Rabbi's Week in Review Blog

Fay and I were out in Sonoma last week to celebrate a big birthday (Fay’s, not mine).  While I don’t write a whole lot about nature in this blog, two experiences with nature stand out.  

We had a day out to hike in the state park’s redwood forest (I know, go ahead and continue the song… to the gulf stream water), and from there headed to the Pacific coast. Seeing majestic 1300 and 1400 year old trees was both awe inspiring and peaceful. Towering over three hundred feet high, it gives one a sense of our relative smallness; tamping down our significance relative to the rest of G-d’s created world. 

Hiking along Goat Beach and then heading down to Bodega Bay and the Bodega Head; a high bluff that gives an incredibly vast view of the coast and the Pacific Ocean.  An added bonus was a family of deer and hearing the sea lions in the distance.  Again, another opportunity to instill an appreciation for our vast created natural world, and a needed dose of humble in our place in it.

The second natural experience was at DaVero, a biodynamic farm producing olive oil and wine. We had an entire afternoon of learning about how going with nature rather than seeking to control it provides an amazing experience with both the olive oil and the wine. Recognizing that Sonoma County, California is on the same latitude as Tuscany, Italy rather than with France, the Sonoma climate is naturally conducive to Italian wine rather than French varietals.  

There was a lot more to it, and being successful in biodynamic farming we learned is based far more on experience, trial and error versus what you can read in a book.  One other learning is that, wine is meant to go with food, and food with wine.  We were told to taste our wine first without food, and then with food.  It changed the taste of the wine in a good way.

All of this is to say that we have the opportunity to accomplish more by relinquishing our proclivity to control our environment.  G-d provides a pretty good world to live in and work with if we would only take more time to observe it and honor it.