It is six-thirty in the morning, and I am about to kill a goat – literally.
Wait, let’s back up. Four months ago, I was doing what every nice, suburban, Jewish girl with a theater degree does: living with her parents.

I was the type of person who would spend twenty minutes trying to “free” a spider with a piece of printer paper and a cup. Yet I really had no idea, and no interest in, where my meat came from. Sure, I was vaguely aware that my steak was at one point part of a cow, but, like most of us, I had never really considered the ramifications of that fact. Animal farming sounded so sterile, like the steaks grew neatly on a vine, already shrink-wrapped and ready for the supermarket. So even as I sat nervously on my suitcase in the kitchen, just one day before I was scheduled to move to an organic farm in Connecticut, I could never have imagined going to an organic farm.

I was accepted as an Adamah (earth) fellow for a program in sustainable organic farming, Jewish study, and leadership at the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center, in Connecticut. Shortly before graduating from college, when I first stumbled across the program online, I had no doubt that this was how I wanted to give back to the world which had offered me so many opportunities.

I grew up extremely Reform (Jewishly), but I had unearthed a passion for the Conservative movement in college. Although I still was confused and felt alienated by many of the unfamiliar customs, my Jewish identity was waking up. My secular drive to improve the world around me was becoming intertwined with my new desire for tikkun olam, spiritual healing of the world. I asked myself, what better way to help heal the earth than to actually put my hands in the dirt? I already liked gardening; I had taken one course in vegetable gardening and grew a few potted hot peppers that would take the roof of your mouth off. I applied to become a fellow immediately.

Fast forward to several months later, perched on a suitcase stuffed with long underwear and wool socks, and it occurred to me that my previous experience with gardening was a ridiculous comparison. How could a few summer months of tending a couple of peppers in synthetic soil possibly prepare me for five acres of mixed vegetables? Just how big was an acre, anyway? And could someone who skipped classes to avoid walking ten minutes in the snow really handle peeling frozen dirt off of scallions for hours at a time?

Now, on the second-to-last day of my Adamah fellowship, I reflect on that anxiety I felt with amusement. I have hauled wheelbarrows full of manure, harvested squash larger than my torso, and developed an intricate glove-and-mitten layering system for chilly days. But, as the goats arrive for the slaughter on this frozen December morning, what touches me most about my time here is the importance of community. I am indescribably grateful for the reassuring presence of my roommate, Shoshanna, who will experience this life-changing moment with me.

Of course, neither of us will actually slaughter a goat ourselves. This is a shecht, a ritual kosher slaughter, and the actual cut must be made by a shochet, a man trained to honor the life of the animal even as he ends it. However, as I hold a small white goat by the collar in a wire-mesh impromptu pen, I feel as much a part of this action as the shochet himself does.

About fifty people come to view the slaughter. The air is thick with our silence, and caution. The mashgiach, whose job it is to ensure that the laws of kashrut are observed, raises one hand. He explains what we are about to see, and he does so, he runs his fingernail up and down the blade of the knife, ensuring it is sharp enough to sever the jugular and the trachea in a single side-to-side movement. There is a pause as the goat I tended to is walked over to a large bench.

Why, I wonder, am I watching this so avidly? Why, at my final chance to turn away, am I more convinced than ever that this is something I need to see? Over the past four months, I have learned so much about where the rest of my food comes from. I have produced my own vegetables, from planting to the plate; I have made and eaten cheese from the milk of our goats. In the process of connecting to my food, I became more connected to those around me and to my Jewish identity. This is a connection that is inherent in Judaism, but one from which I, as a city-dweller, had been estranged from. The first Hebrew name for man is adam, and he is that which comes from adam-ah, the earth! I am created and sustained by the earth every single day of my life, every time I breathe or take a bite. And so I learned that, for me, being a Jew is not something I do on Friday nights or on Yom Kippur, but something that I do each time I sustain myself, each time I choose to live; it is something that I intrinsically am.

The shochet picks up the knife. I am ready. I want to internalize the impact of my consumption on my body, my spirit, and my community. The goat is laid out on its side so that it cannot flinch into the blade. In almost a single movement, the shochet steps forward, places the blade, makes one sawing motion, and steps back again. All of the blood in the animal seems to drop from the cut instantly. The body spasms several times, in odd, jerky movements the elegant animal would never have made while alive, and then falls limp. I blink. Then I realize I am squeezing Shoshanna and crying. She is crying too, both of us silently, neither of us imagining that words would suffice.

Tonight we will eat the goat. By that time I will have also seen it hung and gutted; I will have removed its head; I will have watched the shochet hold the lungs in his hand and declare it kosher. More than that, when I sit down to eat, I will experience the pain, and the joy, of knowing exactly the sacrifice that was made for me to have this meal. I could not have begun to guess I would feel this kind of emotion, and connectedness four months ago. Shoshanna will swear that the moment she forgets to honor every piece of meat the way she honors this goat, she will stop eating it entirely. Another participant will already become a vegetarian. Yet when we bless our food together, we will all be powerfully moved to recite shehechyanu, praising something we have enjoyed; for when I eat this goat with so many other Jews experiencing the same ambivalence, we will sustain one clear emotion above the turmoil — gratitude. Real gratitude for our food affirms the sanctity of all life, including our own. So to always remind myself of this moment of tikkun olam, I will continue to eat meat. And, without irony, I will still rescue spiders.