Events
Arrange a Torah Flora Event
Upcoming Events
Recent Programs
Sample Speaking Topics
If you are considering a Torah Flora program, I encourage you to contact me (jon@torahflora.org) to discuss possible formats and topics. I would be happy 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, ancient beer tasting, or a presentation followed by a food tasting.
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 sharing of e-mail addresses.
Torah tour of The Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Tuesday, September 28, 2010 (Chol HaMoed Sukkot)
This event is open to all, but is intended primarily for families and children. I am also offering a Torah tour of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden for Jewish singles on Sunday, August 15 (See above). Details for both events will be available soon. If you are planning to attend this event, please e-mail me at jon@torahflora.org.
Biblical Botany and Jewish Environmentalism weekend at Block and Hexter Vacation Center, Friday, Oct. 8 through Sunday, Oct. 10 (Columbus Day weekend)
We are planning a family-friendly Shabbaton weekend, with special programs for children and singles, in collaboration with Canfei Nesharim, a Jewish environmental education organization. This is a very relaxed, interesting way to enjoy Shabbat in the wooded Pocono Mountains, a two-hour drive from New York. The event runs through Sunday, enabling those who need to work or want to do something else on Monday (Columbus Day) to attend the whole program. If you might be interested in this weekend program, please e-mail me at jon@torahflora.org. We need to know that enough people are likely to attend before going forward with this event.
August 20-22
Lecture-demonstrations and nature walk at Kutsher’s Country Club resort, Monticello, NY
The Shabbat afternoon Torah nature walk was full of surprises and a strong favorite of singles. The topics of my lecture-demonstrations were:
- The Seven Species and the Choice Products: Taste the Difference
- Apples & Honey: Symbols of Prosperity and Chaos
The presentations were enhanced by tastings, botanical art, and fragrant myrrh and frankincense (Hebrew Mor and Levonah)
August 15, 2010
Torah tour of The Brooklyn Botanic Garden
Highlights of the tour included:
- Five Passover plants that got fired (They used to be on the seder plate)
- Vegetables that kept Adam and Eve from slipping back into the Garden of Eden
- The critical role of beer in the Exodus and the origin of civilization
July 26, 2010
Torah tour of The Berkshire Botanical Garden in West Stockbridge, MA. Highlights of the tour included:
- Lilies you have eaten that trace Jewish history from the Philistines and Romans to Dutch New Amsterdam, bagels, and lox
- A flowering plant that created a choice between defrauding the Jewish people and Roman execution
- A plant that looks like a menorah, was the namesake of the Temple Mount, and is now eaten on Thanksgiving
July 25, 2010
What is Maror?
Lecture and sampling at the annual convention of the Association of Orthodox Jewish Scientists at the Heritage Hotel in Southbury, CT
July 14-21, 2010
In the Fields and Footsteps of Our Ancestors–A Journey through Nature to the Heart of the Torah
A series of six lectures with food samples and a meditation on Torah and nature at Block and Hexter Vacation Center in Poyntelle, Pennsylvania
July 11, 2010
Torah Tour of the New York Botanical Garden.
This event was enthusiastically reviewed on the Jew and the Carrot blog: JCarrot Review. Highlights included:
- The meaning of a common spice plant that looks like a menorah
- How the exile of the Jewish people led Americans to see that tomatoes are not poisonous, paving the way for pizza sauce and ketchup
- The critical importance of beer to the origin of civilization
May 18-20, 2010
Shavuot at Kutsher’s Country Club Resort in Monticello, New York. Four sessions:
Fruits of Idolatry, Fruits of the One God: The Meaning of the Bikkurim
Lessons of the Olive Tree: Jewish Unity, Jewish Families, and the Social Security System
Botany Determines Theology: Jeremiah’s Puzzling Simile of the Faithless Man and the Desert Tree
Understanding the Korban Pesach Barbecue with a Little Help from Botany and Food Science
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Interview on Land Minds, a Web radio program devoted to Israeli and Biblical history and geography. The interview has been archived and can be heard at http://www.foundationstone.org/page49/page49.html or at http://www.israelnationalnews.com/radio/.
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 was sponsored by Hadassah for their members and prospective members.
- 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?)
- The importance of beer and wine in Jewish history and the origin of civilization
- 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
