Events
Arrange a Torah Flora Event
If you are considering a Torah Flora program, I encourage you to contact me (jon@torahflora.org) to discuss possible formats and topics, even if your ideas are still in formation. I would be happy to help you work out your ideas and to collaborate with you to come up with a format and topics that are customized for your audience. I can also provide references from sponsors of earlier events.
I’ve listed some sample topics following the list of events below. The list of possible formats and topics for a Torah Flora program is flexible and always changing. Possibilities that may be suitable for your group include botanical garden tours, Powerpoint presentations, hands-on student activities, a scholar-in-residence program, or a presentation followed by a food tasting.
Upcoming Events
If you would like to receive e-mail announcements of upcoming Torah Flora events and new articles, please e-mail me at jon@torahflora.org. The Torah flora e-mail list is strictly confidential and involves no ads, spam, or disclosure of e-mail addresses to anyone else.
Summer 2010 Speaking Tours
I am currently planning two speaking tours for this summer, in New England and the Western US. If you would like to arrange a Torah Flora event for this summer, please e-mail me.
Torah Flora Kosher Cruise, Summer 2010
I have recently begun planning with Kosherica Kosher Cruises for a Torah Flora cruise during the summer of 2010. The trip would include all of the usual luxurious amenities and family-friendly ambience of a Kosherica cruise with the bonus of a series of Torah Flora programs. We are planning an entertaining, informative, and exciting combination of vividly illustrated presentations dramatized with samplings of fragrant components of the Temple incense and other Biblical spices, tastings of Biblical and Talmudic foods such as assorted varieties of olives, grapes, and dates, and live flowering plants. Torah Flora programs are appropriate for both adults and families that are traveling with children or grandchildren.
Kosherica is offering several cruise itineraries this summer, including some that will tour Mediterranean, Caribbean, and Alaskan waters. Several other itineraries will be added over the next few months. Most of the planned cruises are one week long, and prices start at under $2,300. Kosherica’s current offerings are listed on their Web site:
http://www.kosherica.com/koshercruises/index.asp
Additional information is available by phone at
877.724.5567 or 305.695.2700
or by e-mail at
If you think that you might be interested in joining us, please e-mail me at
and tell me which dates or destinations interest you. If there is sufficient interest in a Torah Flora program for one or more cruises, Kosherica will schedule us in, and I will see you on board!
I hope to hear from many of you soon, and hope that you will be able to join our group next summer.
Recent Programs
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Two talks at Congregation Ahawas Achim B’nai Jacob and David in West Orange, NJ: The Origin, History, and Meaning of Tu B’Shvat and Shivat HaMinim and Zimrat HaAretz: The Hazards of Natural Religion
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Insights from Ethnobotany and Culinary History that Help us to Appreciate the Mitzvot of Pesach: Address to Professor Karen Shawn’s graduate course, Resources for Jewish Educators, at Azrieli Graduate School of Education, Yeshiva University
Friday and Saturday, May 29-30, 2009 (Shavuot) Two classes at Block & Hexter Vacation Center: Insights into the Mitzvot of Pesach From Thermal Physics, Ethnobotany, and Beer; Tales of the White Squill and Decoding the Secret of the Hidden Tree: Jewish Unity, Piety, and the Social Security System
Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2008, 7:30 PM at the Jewish Community Center of Paramus, E-304 Midland Ave., Paramus, NJ 07652
Spices Around the World, in History, and in Judaism
This dinner and lecture/demonstration is sponsored by Hadassah for the enjoyment of their paid-up members and anyone who would like to become a member by paying at the door.
Sample Speaking Topics
- What is maror? Species, symbolism, why it’s not bitter, and what it has to do with the Civil War, Peter Rabbit, and Renee Zellwegger
- Botany and theology—How plant identification affects our understanding of prophetic metaphor
- Tu b’Shvat–History and symbolism (Why are we trying to plant trees in February?)
- Why the menorah? Chanukah, Jewish unity, and the symbolism of the olive tree
- Shavuot and the first fruits–Why these seven species?
- Egypt, Israel, and Sukkot–Why the sukkah? Why these four species? Why does the Torah connect idol worship with irrigation?
- Mizmor Shir l’Yom haShabbat: Why the date palm? Why the cedar? Is there a hidden third tree in this psalm?
- How did Betzalel get the huge logs he needed to build the mishkan?
- Astronomy and theology of the calendar in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
- Pesach: What does “Chag ha’Aviv” mean? (Not ”springtime festival”)
- What is the “gopher wood” that Noah used? (There is no “gopher tree”)
- Mushroom physiology—How the kabbalah anticipated biology
- Lessons for families and Social Security from the olive tree (Psalm 128)
- Tales of the white squill (Tu b’Av, unity of the Jewish people and the land of Israel, and Li’l Abner)
- Sefirat HaOmer, the mystical significance of wheat and barley, and the modern problems of the mitzvah of yashan
- Why was the expression “land of milk and honey” a blessing for Moses, but an expression of disaster for the later prophets?
- Spices: Sacraments, medicines, symbols, preservatives, and flavorings
