Farmer, rabbi and maple syrup maker Shmuel Simenowitz melds Torah and environmentalism. boiled down from 4,000 gallons of raw sap, which is collected from buckets he hangs from his tapped trees. He taps the trees in a pattern, he explains — a little higher or lower each year so as not to damage the tree. The sap is pumped into an evaporator inside the sugar shack, where the water is boiled off to leave behind the syrup, which is about 60 per- cent sugar. The operation is kosher certified. There are two major kosher concerns with pure maple syrup." First, an observant Jew is required to turn on the evaporator because only an observant Jew is allowed to "light the fire" that cooks a kosher food item. Second, while the sap is boiling, farm- ers drip animal fat into the mixture to keep it from foaming over the top of its container. "Traditionally, they'd take a piece of pork fat, suspend it from a string and the foam would rise, touch it and go down:' says Simenowitz, who instead uses olive oil, pouring in a drop or two at a time. Simenowitz, who sells all his maple syrup himself either in person or by mail order, says he sells out every year. He makes his living as a traveling scholar-in-residence, lecturing about farming in Orthodox venues and teach- ing Torah to Jewish environmentalists and foodies through Ya'aleh v'Yavo, the Jewish environmentalist project he directs. He also picks up the occasional legal case, to keep the bills paid, and has been tapped by the city of Baltimore to do a comprehensive energy audit on a new Orthodox-friendly commercial building, including designing some of its energy-efficient infrastructure. Simenowitz doesn't attend Jewish food conferences anymore, saying he is "tired of being the poster child for the Orthodox:' Jewish environmentalists and eco-foodies need to ground their work in Torah, he says, if they want the Orthodox world to take them seriously. "The Orthodox are late to the parade," he acknowledges, but that's understand- able. "The environmental agenda is often grafted onto a liberal social justice agen- da that the Orthodox community can't accept," he says. "Part of my program is to fill that breach." Simenowitz works closely with Kayam Farm, an organic farm and Jewish educational initiative at the Pearlstone Conference and Retreat Center just out- side Baltimore. When he first visited sev- eral years ago, he learned that Kayam was based on his farm in Vermont, which the general manager's daughter had visited as part of a group from the 92nd Street Y in New York City. "That was really validating," Simenowitz says, "to see the seeds I planted take root." F1 " Rabbi Shmuel Simenowitz and his son Shlomo building their Vermont sugar shack in 2005. Renaissance Rabbi Sue Fishkoff Jewish Telegraphic Agency living lightly on the earth and doing it in everybody what they're missing, trying to the name of Torah. bridge that gap!' Fifteen years ago, he walked away Two years ago, Simenowitz and his San Francisco from a successful career as an entertain- family moved to Baltimore, and they now ment and intellectual property lawyer live in an Orthodox neighborhood of t's easy to spot Rabbi Shmuel and moved from the New York suburbs families interested in getting back to the Simenowitz at a Jewish food confer- of Long Island to an organic farm in land. One neighbor keeps bees. Another ence, an environmentalist gathering Vermont with his wife, Rivki, and two spins her own wool. A third has an or any of the other progressive-minded young children. They were becoming organic farm — just the kind of integra- confabs he frequents. newly observant and thought the big tion for which Simenowitz and Rivki had Just look for the Chasid in the room. house and fancy cars wouldn't help them been looking. Simenowitz is an anomaly: a haredi grow spiritually" or raise their children But Simenowitz still travels to Vermont Orthodox Jew, black hat and all, who is with the values they were beginning to each spring to work his sugar farm. equally at home — and equally uneasy hold dear. About a decade ago, after a disastrous — in a roomful of dreadlocked 20-some- The couple planted vegetables, set up maple harvest season, the sap finally thing eco-hipsters as at a Chasidic cel- a chicken coop and began making maple started running on the eve of Passover, ebration. He takes flak from the Orthodox syrup from the hundreds of maple trees right before the first seder, and neighbors for "wasting time" with the foodies and on their 14 acres, calling their project poured in from all over to help collect is chided by progressive activists for his Sweet Whisper Farm. Simenowitz used it as fast as they could. But as sundown commitment to ritual observance. draft horses to plow the fields and carry approached, Simenowitz put down his "I see myself as a post-denominational the maple sap from the trees to his sugar bucket and said work had to stop. By the Torah Jew with Chasidic sensibilities," shack, which is modeled on an 18th- time he was permitted by Jewish law to he tells JTA, with more than a trace of century Polish wooden synagogue — one continue working, all the sap had spoiled self-mockery. "I'm an equal-opportunity of hundreds destroyed by pogroms, Nazis in the unseasonably hot sun — hundreds offender." and years of Communist rule. of gallons, nearly his entire crop. More seriously, he says, not only is Jewish student groups, observant and The story was featured in Oprah there no contradiction between living a non-observant, would visit from the big Winfrey's 0 magazine, and "Someone Torah-true life and reducing one's carbon city, and Simenowitz would introduce passed a comment, saying, 'What kind of footprint, the two are intertwined. them to farm work while imparting a God would let that happen when you're "I grow my own food, I grow organi- little Torah wisdom. out there doing His thing?'" Simenowitz cally, I am a good steward of the earth," "When I get the yeshiva guys up here, recalls. "And I said, 'Bottom line, you he says. "That's Torah. I'm a Torah Jew, they know their Torah but they need to don't get hurt doing mitzvahs:" and my world values are seamlessly inte- get their hands in the dirt," he says. "And After the story was published, people grated into that." when I get the tree-hugging crowd, they started calling from all over to adopt a Simenowitz, 53, is part of a small say, 'Wow, what a beautiful sunset, and I tree in Simenowitz's grove; his business but growing group of strictly Orthodox say, 'That's great, but we need to do some was saved. Jews who are getting back to the land learning.' Simenowitz produces about 100 gal- — farming organically, raising animals, "We're like spiritual dietitians, giving lons of maple syrup in a good year, I (( 38 :