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Andy Becker – The Spiritual Gardener · Vox Novus with Victor Fuhrman

0:05
Speaker 1: Vox Novus, the New Voice, Vox Novus, the New Dimension.
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Speaker 1: Vox Novus thought and movement leaders who will share from
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Speaker 1: their experience and offer tools to help us navigate our
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Speaker 1: rapidly changing world. My name is Victor Furman. Welcome to
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Speaker 1: Vox Novus, the New Voice. In a world where peace
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Speaker 1: and balance often feel out of reach, is there a
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Speaker 1: place where we may find hidden sanctuary? My guest this
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Speaker 1: week on Vox Novus, Andy Becker, says he found this
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Speaker 1: in his own garden. Blending expert gardening tips with timeless
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Speaker 1: spiritual wisdom, Andy reveals how tending to the earth can
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Speaker 1: inspire a more vibrant, fulfilling life. Andy Becker is a writer, gardener,
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Speaker 1: and lifetime learner who lives in western Washington with his wife, Donna,
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Speaker 1: and their two dogs, Nova and Splash. A successful small
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Speaker 1: town lawyer, Andy found respite from the vicissitudes of fighting
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Speaker 1: for the little guy against insurance companies by gardening, hiking,
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Speaker 1: and camping with his family, and by expanding his spirituality
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Speaker 1: through Judaism. His writing has been directly fueled by his
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Speaker 1: lifetime experiences and influenced by Hasidic philosophy. His website is
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Speaker 1: Andy Becker dot Life, and he joins me this week
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Speaker 1: to share his path and award winning book, The Spiritual Gardener,
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Speaker 1: Insights from the Jewish tradition to help your garden grow.
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Speaker 1: Please join me in welcoming to Vox novs Andy Becker. Welcome, Andy, welcome.
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Speaker 2: How are you good to be here?
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Speaker 1: Wonderful sir yourself. I hope the same, and it's wonderful
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Speaker 1: to have you come with us today and share your wisdom. Andy,
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Speaker 1: Please share with us your early path and how it
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Speaker 1: laid the foundation for both your professional and your spiritual calling.
2:15
Speaker 2: Thank you well. I always wanted to be a writer.
2:17
Speaker 2: I wrote my first novel, which I need to locate.
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Speaker 2: I was nineteen years old when I wrote it. It's
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Speaker 2: in a basement chest and it's in a box. I
2:31
Speaker 2: need to find it so I can shred it because
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Speaker 2: I'm sure it's absolutely terrible. Over a course of years,
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Speaker 2: I raised a family. I have a beautiful wife. We've
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Speaker 2: got two dogs. We live in gig Harbor, Washington. I'm
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Speaker 2: originally from the San Francisco Bay area. I went to
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Speaker 2: San Mateo High School. I went to UC Berkeley, then
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Speaker 2: I went to law school up here in Washington. Eight
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Speaker 2: the legal profession is a great you know, it's a
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Speaker 2: great occupation. It was fun. I was a lawyer in
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Speaker 2: a small town called Port Orchard, Washington. It's the county
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Speaker 2: seat for a county called Kitsap County, which is across
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Speaker 2: some water from Seattle, about an hour away. And I was,
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Speaker 2: you know, a hard worker, kind of what I call
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Speaker 2: a grinder. I answered phone calls every day. I worked hard.
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Speaker 2: My kids, even though I didn't spend as much time
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Speaker 2: with them as I would have liked. In retrospect, have
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Speaker 2: turned out great. I'm now a grandparent of two little kids,
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Speaker 2: and one one of our kids is a doctor and
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Speaker 2: the other one is a lawyer. I tell people it's
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Speaker 2: a Jewish mother's dream, and we have a doctor and
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Speaker 2: a lawyer in the family. Anyway, I was always a gardener.
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Speaker 2: My wife can attest to that. And I was always
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Speaker 2: trying to grow stuff. And we finally moved to the
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Speaker 2: yard and house that we're at now. We've been here
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Speaker 2: about twenty five years, and every spring and summer I'm
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Speaker 2: out there trying to grow a vegetable or two. Some
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Speaker 2: years i'm very successful. Some years our dismal failures with
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Speaker 2: one plant or another every year is a surprise, and
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Speaker 2: I suppose the gardening really helped me when it came
4:42
Speaker 2: to the vitriol that we so often see in our
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Speaker 2: current legal system. I mean, it's a system of adversarial
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Speaker 2: disputes and conflict everybody wants to win. I mean the
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Speaker 2: way I grew up. I don't know about you, Victor,
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Speaker 2: but the way I grew up, I was taught not
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Speaker 2: to relate to other people, not to be kind to
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Speaker 2: other people, but to compete, to try and outdo the
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Speaker 2: other guy. And I certainly brought that background to my
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Speaker 2: work on behalf of many many clients over close to
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Speaker 2: four decades. I do think the gardening was an escape
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Speaker 2: to come home after working hard all day and to
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Speaker 2: go play in the dirt, to make friends with an earthworm,
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Speaker 2: to hear the birds twittering. Interestingly, there are all sorts
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Speaker 2: of studies, psychological and medical about the health benefits of gardening,
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Speaker 2: but I never knew about any of them until after
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Speaker 2: I wrote The Spiritual Gardener, contemporaneous with my gardening finding
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Speaker 2: a respite from the legal work I did. I had
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Speaker 2: two kids. My spiritual tradition is Judaism, and both kids
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Speaker 2: had bar mitzvahs, so I was kind of reawaken my
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Speaker 2: formal spiritual education. With those events, started going to synagogue
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Speaker 2: a lot. You know, my best friend at synagogue, Dan,
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Speaker 2: When the rabbi would give a sermon, I'd perk up
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Speaker 2: on a Friday evening, but he would quote rest his eyes,
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Speaker 2: have a little sleep after a refreshing nap, while I
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Speaker 2: would start paying attention. After a time, we started having
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Speaker 2: in addition to all the services and sermons and whatnot
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Speaker 2: and all the holidays, we started also studying once a
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Speaker 2: week kind of a lunch and learn in the conference
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Speaker 2: room of my law office. So after many many years,
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Speaker 2: when it was time to back off from my legal work,
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Speaker 2: I started writing, which is what I always wanted to
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Speaker 2: do in the first place, but never had done. The
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Speaker 2: first book I wrote was kind of a love letter
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Speaker 2: to mom their childhood stories about growing up in the
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Speaker 2: Bay Area in the nineteen fifties and sixties, called Cracking
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Speaker 2: an Egg. And then after that I wrote The Spiritual
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Speaker 2: Gardener Insights from the Jewish Tradition to help your Garden Grow.
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Speaker 2: And what I did in that book, which is my
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Speaker 2: most popular book, is I took two ancient traditions gardening,
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Speaker 2: which has been around as long as human civilization, and Judaism,
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Speaker 2: which has also been around for a few thousand years,
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Speaker 2: and combine them with my own scratching in the dirt
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Speaker 2: here in gig Harbor, Washington State to come up with
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Speaker 2: this book. And then I really lucked out. We got
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Speaker 2: an illustrator from the University of war Washington who is
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Speaker 2: studying for her Masters in Fine Arts, and she did
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Speaker 2: just the most amazing watercolors to pair with the eighteen
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Speaker 2: chapters in the book. Each chapter has a different theme.
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Speaker 2: For example, TikTok Early Spring Gardener is about time management
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Speaker 2: from a spiritual perspective. Getting out there, I mean, in gardening,
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Speaker 2: timing is everything. You got to where I live, and
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Speaker 2: also you know where you're located in the New York area.
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Speaker 2: You've got to get out there and spring, get the
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Speaker 2: weeding done, get down your hands and knees, even though
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Speaker 2: it might be cold and damp, and get everything set up.
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Speaker 2: And right now, actually, Victor is a good time to
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Speaker 2: put in the radish, the peas, the beats, and the
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Speaker 2: spinach seeds. You could start them right now where I
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Speaker 2: live and where you live. But I would say every
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Speaker 2: chapter has a theme, So that's about time management. I
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Speaker 2: have a chapter on bitterness called horse Radish, Yes, which
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Speaker 2: I can tell you about.
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Speaker 1: We're gonna be looking at all of those chapters, not
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Speaker 1: all of them, several of those chapters and talking about
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Speaker 1: the themes. But I had one question before we start
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Speaker 1: talking about the book. How would you define Hasidic wisdom
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Speaker 1: and how does it approach traditional Jewish teachings.
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Speaker 2: Well, the the Hasidic tradition started with a sodic, a
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Speaker 2: holy person named the Balshemtove, and he believed in a
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Speaker 2: couple of things, one of which was to bring all
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Speaker 2: the mystical and stories of the Torah, which is the
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Speaker 2: you know, the five Books of Moses, the written Bible,
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Speaker 2: and the Talmud. We can explain what the Talmud is too,
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Speaker 2: if you want to the masses to the people that
9:56
Speaker 2: we wouldn't just have the highest level of Jewish in
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Speaker 2: the yeshivas and where the disciples were studying all day
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Speaker 2: long with their masters, but we would go from village
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Speaker 2: to village and really connect with the people, and we
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Speaker 2: wouldn't have these, you know, secrets about Judaism. So the Kabbala,
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Speaker 2: the mystical kind of Judaism started being proliferated and available
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Speaker 2: to people. Of course, today we have Judaism as much
10:36
Speaker 2: as you could ever want. I mean, we have enough
10:40
Speaker 2: to fill all the oceans. I mean, there's so much
10:44
Speaker 2: available and for free. But starting with the Balshemto, we
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Speaker 2: had also a philosophy of this positivity of the joy,
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Speaker 2: kind of like the Fiddler on the Roof, you know,
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Speaker 2: the the idea that we don't just want to do
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Speaker 2: good deeds. We don't just want to do blessings and
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Speaker 2: important things like we're commanded to do, but we want
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Speaker 2: to do it with joyfulness. And that's really an integral part.
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Speaker 2: Even doing mundane activities you want to do with joyfulness.
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Speaker 2: But gardening really fits in, I mean anything relating to nature,
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Speaker 2: because you know it's all being part of creation.
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Speaker 1: Absolutely.
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 1: Start talking about some of your earlier books. You had
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Speaker 1: mentioned twenty nineteen's Cracking an Egg. What inspired this book
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Speaker 1: and what do you share with readers.
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Speaker 2: Well, I just wanted to try and remember my earliest,
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Speaker 2: earliest memories and funny family stories. So there's a variety
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Speaker 2: of what I would call rights of passage. You know,
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Speaker 2: the first time I was at a preschool and a
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Speaker 2: girl who I had a crush on. You know, I
12:10
Speaker 2: was probably staring at her too much, and she looked
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Speaker 2: at me and passing one day and called me peanut
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Speaker 2: butter face. So there's a story about how traumatic that
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Speaker 2: event was for me at age whatever it was, five
12:28
Speaker 2: or six, and how my mother dealt with it. Where
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Speaker 2: there's a story about my mom taking action when my
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Speaker 2: ten speed bike in fifth grade, the first day I
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Speaker 2: was able to ride it to school, it got stolen
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Speaker 2: by a fellow student and I knew who it was.
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Speaker 2: It was a guy in a grade older than me
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Speaker 2: who was a bit of a bully. And Mom got
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Speaker 2: me in the car and we drove straight to the
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Speaker 2: guy's house and she said stay here, and went up
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Speaker 2: to the door and rang the bell, and I had
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Speaker 2: it talking to the kid's mom, and that got my
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Speaker 2: bike readily produced back to me, and I wrote it home.
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Speaker 2: My brother, sister, and dad also have what i'd call
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Speaker 2: supporting roles in this book, but Mom's really the star.
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Speaker 2: There's stories about oh, a camping and a fishing trip
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Speaker 2: where my dad mixed up his gout pills with some
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Speaker 2: temporary pills my mom had to take for an illness
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Speaker 2: she had that turned out to be tranquilizers, and he
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Speaker 2: kept pulling the car over to sleep on a picnic
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Speaker 2: table in the middle of nowhere. My mom couldn't figure
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Speaker 2: out what the problem was. There's a wonderful story about
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Speaker 2: my dad taking me to the local school for a
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Speaker 2: bus ride to try skiing, which I never was able
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Speaker 2: to learn how to do, but we were all Cub
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Speaker 2: Scouts and they had an excursion for this ski trip.
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Speaker 2: And on the way, very very early in the morning,
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Speaker 2: like seven o'clock in the morning, there was a kid
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Speaker 2: with a little tiny dog on a leash, and that
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Speaker 2: dog was in a dog fight with a German shepherd dog.
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Speaker 2: And my dad still wearing his crushed down slippers and
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Speaker 2: bathrobe because he was just going to get me the
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Speaker 2: ten minute drive to the school, drop me off at
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Speaker 2: the bus with the other Cub Scouts, and then go
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Speaker 2: back home and go to bed. Suddenly slammed on the
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Speaker 2: brakes leaped out of the vehicle. I was in shock
14:56
Speaker 2: watching my dad be such a hero, but he went
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Speaker 2: and scared the German shepherd dog away. So it's those
15:04
Speaker 2: are just kind of a little smattering of some of
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Speaker 2: the stories in there. I was a big Giants fan.
15:10
Speaker 2: So there were some occasions that had a big impact.
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Speaker 2: The Dodgers always won, the Giants never won. There is
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Speaker 2: the World Series where the Yankees beat the Giants in
15:23
Speaker 2: sixty two. I just loved Willie Mays and won Marichelle.
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Speaker 2: You know, Willie died last year, and though he was
15:33
Speaker 2: very elderly, and I knew he was sick, as soon
15:37
Speaker 2: as I heard the news. I think we were watching
15:40
Speaker 2: the PPS news on television. The announcement came. I just
15:44
Speaker 2: burst into tears because he had meant so much to
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Speaker 2: me as a little kid, and I grew up with him.
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Speaker 2: You know, I'm still mad at the Giants for trading
15:53
Speaker 2: him to the Mets, by the way, I'll never forgive.
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Speaker 2: But anyway, so those stories in Cracking an Egg, I
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Speaker 2: think they're somewhat universal, their rites of passage. They're a
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Speaker 2: love letter to my mom, really, and I think people
16:13
Speaker 2: who've read this book, I mean, it can appeal to
16:15
Speaker 2: people of all ages, but I think people who've read
16:19
Speaker 2: the book who grew up, particularly in the sixties, can
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Speaker 2: really identify with some of these stories.
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Speaker 1: Twenty twenty one brought the Kissing Rabbi, lust, betrayal, and
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Speaker 1: a community turned inside out. It's written as a novel,
16:37
Speaker 1: but was based upon actual events and the me too
16:40
Speaker 1: movement which was going on at the time. Please share
16:42
Speaker 1: a little about that.
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Speaker 2: Well, sure, I will. I had a first row seat
16:47
Speaker 2: to an actual event in Tacoma, Washington. It was a
16:52
Speaker 2: year or two before the pandemic where we had this
16:56
Speaker 2: big scandal, and after a year or so of a
17:01
Speaker 2: lot of drama, the rabbi left the area. He was
17:07
Speaker 2: eventually replaced by another rabbi. I would say that what
17:14
Speaker 2: really got me going to write this novel wasn't the
17:19
Speaker 2: event that I witnessed, but it was Bill Cosby. And
17:25
Speaker 2: I grew up with Bill Cosby, from his comedy records
17:29
Speaker 2: to the TV show I Spy, to Doctor Huxtable, to
17:34
Speaker 2: Fat Albert comedy specials, you name it. He was just
17:39
Speaker 2: such a brilliant star, had a worldwide acclaim. And yet
17:49
Speaker 2: here we are learning that he basically used drugs and
17:56
Speaker 2: was prosecuted for date raping a woman after women, after women.
18:02
Speaker 2: You're like, well, how could that be. You're you know,
18:06
Speaker 2: you're a multimillionaire. Maybe he was even a billionaire. You
18:10
Speaker 2: have all the wealth acclaim. I'm sure he had no
18:15
Speaker 2: difficulty with ladies and groupies and whatnot, having that level
18:20
Speaker 2: of fame, and yet here he is behaving in that manner.
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Speaker 2: And I started thinking about other narcissistic personalities, politicians who
18:33
Speaker 2: were accused of misbehavior with women like Clinton and Trump.
18:41
Speaker 2: Cuomo's another one, And I just wanted to try and understand, well,
18:47
Speaker 2: what are the elements of narcissism, How is this me
18:53
Speaker 2: too thing being exposed so much? And look at the
18:59
Speaker 2: people who are accused. What can we figure out? So
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Speaker 2: I started writing The Kissing Rabbi. Really want to write
19:11
Speaker 2: a cautionary tale, because what happened in actuality was a
19:18
Speaker 2: community became. It was a little tiny community built around
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Speaker 2: this rabbi and Tacoma. It became very very quickly polarized.
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Speaker 2: The allegations were hard to understand. There was a lot
19:35
Speaker 2: of confusion. Half the congregation wanted to give the rabbi
19:42
Speaker 2: a chance to do some counseling and reform. The other half,
19:49
Speaker 2: the ultra Orthodox people were like, no, he's not qualified,
19:54
Speaker 2: he should never be a rabbi again. So it was
19:58
Speaker 2: this giant drama. So what I tried to do in
20:05
Speaker 2: this I call it my Pandemic book. Because that's when
20:07
Speaker 2: I wrote it. What I tried to do is really
20:10
Speaker 2: dissect narcissism, me too, polarization, these very kind of heavy
20:18
Speaker 2: themes surrounding Orthodoxy. And I feel pretty proud of the book.
20:26
Speaker 2: It won a Mark Twain Award for youmor and Satire.
20:31
Speaker 2: So I channeled my inner Mark Twain and my inner
20:35
Speaker 2: show Malaycham, the Jewish Mark Twain to write this book.
20:42
Speaker 2: And in fact, before writing it, I went and found
20:47
Speaker 2: on my bookshelf, in one of my son's bookshelves, we
20:52
Speaker 2: had pretty much purchased every show Malacham novel and collection
20:57
Speaker 2: of short stories that were ever published and translated into English,
21:03
Speaker 2: and I reread all of those. Of course, we had
21:06
Speaker 2: all this time on our hands during the pandemic, and
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Speaker 2: I commenced writing The Kissing Rabbi, and you know, to
21:17
Speaker 2: try and get the points across about narcissism and me
21:23
Speaker 2: too and polarization and people's behavior, I thought it best
21:28
Speaker 2: to write with humor, to write satirically. And you know, frankly,
21:35
Speaker 2: if you're ultra Orthodox, you're not going to want to
21:37
Speaker 2: read this book. It's a little unique. Usually in Jewish
21:41
Speaker 2: American literature, Jewish literature generally the protagonist is a I
21:50
Speaker 2: would say, either a hero or a victim. In my book,
21:55
Speaker 2: the protagonist is really an antagonist, and you don't see
22:01
Speaker 2: an antagonist being the central character in the book. But
22:06
Speaker 2: you can tell it satire immediately because on even the
22:11
Speaker 2: first page where you're introduced to the rabbi, his name
22:15
Speaker 2: is Micha gos Dradel, So Michig Goos for New Yorkers
22:21
Speaker 2: like your craziness, Yeah, it's nonsense. Dreda is the spinning top.
22:27
Speaker 2: So no Jewish mother in a right mind is ever
22:30
Speaker 2: going to name her son Micha gos Dradel. So you
22:34
Speaker 2: know it's a satire. It just jumps off the page
22:40
Speaker 2: on the very first page of the novel. Interestingly, on
22:46
Speaker 2: another podcast out of England, the woman whose podcast it
22:55
Speaker 2: was was going to interview me about my gardening book
23:01
Speaker 2: and she'd done some research on me and she'd found
23:04
Speaker 2: the Kissing Rabbi and interest very interesting. You know, is
23:09
Speaker 2: like she had to tell me her story, well, twenty
23:14
Speaker 2: five years ago, her husband was a rabbi and she
23:19
Speaker 2: went through the same thing as the rebbitson as the
23:23
Speaker 2: rabbi's wife, and her husband got kicked out of their community.
23:30
Speaker 2: The community was polarized. She ended up suffering a divorce.
23:36
Speaker 2: He ended up moving from England to Florida, where he
23:41
Speaker 2: started a new synagogue. Very very interesting how her personal
23:49
Speaker 2: story connected with whether there were so many parallels between
23:55
Speaker 2: her personal story in this novel. I wrote knowing nothing
24:01
Speaker 2: about her circumstances, and really I didn't know accurately what
24:08
Speaker 2: really happened in Tacoma, Washington because there were so many
24:13
Speaker 2: versions and nobody really talked about it. It was more
24:17
Speaker 2: talking about what to do next, and a lot of platitudes.
24:23
Speaker 2: But I recommend the book if you like humor and
24:26
Speaker 2: satire and you want to read a book. I mean,
24:30
Speaker 2: for some people it is triggering. For victims of sexual harassment.
24:35
Speaker 2: It can be a triggering book, I'm told, and for
24:40
Speaker 2: ultra orthodox people they are not going to probably like
24:44
Speaker 2: it at all.
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Speaker 1: And the lesson that's learned in your story, in that story,
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Speaker 1: and in many of these stories, and it doesn't matter
24:53
Speaker 1: whether the person, whatever faith the person might be, is
24:56
Speaker 1: if you have a spiritual leader, take the teach embrace
25:01
Speaker 1: the teachings, but you don't have to embrace the person.
25:03
Speaker 1: And that's something that a lot of people learn the
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Speaker 1: hard way. Unfortunately.
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Speaker 2: Well you've said that, really really well. Sometimes we put
25:12
Speaker 2: so much faith into a spiritual leader and we forget
25:18
Speaker 2: that they're human and subject to all the mistakes and
25:22
Speaker 2: frailties the same as everyone else, and we're shocked when
25:29
Speaker 2: something happens because we put them on a pedestal, we
25:33
Speaker 2: put them on another level. And the bottom line is priests, rabbis, ministers, reverends,
25:42
Speaker 2: we're all on the same level as everybody else.
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Speaker 1: Absolutely, my guest, Andy Becker, we're going to be talking
25:51
Speaker 1: about his book, The Spiritual Gardener, Insights from the Jewish
25:55
Speaker 1: Tradition to help your garden grow. Andy, please share with
25:58
Speaker 1: our listeners where they can find out more about you
26:00
Speaker 1: and get all of your wonderful books.
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Speaker 2: Thank you so much. So I'm available on any of
26:06
Speaker 2: your internet favorite bookstores. Independent bookstores can also clearly order
26:13
Speaker 2: any of my books. You know there's that biamth. Amazon
26:17
Speaker 2: can get you my book within like a day or two,
26:21
Speaker 2: so I'm certainly there, and they have a nice feature
26:25
Speaker 2: where you can look inside the book and read a
26:28
Speaker 2: chapter two, or read about the book and read reviews.
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Speaker 2: And then I also have an author website. Andy Becker
26:35
Speaker 2: dot life. So that's Andy A and d Y Becker
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Speaker 2: b E C K E R period L I F
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Speaker 2: E Andy Becker dot life, and I'm happy to send
26:48
Speaker 2: you a book or many copies of the books. Three
26:53
Speaker 2: of my books, the Spiritual Gardens series, which are about
26:58
Speaker 2: growing vegetables, growing and planting trees, and caring for our forests,
27:04
Speaker 2: and then aging, getting older and growing grandchildren. The Spiritual
27:10
Speaker 2: Garden Series. On my website, you can get all three
27:14
Speaker 2: for fifty smackers, so that's a bit of a discount,
27:18
Speaker 2: and I throw in free shipping on that. I also
27:22
Speaker 2: pay the tax wonderful, so it's a real If you
27:27
Speaker 2: buy all three, it's a real special deal. But there's
27:31
Speaker 2: other good things on my website. I have a Spiritual
27:34
Speaker 2: Sparts newsletter. It comes out very sporadically, but you can
27:38
Speaker 2: sign up for that that's free. I've got some vlogs.
27:42
Speaker 2: I didn't know what a vlog was. I kind of
27:45
Speaker 2: knew what a blog was, but I didn't know what
27:47
Speaker 2: a vlog was until I started writing books. Well, a
27:52
Speaker 2: vlog is a video blog, and if you click around
27:57
Speaker 2: on my website you'll see that there are some video
28:00
Speaker 2: blogs that are short but entertaining about spiritual ideas in
28:08
Speaker 2: relation to gardening.
28:09
Speaker 1: Absolutely, and we'll be back with moral Bandy after these words.
28:13
Speaker 1: On the Own Times Radio network.
28:16
Speaker 3: The cutting edge of Conscious Radio Home Times Radio IOMFM.
28:21
Speaker 3: Ome Times Magazine is one of the leading online content
28:24
Speaker 3: providers of positivity, wellness and personal empowerment. A philanthropic organization,
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28:48
Speaker 1: Back on Vox Novis. My guest this week is Andy Becker.
28:51
Speaker 1: We're talking about his book The Spiritual Gardener, Insights from
28:56
Speaker 1: the Jewish Tradition To Help Your Garden Grow. Andy, what
29:00
Speaker 1: inspired this book?
29:03
Speaker 2: What inspired this book is just wanting to share how
29:07
Speaker 2: much fun I've had gardening and all of the different
29:12
Speaker 2: aspects of it. Sometimes you're a genius in the garden
29:17
Speaker 2: and sometimes you're an absolute fool. But the bottom line
29:21
Speaker 2: is you can plant the seeds, but it's really nature
29:27
Speaker 2: or God or whatever you want to call it, that
29:31
Speaker 2: is the creator and you're getting to participate in creation
29:37
Speaker 2: when you take a little piece of land and you're
29:42
Speaker 2: just trying to turn it into something beautiful. As a gardener,
29:47
Speaker 2: I can guarantee you that if you grow strawberries, if
29:51
Speaker 2: you're in a region where strawberries grow, that first perfectly
29:57
Speaker 2: ripe strawberry that you pick in spring is going to
30:02
Speaker 2: be so delicious and so wonderful. It's going to beat
30:08
Speaker 2: to the nines anything you could buy in a store,
30:12
Speaker 2: even though the stores are getting better at you know,
30:16
Speaker 2: selling fruit. Fruit represents luxury on a spiritual basis. I mean,
30:23
Speaker 2: if God wanted us just to toil, you know, we
30:27
Speaker 2: could just eat our bowl of mush in the morning,
30:30
Speaker 2: work all day home, and eat another bowl of mush.
30:33
Speaker 2: But you know that Hasidic philosophy is God also wants
30:37
Speaker 2: us to enjoy life. And that's what fruit is all about.
30:42
Speaker 2: If you have your own garden, you're growing a cucumber,
30:45
Speaker 2: a tomato, whatever it may be. I mean, right now
30:50
Speaker 2: is a good time to plant the peas, the radish,
30:53
Speaker 2: the beats, the spinach. It's going to taste so good
30:57
Speaker 2: when you get to harvest it. You get to harvest
31:02
Speaker 2: and you're successful in the gardening, because nothing's guaranteed when
31:09
Speaker 2: you're planning the seeds. You get better at it as
31:12
Speaker 2: time goes on, but every year has its successes and
31:16
Speaker 2: failures guaranteed. So I just wanted to share the gardening
31:23
Speaker 2: experiences that I've enjoyed over the years. I think it's
31:29
Speaker 2: a great way to lessen your environmental footprint. I think
31:35
Speaker 2: it's a great way to really enjoy your family and friends.
31:40
Speaker 2: You're always going to grow something where it's way more
31:45
Speaker 2: than you can eat that summer, and it's such a
31:48
Speaker 2: fun thing to bring some vegetables to the office, to
31:54
Speaker 2: your family, to your grandchildren, just growing, growing a garden.
32:01
Speaker 2: I mean, it's just it's just the best. So that's
32:04
Speaker 2: really the motivation for writing The Spiritual Gardener.
32:08
Speaker 1: You begin every chapter with quotes and sayings of wisdom.
32:13
Speaker 1: Is there one that particularly stands out for you?
32:17
Speaker 2: I like them all. There there is one from a
32:22
Speaker 2: rabbi whose name is Benzekai. He was a spiritual leader
32:29
Speaker 2: at the time of the destruction of the Second Temple
32:32
Speaker 2: in Jerusalem. He was such an important rabbi that during
32:37
Speaker 2: the siege of the city, he was actually smuggled out
32:42
Speaker 2: by his disciples and a coffin. That's how they got
32:45
Speaker 2: him out of the city and so he could survive.
32:48
Speaker 2: He was very instrumental later in Talmudic thought. But he
32:54
Speaker 2: had a saying, Rabbi Benzekai for listeners, Yuchanan would be
33:01
Speaker 2: like Jonathan, ben would be son of Zakai would be
33:04
Speaker 2: like Zachary's. So Rabai Yokin Benzakai used to say, if
33:09
Speaker 2: you have a sapling in your hand and someone says,
33:13
Speaker 2: come quick, oshiak the Messiah has come, first plant the sapling,
33:19
Speaker 2: and then go and meet the Messiah. In other words,
33:25
Speaker 2: there are two really important thoughts here. First is planting.
33:30
Speaker 2: Planting a sapling, Caring about the future, that's a blessing.
33:35
Speaker 2: That's a mitzvah. That's a good deed. Planting is a
33:40
Speaker 2: good deed. Caring for the earth is a blessing. But
33:44
Speaker 2: more than that, more than that, even if someone says, hey,
33:49
Speaker 2: come and meet the Messiah. First, stay on task. Don't
33:55
Speaker 2: get distracted from the trumpets blair of the latest headline.
34:00
Speaker 2: Don't get distracted by politics. Pay attention to what's going
34:05
Speaker 2: on in the world. By all means, I'm not saying
34:08
Speaker 2: to you know, bury your head in the sand. Pay attention.
34:12
Speaker 2: But if you're in the midst of doing a blessing,
34:15
Speaker 2: of doing a good deed, maybe you're caring for little grandchildren,
34:20
Speaker 2: maybe you're doing your job, which is helping other people.
34:24
Speaker 2: Whatever your mitzvah is, whatever your blessing is, whatever your
34:30
Speaker 2: good deed is, don't get distracted. Complete the task at hand.
34:35
Speaker 2: And I love that particular quote. But all of these epigraphs,
34:41
Speaker 2: you know, I have quotes from the Balshemto to Groucho
34:45
Speaker 2: Marx in that book, and they're all they're all really
34:48
Speaker 2: good meditative ideas. I do the same thing in the
34:54
Speaker 2: two other books in the Spiritual Garden series, The Spiritual Forest,
34:58
Speaker 2: and then the aging book Grand Let's Play. I think
35:03
Speaker 2: of the three, the most meditative of the three is
35:08
Speaker 2: probably my book about trees, The Spiritual Forest. But I
35:14
Speaker 2: love all of the epigraphs. Epigraphs for people who don't
35:19
Speaker 2: know it, just you know, quotes from famous holy people,
35:23
Speaker 2: or from the Bible or the Talmud, all sorts of people.
35:29
Speaker 2: And each chapter has a as a snappy little quote
35:32
Speaker 2: from somebody that's juicy and worth thinking about.
35:36
Speaker 1: We can also call those aphorisms. Yes, So in essence,
35:43
Speaker 1: what you're doing is you're turning the act of gardening
35:46
Speaker 1: truly into a deeply spiritual experience.
35:51
Speaker 2: Well, it is a deeply spiritual experience. I mean, every
35:55
Speaker 2: piece of ground is holy ground. If you think about it,
35:59
Speaker 2: your take an unused piece of the area of dirt
36:05
Speaker 2: and you're breathing life into it. Not because you have
36:09
Speaker 2: the power of creation, but you have the power of
36:13
Speaker 2: participating in creation. You have the power of making something
36:18
Speaker 2: that is mundane into something beautiful.
36:23
Speaker 1: This is actually co creation, correct, undred percent co creation.
36:29
Speaker 1: And as my spiritual teacher used to say, when Adam
36:33
Speaker 1: and Eve lost their garden, they went out into the world,
36:36
Speaker 1: had to garden again. But the God said to them,
36:40
Speaker 1: from this point forward, I do nothing without you, meaning
36:44
Speaker 1: we co create together.
36:46
Speaker 2: I love how you've said that, well stated, thank you.
36:49
Speaker 1: Thank you. Are there specific prayers for the planting of
36:53
Speaker 1: a garden.
36:54
Speaker 2: Well, there are specific prayers, but you don't need a
36:58
Speaker 2: specific prayer. I mean there are prayers in Judaism for
37:03
Speaker 2: first fruits. You know, we we have different holidays where
37:11
Speaker 2: based on our you know, our tradition, our agrarian society,
37:18
Speaker 2: we did have prayers and in fact, in the spiritual forest,
37:23
Speaker 2: I do have a prayer for you know when the
37:28
Speaker 2: when the the time of Tuba spot, which is the
37:34
Speaker 2: holiday when the trees go from being you know, at
37:39
Speaker 2: rest to their sat moving again. But there are blessings
37:46
Speaker 2: of a fruit tree for sure, and that's in the
37:50
Speaker 2: in the tree book you you will find a specific blessing.
37:55
Speaker 2: There's also a prayer before you eat vegetables and fruits.
38:01
Speaker 2: We also have a big holiday coming up for those
38:05
Speaker 2: of us who are Jewish called Pesot Passover, which is
38:12
Speaker 2: the Satyr table where we are commanded to tell the
38:17
Speaker 2: story of Passover, tell the story of our enslavement and
38:22
Speaker 2: our liberation, tell the story of our receipt of the
38:26
Speaker 2: ten Commandments, and the story of Moses Moshe Rabenu. And
38:34
Speaker 2: certainly we have prayers every step of the way. Blessings
38:39
Speaker 2: for the four cups of wine, blessings for the vegetables
38:45
Speaker 2: for sure, and the bitter herbs. I would like to
38:49
Speaker 2: share it with Passover in mind my chapter in the
38:53
Speaker 2: Gardening book about horseradish. Please that okay, thank you? Yeah,
38:58
Speaker 2: So I wrote a chapter on horse radish. I had
39:03
Speaker 2: the experience of being presented a little horse radish plant
39:08
Speaker 2: in a plastic baggie from my wife whose friend at
39:14
Speaker 2: book club said, give this to Andy, have them planted.
39:17
Speaker 2: It's horse radish. So I planted Victor and it grew
39:23
Speaker 2: and grew like you can't believe. It has kind of
39:28
Speaker 2: like tropical looking giant leaves. And then it started popping
39:34
Speaker 2: up in different places in the garden. And it actually
39:41
Speaker 2: was a big lesson for me because horse radish doesn't
39:45
Speaker 2: just grow a tap root. It grows horizontal roots. So
39:49
Speaker 2: if you don't confine the horse radish, your beautiful garden
39:52
Speaker 2: is going to turn into a horse radish farm. It
39:55
Speaker 2: took me literally several years to dig up the horse
40:00
Speaker 2: radish and get it out of there, because it just
40:04
Speaker 2: kept popping up new places and I didn't want it
40:07
Speaker 2: to take over. If I'd left it alone, i'd have
40:11
Speaker 2: a horse radish farm to this day. When I did
40:15
Speaker 2: dig up the horse radish, I found that just with
40:18
Speaker 2: a potato peel or a carrot peeler, you know, you
40:21
Speaker 2: could clean your horse radish peel off all the dirt,
40:26
Speaker 2: put it in a blender or a queison art or
40:29
Speaker 2: a ninja of some sort, grind it up. I like
40:33
Speaker 2: to throw in a purple beat. Maybe you put in
40:36
Speaker 2: a little water, a little vinegar. That's the taste, and tada,
40:42
Speaker 2: you have the most beautiful horse radish condiment. Now, if
40:46
Speaker 2: you're going to make horse radish like I do, this
40:49
Speaker 2: is what I would say. Number one, Where you grow
40:52
Speaker 2: your horse radish. You have to grow it somewhere where
40:56
Speaker 2: you can confine it. Maybe you have an area between
41:01
Speaker 2: the house and a walkway with sandy soil and a
41:04
Speaker 2: lot of sun. That would be perfect. But when you
41:08
Speaker 2: make your horse radish, I recommend you wear some gloves.
41:13
Speaker 2: You don't touch your eyes, you don't touch your nose,
41:16
Speaker 2: and you open all the windows. It's easy to make,
41:22
Speaker 2: and then you just put it in a jar. You
41:23
Speaker 2: can freeze it. I'll tell you it's the most unusual
41:27
Speaker 2: gift to give to a neighbor, friend, a relative. One
41:32
Speaker 2: little jar, one little jar of that stuff is powerful
41:36
Speaker 2: and it can last a whole year as a present. Now,
41:40
Speaker 2: what does horse radish represent on a spiritual level? Well,
41:45
Speaker 2: if you've been to a sadar and you're of my generation,
41:50
Speaker 2: you might remember the grandparents would eat white raw horse
41:56
Speaker 2: radish with the passover satar horse radish, and I remember
42:02
Speaker 2: the tears coming down the cheeks of my grandparents, and
42:07
Speaker 2: then I remember the great aunts and uncles. The kids
42:10
Speaker 2: didn't have to do it, and my parents they would.
42:14
Speaker 2: They would eat the horse radish that was diluted, you know,
42:19
Speaker 2: with the beats and stuff. But that first generation of
42:24
Speaker 2: immigrant grandparents and uncles and great uncles and aunts, they
42:30
Speaker 2: would eat the raw horse radish. The tears would come
42:33
Speaker 2: down and then there would be a tremendous amount of
42:36
Speaker 2: nose blowing that would last for a while. But this
42:41
Speaker 2: was a tradition in the in the Becker Goldberg household
42:47
Speaker 2: where I grew up, for our Passover Satyrs at my
42:52
Speaker 2: grandparents' house, which is where it happened every year and
42:56
Speaker 2: year out. So horse radish represents bitterness. This is what
43:03
Speaker 2: I would say about bitterness on a spiritual level. We're all,
43:09
Speaker 2: as part of the human condition, going to have bitter times.
43:13
Speaker 2: It could be with a boss, with an employee, with
43:16
Speaker 2: a coworker that you don't get along with, and things
43:19
Speaker 2: escalate and become bitter. Maybe God forbid, there's a family
43:25
Speaker 2: member with whom you're just banging heads, banging heads against
43:30
Speaker 2: the law, and relations deteriorate. It's part of the human
43:37
Speaker 2: condition to have bitter things in our human relationships. They're
43:44
Speaker 2: going to happen from time to time. Well, what's the lesson,
43:49
Speaker 2: what's the lesson from worse radish? When we have bitterness
43:53
Speaker 2: in our lives, we have to confine it. We can't
43:57
Speaker 2: let it it leach from one relation relationship to another.
44:01
Speaker 2: If we have a bitter something with somebody, that doesn't
44:06
Speaker 2: mean it has to grow to that whole person's acquaintances, family, friends,
44:13
Speaker 2: and so forth. You know, we have to confine the bitterness.
44:18
Speaker 2: And Judaism does that. When we deal with the bitterness
44:22
Speaker 2: and the tears of slavery which we experienced for four
44:27
Speaker 2: hundred years in Egypt, we do it two nights out
44:31
Speaker 2: of the year. We don't perseverate on it every day
44:36
Speaker 2: of every month. We confine it to the passover time.
44:42
Speaker 2: In Judaism, we certainly have you know, a young kipper
44:49
Speaker 2: where we go through a full day of confessional prayers,
44:55
Speaker 2: where we can you know, rebirth our spiritctual level, raise
45:02
Speaker 2: our spiritual level, refine ourselves and let go of the
45:06
Speaker 2: bitterness of the past year. The Sabbath, the shap is
45:12
Speaker 2: a wonderful time for contemplation to confine the bitterness that
45:18
Speaker 2: we suffer from time to time in our daily lives.
45:22
Speaker 2: So I wrote, I wrote a chapter in The Spiritual Gardener.
45:27
Speaker 2: It was kind of a surprise for me to actually
45:31
Speaker 2: grow horse radish and make horse ratish. But you know
45:35
Speaker 2: the thing about bitterness in our lives, it also enhances
45:39
Speaker 2: what is sweet, what is beautiful in our lives.
45:43
Speaker 1: Absolutely. My guest is Andy Becker, his book The Spiritual Gardener.
45:48
Speaker 1: Insights from the Jewish Tradition to help your Garden Grow.
45:52
Speaker 1: We'll be back with more after these words on the
45:54
Speaker 1: Old Times Radio Network.
45:57
Speaker 4: Humanity Healing International is a small nonpropum with a big dream.
46:01
Speaker 4: Since two thousand and seven, HHI has been working tirelessly
46:06
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46:17
Speaker 4: and that someone cares to learn more. Please visit Humanityhealing
46:22
Speaker 4: dot org. Humanity Healing is where your Heart is.
46:27
Speaker 1: Back on Vox Novus. My guest this week Andy Becker,
46:30
Speaker 1: his book The Spiritual Gardener. Insights from the Jewish Tradition
46:35
Speaker 1: to help your Garden Grow. And do you share a
46:38
Speaker 1: wonderful story about rabbits invading your garden and your thoughtful
46:43
Speaker 1: approach to this, please give us a little taste of that.
46:46
Speaker 2: Well, thank you so much. Where I'm living, for some reason,
46:50
Speaker 2: it was like an epidemic, a population explosion, like you
46:55
Speaker 2: can't believe bunnies one year and you'd go out and
46:58
Speaker 2: look at your string bead seedlings and they'd all be
47:03
Speaker 2: in a row, but they'd be missing all their leaves.
47:06
Speaker 2: They'd be chopped down, like clear cutting of forest. So,
47:11
Speaker 2: rather than being like mister McGregor and wanting to shoot
47:16
Speaker 2: all the bunnies, I came up with some self help
47:23
Speaker 2: of making frames with the cheapest wood I could find,
47:28
Speaker 2: basically making squares that I could lift off and lift
47:33
Speaker 2: on onto my raised garden beds, using bird netting just
47:37
Speaker 2: around the stapling the bird netting to the frames. But
47:42
Speaker 2: until I came up with that solution, I was so
47:48
Speaker 2: angry at the bunnies because they were, you know, eat
47:54
Speaker 2: eating everything. You know, I'd done the weeding, I'd done
47:57
Speaker 2: the seeding, I'd done the watering, and more weeding and
48:00
Speaker 2: more growing, and then here comes this army of cute
48:05
Speaker 2: little rabbits. Typically when I'm you know, in the house
48:11
Speaker 2: or it's dark, or snoozing on my pillow for the
48:16
Speaker 2: night and coming out and seeing all your labors for
48:21
Speaker 2: not well. On a spiritual level, it's important whether it's
48:26
Speaker 2: bunnies or deer or things that creep and crawl in
48:31
Speaker 2: the night. All those bugs and insects, I mean, they're
48:35
Speaker 2: all doing their job. There's a quote in the book
48:38
Speaker 2: by the Balshevto about how man shouldn't be so arrogant,
48:44
Speaker 2: and how we were, you know, last in creation. How
48:49
Speaker 2: the little worm or the little gnat or insect is
48:53
Speaker 2: perfectly doing its job to one hundred percent of its capacity,
48:58
Speaker 2: while we human beings are, you know, far less in
49:04
Speaker 2: our ability to fulfill our capacity. So that's that's an
49:11
Speaker 2: insight about the damn wabbits. Let me talk a little
49:16
Speaker 2: bit about about seeds. Some seeds are of no interest
49:22
Speaker 2: to the insects and pests and birds and bundies where
49:27
Speaker 2: you live, So why not grow those plants and grow
49:33
Speaker 2: them successfully. There's a kind of green lettuce that I
49:39
Speaker 2: have given up trying to grow, but I can grow
49:44
Speaker 2: red lettuce and nothing bothers it. It's rather amazing. Seeds
49:50
Speaker 2: represent I like to talk about seeds too, if I may,
49:55
Speaker 2: because seeds on a spiritual level represent potential, and it's
50:01
Speaker 2: amazing how seeds have this hard shell and under the
50:08
Speaker 2: right conditions that shell disintegrates. It's like every single seed
50:13
Speaker 2: you plant is its own little miracle. It's a concept
50:18
Speaker 2: and spirituality called nullification that the human being is very
50:23
Speaker 2: egocentric and always thinking of him or herself, So we
50:29
Speaker 2: have to nullify ourselves to some degree to think of others. Well,
50:34
Speaker 2: that's what a seed does. A seed nullifies itself to
50:38
Speaker 2: grow a root, to grow a stem, to grow leaves,
50:42
Speaker 2: and then to pop up out of the ground and
50:46
Speaker 2: reach for the light. And that's the concept of nullification.
50:53
Speaker 2: It leaves that shell behind to fulfill its potential. And
50:59
Speaker 2: as human being, we want to ask ourselves, how do
51:01
Speaker 2: we fulfill our potential? And it's even a bigger question
51:06
Speaker 2: than that Victor. If we were born into a perfect world,
51:11
Speaker 2: if we were born in gon Eden, the garden of Eden,
51:15
Speaker 2: how is it that humanity finds itself in its current predicament?
51:21
Speaker 2: We have miles of islands of garbage floating in our oceans?
51:27
Speaker 2: Is that what God intended? We have deforestation, pestilence, we
51:33
Speaker 2: have starvation, we have war, we have cruelty. How do
51:38
Speaker 2: we reverse this trend? If we find ourselves in our
51:43
Speaker 2: current situation after being born into a perfect world, how
51:49
Speaker 2: do we change the trajectory to head back in that direction?
51:54
Speaker 2: Because the direction we're going in now is not very sustainable.
51:59
Speaker 2: I think we can all agree we're not happy about
52:02
Speaker 2: that as a human race. So let's reverse the trend.
52:06
Speaker 2: So I'm suggesting in my writings, for example, the spiritual gardener,
52:13
Speaker 2: maybe maybe just growing some basic food is a step
52:21
Speaker 2: in the right direction. Maybe planting trees. Of course, we
52:25
Speaker 2: always want to plant the right tree at the right time,
52:29
Speaker 2: in the right place. Maybe planting trees and maybe really
52:35
Speaker 2: giving love and attention to the next generation, to our grandchildren,
52:40
Speaker 2: is the way to do that. There's that wonderful story
52:44
Speaker 2: in the Talmud about the carab tree, and I'm sure
52:48
Speaker 2: you're familiar with it, Victor, but it always bears repeating.
52:53
Speaker 2: There's the oldster. There's a senior citizen planting a carab tree,
53:00
Speaker 2: and the young man comes by and he says, is
53:04
Speaker 2: that a crab tree? And the old man says yes,
53:08
Speaker 2: And the young man says, well, doesn't it take seventy
53:11
Speaker 2: years or yeah, doesn't it take seventy years for a
53:16
Speaker 2: carab tree to bear fruit? And the old man says
53:20
Speaker 2: that's true. And the young man says, well, sir, is
53:26
Speaker 2: your health so good that you expect to live another
53:30
Speaker 2: seventy years? And the man says, just as my ancestors
53:37
Speaker 2: plant it for me, I'm planting for my children and
53:41
Speaker 2: their children, my grandchildren and my great grandchildren. And I
53:48
Speaker 2: love that story about the carab tree comes straight from me.
53:53
Speaker 2: It's not. My story comes from the Talmud. Caring for
53:58
Speaker 2: our grandchildren, Caring for our children is about caring for
54:04
Speaker 2: the future. Planting trees is about caring for the future.
54:11
Speaker 2: Lessening our environmental footprint is about caring for the future.
54:18
Speaker 2: And these are all things that we can do on
54:21
Speaker 2: a daily basis. There are blessings and misas just right there,
54:28
Speaker 2: right there for us to enjoy. And when you plant
54:31
Speaker 2: a garden, you plant the tree, you spend time with
54:36
Speaker 2: your family. It is all about caring and love. And
54:43
Speaker 2: at the end of the day, Victor, isn't that what
54:46
Speaker 2: it's all about?
54:47
Speaker 1: May all the seeds we plant be seeds of love.
54:51
Speaker 1: My guest, Andy Becker, has book The spiritual gardener insights
54:56
Speaker 1: from the Jewish tradition to grow. Help your garden grow
55:00
Speaker 1: one more time. Please share with our listeners when it
55:02
Speaker 1: can get all of your books and your amazing wisdom.
55:05
Speaker 2: Thank you so much. I don't know how amazing it is.
55:08
Speaker 2: It's all been there for thousands of years within our reach.
55:12
Speaker 2: But feel free to check out my author website, Andy
55:15
Speaker 2: Becker dot Life and Dybcker period l FE or Amazon
55:23
Speaker 2: or any other internet bookstore that you may enjoy. Thank
55:27
Speaker 2: you so much, Victor.
55:28
Speaker 1: And when you go to Andy's website, you can get
55:31
Speaker 1: the collection of his books plus some extras for a
55:34
Speaker 1: very special price. Is that correct?
55:36
Speaker 2: If you want to buy three books which comprise the
55:40
Speaker 2: Spiritual Garden series, you can get all three for fifty
55:45
Speaker 2: smackers plus all pay the tax, plus I will provide
55:50
Speaker 2: free shipping.
55:51
Speaker 1: What a deal, What a deal. That's wonderful Andy, to
55:54
Speaker 1: you and your family and to everyone out there. As
55:58
Speaker 1: my Yiddish of Booby grandmother used to say, seats in paysak.
56:03
Speaker 1: May you have a sweet passover, O.
56:06
Speaker 2: Good, have a good yantif a pleasant yont a fine yantiff,
56:11
Speaker 2: and don't forget four cups of wine not those little
56:14
Speaker 2: tiny glasses. Come on for four for real glasses of wine.
56:20
Speaker 1: And thank you for joining us on Vox Novus. I'm
56:23
Speaker 1: Victor la Voice Ferman. Have a wonderful week.