at Eden Village Camp surprised us with these delicious kosher organic vegetarian croissants hot from the oven!

There are pre-packaged kosher meat foods available, but if you’re a longer-term traveler, you won’t want to lug around a suitcase full of them.  And even if you’re planning to slaughter some kosher critters, you may not find it practical to carry around two sets of dishes for meat and milk for kosher cooking on the go.  (By the way, in many of these countries, getting milk is very easy… just find a local with a milking goat, cow, water buffalo, or yak, and ask if you can pay them to let you milk a bit… then you can pasteurize it yourself in your own pot!  Many Jewish organizations we’ve encountered do exactly this, such as the Chabads of Pushkar and Pune, and Lev Yehudi of Hampi in India.)

Right now, Rabbi Ben and I are at Eden Village Camp, which is a primarily vegetarian facility.  It’s actually amazing to see the creativity of the chefs in making us healthy, delicious, organic, vegetarian food.  Even avid meat-eaters would be satisfied!  Don’t even begin to think we’re suffering… we’ve been treated to yummy entrees like eggplant lasagna, Caesar salad, chili (sin carne!), French toast, black bean burgers, and stir fries… and yummy desserts like chocolate and fruit-filled challah, ice cream and sorbet, chocolate chip and sugar cookies, and fresh granola bars.  If you ever worry that going vegetarian while traveling will be hard, just prepare yourself beforehand by learning how to prepare creative vegetarian dishes before you go!

Rabbi Akiva, one of the greatest Jewish scholars of all time, is said to have had 24,000 disciples. At one point they all started dying. They stopped dying on the 33^rd day of the counting of the omer.

Also, the 33^rd day of the counting of the omer is the day Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai left the world. He is famous for authoring the ‘Zohar,’ which is the source book for Kabbalah. Rabbi Shimon and his son spent 13 years hiding from the Romans in a cave. During that time they meditated, prayed and studied.

When Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai was passing from the world, he said, “Let my death be celebrated.”  When he died, a fire came down from heaven and surrounded his body.

It is now a custom to make bonfires to commemorate the fire that surrounded Rabbi Shimon’s body after he passed on from the world.

The Lubavitcher Rebbe instituted Lag B’omer parades, which I remember going to as a child. These were big public events that still go on.  The idea of the parade was to publicize a day of good, a celebration in Judaism.

We won’t be having a big Lag B’omer parade here at Eden Village, though we will have some activities to celebrate. Last night Rachel and I made a small fire and sang the traditional song that gives praise to Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai.

Happy Lag B’omer!

Lag B’omer 2008 in Sydney Australia  

At Eden Village Camp's farm, a farm apprentice explains to visitors the uses of the many different herbs we grow fresh on the farm and use every day in our foods and teas.

Right now, Rabbi Ben and I are staying at Eden Village Camp.  Much more than just a camp, it is an active, working farm.  For the last few days the rains have poured down.  Some fields have flooded, new seeds have floated away into a puddle, and the roots of young plants have begun to ferment in the too-wet ground.  Seeing firsthand the damage that too much or too little rain can do brings to life G-d’s promise to “provide rains in their time,” and for the land and trees to yield their produce if you behave… and His threats that “your land will not give its produce and the tree of the land will not give its fruit” if you don’t.  And this is even more sobering when you realize that, as a nation, our actions are judged together and we are all responsible for deserving both the blessings and the curses.

This week’s parsha is full of blessings and curses.  Most of them sound really distant and unrelated to our own modern lives.  After all, at no point does G-d threaten to shut down Facebook or Twitter as a punishment!  The blessings and punishments all seem to be about either agriculture or war… and while these things might affect some people personally, it’s still pretty distant for most of us.  It’s hard for most of us to visualize how these blessings and curses could really come alive.

Volunteers help plant vegetables at Eden Village Camp's farm. The fence behind them is necessary to keep deer and groundhogs from getting to the veggies first. Recent heavy rains now threaten the lives of these young plants.

Here at Eden Village, I’ve watched as some foods go from the farm to our table.  We pluck fresh herbs almost every day.  We collect fresh, organic eggs from the 10 free-range hens that happily scratch about.  In the summer, when the plants are all mature, foods from the farm will include everything from radishes and asparagus to tomatoes and eggplants.   Most of us don’t think about it, but although we don’t see it happen, this is the same process that eventually brings food to our grocery stores.  Yet without the cooperation of G-d, none of that food would ever arrive.  If G-d so decides, we can have a good year and have abundant, inexpensive fresh produce… or we can have scanty, expensive produce.

Ultimately, we learn, it is up to us.  If we serve G-d and perform his mitzvot, He will make it easier for us by filling our bellies, so we won’t be distracted by the pangs of hunger.  But if we feel like we’ve got better things to do without our time, G-d will remind us that He’s there.  He’ll send us… not really curses, but more like reminders, that He’s the one who’s really in charge.  This week as we sit down to our Shabbos meals, let’s try to look at our food in a whole new light… and let’s use the energy it provides to do even more mitvot than the week before.  Let’s become partners with G-d and start a positive feedback loop!

Select the target objective: Where you will perform the planking. Planking can be done on any object, building, person or animal. You can go planking anywhere, though execute caution before planking on a police car, on a balcony railing, or on a moving vehicle. Plankers who went planking on the above three mentioned had planking experiences which resulted in undesirable consequences.

Plan your planking: How will you reach your planking objective? Will you need physical assistance from a non-planker? You may need to educate them about planking. Who will take your planking photo? The last thing you want is to perform a difficult planking position and the person who has your camera doesn’t know how to take a photograph.

Approach your planking target: Approach with caution. Some plankers have gotten injured on their approaches. Is the terrain slippery, are there any potholes, electric wires, or barbed wire?

Perform the planking. Ease into the planking position slowly. Exhale as you press your body downwards. Flow into the planking experience. Become one with the object you are planking on. Feel a permeating connection with all plankers around the world who are in middle of a plank.

* Maintain awareness and caution when exiting your planking. You may feel an overwhelming desire to celebrate and share the experience with fellow plankers, but if you are on top of a 100ft flag poll you need to come down slowly.

Happy Planking!

A Story about planking from the great planking master

Check out my other posts on planking.

How to Perform the Most Incredible Planking Ever!