Hashivenu, hashivenu Adonai elecha. Venashuva venashuva. Hadesh Hadesh yamenu ke ke dem.

Turn thou us unto thee, Hashem and we shall be turned. Renew our days as of old.

We spent Thanksgiving Monday exploring, playing and planting at Shoresh’s Bela Farm, a rural centre for sustainable, land-based Judaism in Southern Ontario.

This year, Thanksgiving occured just after Yom Kippur and right before Sukkot. It seemed like the perfect time to have our first community event at the Farm.

Jewish tradition teaches us that the 10 days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are the most potent days for us to make teshuvah, to return to G-d. While at Bela Farm last week, I realized that through this amazing project, our community could return to G-d, to our roots and to Jewish tradition through the connecting with the Earth. Imagine Shabbat on the farm with beeswax candles from our hives! Imagine celebrating a wedding or Bar Mitzvah outside! imagine immersing in our spring-fed pond as a mikvah?

The Synagogue

It seemed auspicious to me that our first community event at the farm occurred immeditely after the days tof teshuvah and right before the harvest festival of Sukkot.

May Bela Farm grow and evolve to be a central gathering place that provides our community with 365 days of opportunities to make teshuvah, to return to days of old as well as a centre where we can harvest the fruits of our tradition and the fruits of our labour.