Soul-2-soil: back to life and reality at Camp Freedman

Food nourishes our bodies of course but it also nourishes our souls and spirit. 

That’s part of the reason the farm-to-table movement has been so powerful in modern America: For young people who’ve grown up in a world that’s increasingly fragmented and existential, the farm movement offers a chance to connect deeply and meaningfully with the world around them, with the soil beneath their feet and with their own bodies and souls.

The current ritualistic attention being paid to growing and cooking might seem ultra modern and hip, but really it’s as old as eating. The last half of the 20th century was the anomaly, when we became more interested in pre-sliced bread and microwavable meals than in picking a perfect tomato off the backyard vine. 

That’s not a cut on the enthusiastic way in which Americans embraced ready-to-eat food. Life was hard and people were busy, even for affluent families and especially for parents struggling to work while caring for and feeding their children and trying to maintain their homes.

The early campers at the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center almost certainly did not come to Falls Village hoping to grow their own veg and pick fruit. They wanted to escape from their factory jobs in the garment industry for a few days and just rest, relax, breathe clean fresh air, maybe take a walk through the woods.

The original Camp Freedman opened in 1893 as the Jewish Working Girls Vacation Society. Over the years it became Camp Isabella Freedman; in 1956 it moved to its present home in Falls Village and turned its focus to Jewish seniors from New York. 

In the decades since the camp opened it has slowly transformed into a cutting edge spiritual and educational center, with a working farm at its heart. 

It still offers summertime R-and-R for urban Jewish elders, but it is now open year round and offers everything from Torah Yoga to training for those who “lead worship in a Jewish context” to a weekend retreat that features cycling, cooking/eating, the observance of Shabbat and classes in yoga, meditation and more (this year’s Ride and Retreat is held over Labor Day weekend, from Aug. 31 to Sept. 3).

There’s so much going on there, and there are so many different programs happening on the 400 acre-property on Johnson Road near Route 7 that it’s hard to explain it all in just a few words .

But what is perhaps the most important component of the center these days is agriculture. Isabella Freedman is now part of Hazon, a national group that is dedicated to “creating sustainable communities.” 

Like all the many parts of  Isabella Freedman, the farming aspect has morphed over the years and will no doubt continue to grow and adapt as time goes on. For a while there were lots of nanny goats producing milk that was then made into cheese and other dairy products. The pickles were a big deal for quite a while and are still a fun and important part of the program; they can still be purchased at the retreat center but are no longer found at grocery stores or New York City markets (they were delivered in vehicles that boasted the slogan “Young Jewish Farmers Changing the World One Pickle at a Time”).

These days, the emphasis is more on growing a rotation of healthy foods (including eggplants, peppers, zucchini, cucumbers, kale, melon and potatoes —and just about any annual vegetable that will grow in this region) served fresh in the Isabella Freedman dining hall — and can be purchased by members of the Adamah CSA. 

Janna Siller is the director of the farm at Isabella Freedman, known as Adamah. She rattles off a long list of all the things she’s got growing on the strip of land across Johnson Road from the main retreat center property. It’s known as the Kaplan Family Farm, in honor of a benefactor to the center.

Starting in May, she said, the center’s kitchen prepares meals with the farm’s  lettuce, radishes, salad mix, turnips, kale and other greens. There are herbs, too, lots of ’em, and (by mid summer) fruit of various shapes, colors and sizes, from blueberries to raspberries to apples. 

“By July,” Siller said, “all the produce used by our kitchen is from the farm. We do all our own cooking here; it’s unusual for an institution of this size to have no outside food service.”

Weekend retreat guests to the center don’t necessarily toil in the soil. But they do learn about the land. They learn about where their food comes from. Participants of the Adamah Fellowship, however, live and work together on the farm for three months, praying and meditating (sometimes while weeding), dragging compost to the farm from the dining hall, milking goats and building community while cooking, working, studying and bicycling together. 

“They find purpose and groundedness and connection to each other and to a greater whole through the experience of bringing healthy, fresh food to families while caring for soil and the ecosystem,” Siller said.

“You could do a ropes course or do trust falls. But the act of producing food creates all sorts of amazing connections.” 

Living here in the Northwest Corner, it’s possible to forget that most people in the world don’t know what it feels like to hunt for a zucchini among the squash leaves or to pop a fresh, sun-warmed berry in their mouths. Isabella Freedman participants have a chance to reconnect to the land, to their history, to tradition and to nourish their souls. 

As part of the center’s interest in building community, full- and part-time residents of the Northwest Corner are invited to take part in the life of the farm at any number of programs throughout the year. In early August every year, the center hosts the Hazon food conference (this year’s was from Aug. 1 to 5), with cooking demonstrations and workshops and lectures on everything from food security, social justice and sustainable agriculture to Jewish culinary traditions. There is also berry picking, food harvesting, boating, hiking and all the other delights of a weekend in the country, including bonfires and star gazing. 

Longer term, the community can come pick up baskets full of organic produce weekly as part of the CSA program. Pick-up is on Thursdays at 4:30 p.m. Full and half shares can be purchased; the cost can be pro-rated so that it only covers the remainder of this year’s growing season. 

To learn more, go to www.fvcsa.adamah.org; and to learn more about the dizzying array of spiritual and agricultural options at the center, go to www.hazon.org/isabella-freedman.

And to learn more about our area’s farms and foods, look for Farm to Table, a special publication distributed with this week’s Lakeville Journal.