Tag Archives: halakha

The Biscuit, the Cream, and the Talmud

Mitzvot, Observant Jewish lifestyle,

Dear Josep,

When you were here last December, you stopped at a candy store at the Mahane Yehuda shuk (open air market) in Jerusalem and asked the shopkeeper to recommend something to buy for my kids. He gave you a box of something, and told you they were very popular in the winter. The type of sweet he gave you is called a Krembo (a Hebrew contraction literally meaning “cream in it”). They consist of a round cookie, upon which is a pile of marshmallow cream (usually vanilla, but other flavors are available too, like mocha and banana), coated in a kind of waxy chocolate:

"Schaumkuss-1" by Rainer Z ... 18:49, 19 April 2008 (UTC) - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
“Schaumkuss-1” by Rainer Z … 18:49, 19 April 2008 (UTC) – Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

They exist in other countries, but usually with real milk cream, as opposed to the dairy-free Israeli version. (The one pictured above is German, I believe.) Why dairy-free, you ask? Because that makes them pareve, meaning neither milk nor meat, so they can be eaten as a dessert after a meat meal. (See “Jew Food, Part III: In Which Things Get Ridiculously Complicated” 😛 ) So desserts that are pareve are more widely sold and consumed than dairy ones, and I guess the Israeli manufacturers decided it would be more profitable. The storekeeper was correct: Krembos are indeed considered the Israeli winter-season answer to ice cream. (This is completely unfathomable to me. Why should there be any need whatsoever for a winter replacement for ice cream?! I’ll eat it anytime!)

So, there happens to be a very silly song by a well known dati leumi (religious Zionist) artist, Aaron Razel, about the Krembo. Well, actually, it’s not really about the Krembo; it’s about Talmudic logic. You see…. we are perfectly aware that sometimes the intricate details of deliberation involved in deciphering Jewish law can seem a little ridiculous. The adjective “Talmudic” has two definitions in the English dictionary, the first being, of course, “of or relating to the Talmud,” and the second: “characterized by or making extremely fine distinctions; overly detailed or subtle; hairsplitting.” (Both from Dictionary.com.)

As mentioned in The Great Post of Jewish Conspiracies, Jews have always excelled at making light of themselves, and Aaron Razel–who studied at the same yeshiva as Eitan, by the way–does just that in this song. The lyrics were adapted from an actual correspondence between a religious Jew and a rabbi, that Razel read in a Sabbath newsletter. He was tickled by the poetic quality of the question and answer, and decided to set it to music. Here is the silly music video, and my translation of the lyrics below.

The Biscuit and the Cream (also known as “The Krembo Song”)

[Spoken:] Hello? Hello? I have a question… I have a halakhic question. May I?

[The question:]

Regarding the Krembo
Which is commonly eaten
In winter, on the bottom,
It has a round biscuit
Upon which the cream rests…
The cream and the biscuit,
Are as one unit,
The cream and the biscuit,
The biscuit and the cream

The question is, on the Sabbath
The question is, on the Sabbath
If one does not like
Or does not want for whatever reason
To eat the biscuit,
Would it be permitted to separate it from the cream,
Put it aside,
And eat only the cream?

[Repeat]

[The answer:]

It appears that it is forbidden to separate them,
It appears that it is forbidden to separate them,
It is forbidden to separate them,
Despite the fact that they are as one piece,
For practically speaking,
They are like two types of food.
But if
He separates the biscuit
From the cream
In a way that makes it clear
That the biscuit will be left
With a little cream,
In a way that makes it clear
That the biscuit will be left
With a little cream,
If it is clear,
Then
It will be permitted!
Then, then, then, then
It will be permitted!

[Repeat first verse]

And now you must be wondering: what could possibly be the problem with separating the biscuit from the cream on the Sabbath?!

So here’s where I give some more detail on the prohibitions of the Sabbath! I gave a general explanation about “creative activities” in my post about Shabbat. But how do we know what an “act of creation” is? Which acts are forbidden, and which are permitted? The Oral Law teaches that the Divine commandment to avoid acts of creation on the Sabbath was placed, in the Torah, in close proximity to the instructions for building the Tabernacle, to teach that it is precisely the acts of creation that were necessary to build the Tabernacle that are prohibited on Shabbat. The Sages identify 39 categories of work that are included. The rest of the prohibitions of the Sabbath are derived from those 39 categories. There are also some additional restrictions set in place by the Sages in order to preserve the character of Shabbat and to prevent one from unintentionally transgressing a Torah prohibition (a concept we call “building a fence around the Torah”). I’m not going to list all 39 categories here, because it will probably bore you (though seriously, I never know with you 😛 ), but they include things like: all kinds of field work and food preparation, slaughtering animals and making material from their skins, building, writing, sewing, etc.

“Okay,” says you, “I read that entire paragraph and I still have no idea why there should be a problem to remove the biscuit from the cream of a Krembo on Shabbat!”

Wait for it: one of the 39 categories is “selection.” The original action upon which this was based was the act of sifting or separating the debris from the grain. But the 39 categories are not specific; they are a “template” from which we derive the kinds of actions we are supposed to avoid. So the prohibition of selection doesn’t just mean you’re not allowed to remove the debris from the grain. It means that it is prohibited to remove undesirable items from a mixture–of any kind. (For example, if you have a bowl of raisins and peanuts, and you hate peanuts and only want the raisins, you are not allowed to remove just the peanuts from the bowl. You are, however, allowed to pick out the raisins to eat immediately.)

So coming back to our Krembo, here’s the situation: we have a food item that is a mixture of two types of foods. (If it were one type of food, removing a part of it that was edible might not constitute selection.) Now, if our hypothetical Jew actually liked both the biscuit and the cream, there would be no problem separating the pieces, because both of them would be desirable! But because he dislikes biscuits, the biscuit is undesirable to him, therefore making that action “selection.” So, the rabbi offers a solution: if you separate the pieces in such a way that leaves a little of the desirable part (the cream) on the biscuit, it’s not considered separation, and therefore, it is permissible. Tada!

And there was much rejoicing throughout the land! By Zivya (אני) [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons. Cropped from original image.
And there was great rejoicing throughout the land!
By Zivya (אני) [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons. Cropped from original image.
…

And you thought kashrut was complicated. 😛

This example, conveyed so humorously in the song, gives a good peek into the inner workings of Jewish law…. and demonstrates why religious Jews need rabbis. Very few people could possibly maintain enough knowledge to be able to answer every single question like this that comes up from the most inconsequential situations! Rabbis are “experts” in halakha. A good comparison is how doctors are experts in medicine. In some cases, when you get sick, you don’t need a doctor–you know what to do to take care of yourself. But when you encounter a medical situation you are not familiar with, or that requires some expertise, you go see a doctor–a family physician or general practitioner. If it is something he feels he is not equipped to handle, he will refer you to a specialist–someone with greater expertise in that specific area. That’s exactly how it works in halakha. Sometimes you know enough to answer the question yourself. Sometimes you ask your local rabbi and he can answer for you, and sometimes, if it’s a very complicated issue, he must consult other rabbis who have greater expertise to come up with the answer.

So… scoff as they might at the “hairsplitting” quality of Talmud study, it requires great skill in logical reasoning as well as creativity. No wonder a disproportionate number of the world’s sharpest minds emerged from the nation whose lives revolved around it for more than a thousand years. 🙂

Love,

Daniella

Jewish by Choice: The Ins and Outs of Halakhic Conversion

Conversion, Judaism,

Prefer to listen? This letter was featured on this episode of the Jewish Geography Podcast:

Dear Josep,

So, this blog’s been quite a downer the past couple of weeks. What can I say, it’s that time of year! We are in the midst of the Nine Days, leading up to the fast of Tisha B’Av, and I tend to experience these days as being… I dunno. Things just don’t seem to go right. Everything seems gloomier and more bleak. (…This may explain some things about a conversation we had recently, BTW. 😛 ) I don’t know if other Jews experience it this way.

Anyway, I thought I’d brighten things up a bit with a… less depressing topic 😛 I recently had a discussion with a friend of mine who was adopted as a baby and was raised in a Reform Jewish family in the USA. When she participated in Jewish events at college, she was dismayed to find that the Orthodox Jewish rabbis there welcomed her as a “good friend to the Jews,” but not as an actual Jew. I expressed that I was sorry to hear that she felt they were looking down on her, and described how Orthodox interpretation of Jewish law makes things tricky; that it’s hard to hold the paradox of believing 100% in the authority of Jewish law, but also believing 100% in one’s right to define oneself, and 100% honoring one’s upbringing as a Jew.

She expressed interest in hearing more about the halakha on the matter, and I thought, “I feel a letter to Josep coming on…..” 😉 I did touch, very briefly, on the topic of Orthodox/halakhic conversion to Judaism on my post about the mikveh, but conversion definitely deserves its own letter.

So, let’s take it from the top:

Who Is A Jew by Birth?

This is the subject of much controversy, especially relevant in a country where your eligibility to citizenship depends on whether you are officially defined as a Jew. The Law of Return, which defines who is considered Jewish for Israeli citizenship purposes, is not a halakhic definition. You can become an Israeli citizen if you have a Jewish parent or grandparent, or if you are married to someone who falls under that definition. You cannot become an Israeli citizen if you were born to a Jewish parent or grandparent, but voluntarily changed your religion.

The halakhic definition for a Jew by birth is someone who was born to a Jewish mother. According to halakha, it does not matter if you convert to another religion–once you are Jewish, you are a Jew forever. But in order to be considered a Jew, you must either be born to a Jewish mother, or convert.

While I know it’s not very politically correct, I see it as great wisdom (Divine or rabbinic, whichever you think the law came from) to invest the responsibility of carrying on Jewish heritage specifically in the hands of mothers. You see very clearly in crypto-Jewish families that it was the women who passed on the traditions and raised their children as secret Jews. Think about it: almost all of those strange remnants of Jewish traditions you find in crypto-Jewish families are practices upheld primarily by women. Practices to do with cooking, like checking eggs for blood, burning a small amount of dough when baking bread, separating milk and meat, etc.; sweeping towards the center of the room; lighting Shabbat candles in secret–these are all part of a woman’s domain historically. It is not the only time the Torah acknowledges women as having more of a natural tendency to be faithful to God and the Torah.

This Awesome Stuff Is Mine

There is a cartoon on The Oatmeal called “How to Suck at Your Religion.” While I’m not a particular fan of the condescending attitude or the crude humor, it has some good points, and there is one part that is relevant to our discussion: “This is why I’m a fan of Buddhists and Jews. Their attitude is more like ‘I’m Jewish and this s*** is awesome. I don’t give a raging crap if you’re joining or not. In fact, you’re not allowed in. This awesome s*** is mine.’”

LOL. Well, some might feel the opposite about the exact same thing, and claim that we are elitist snobs who think we are in some kind of special club that nobody can join. But that’s not true. You can join. We just don’t see any reason you should. 😛 We believe that all nations and religions have their own place in the world and their own special mission, and we have no problem with them as long as they observe the 7 Noahide Laws, which are the most basic laws of moral conduct (banning murder, sexual immorality, cruelty to animals, theft, idolatry, and cursing God, and requiring establishing a justice system to uphold the previous six). We don’t believe that keeping the Torah and all the obligations required of us as Jews is relevant to most of humanity, and we don’t think it makes sense to take on all these extra obligations when they are not required of you. Moreover, we’d rather not make someone into a Jew, only to have him not keep the Torah. So unlike the other major religions, we do not actively encourage conversion; we actually discourage it.

Basically, according to Orthodox law, you can only convert to Judaism if you absolutely cannot see yourself living any other way. And we have a specific policy to discourage converts–we call it “dissuasion”–which often manifests in making things more difficult than they have to be. You have to really, really want it.

What Does a Halakhic Conversion Entail?

First of all, living as a halakhically observant Jew, as I certainly hope you have gathered by now 😛 requires a lot of knowledge. You have to know how to properly observe Shabbat, getting into the minute details of the actions that are and are not forbidden. You have to know how to properly observe kashrut (about which I had to write three blog posts to list the very basics!). You have to know how to pray, what blessings to say on what, how to observe each of our bajillion holidays… the list goes on and on. My husband was not raised Orthodox, and he can attest to the difficult learning curve he went through after deciding to become religious. So the first thing you need to do when contemplating conversion, is study.

A lot.

The duration of studying for conversion depends on the individual. For some, it can take a few months; for some, more than a year or even two. But it’s not enough to study in classes; you have to be immersed in a Jewish community and learn through practice, by seeing and experiencing life as a halakhically observant Jew. So potential converts usually have “adoptive families” in the community that take them in, host them for Shabbat and holidays, and generally teach them organically the way a child learns to observe the mitzvot from his family.

When the potential convert reaches a level of knowledge that would allow her to observe halakha fully, she appears before a panel of rabbinic judges, a beit din, who “drill” her on her knowledge of Judaism and halakha. If they rule that she is knowledgeable and sincere, she then goes to immerse in the mikveh, after which she is considered a full Jew.

I used “she” in the previous paragraph even though it applies to men as well, because for men, there is an extra step. Before immersing in the mikveh, male converts also must undergo circumcision. Obviously, this is not as simple a procedure as it is for an eight-day-old baby; it is done in a medical setting with local anesthesia. Well, you ask, what about men who were already circumcised? After all, many non-Jewish parents choose to circumcise their sons for medical or aesthetic reasons. The problem is that the circumcision must be performed by a Jew, with the intent of fulfilling the mitzvah. So if the original intent of the circumcision was medical or aesthetic, the male convert undergoes a ritual procedure of drawing a drop of blood from the area. This spiritually “repurposes” the procedure as a mitzvah.

What About Children?

The rule about the maternal line determining whether a child is a Jew applies at the moment of birth. So if a woman converts while pregnant, the child she gives birth to as a Jew is considered Jewish. However, if she converts after she has already had children, even tiny babies, they must undergo conversion, too. But because a child is not obligated in the mitzvot yet, there is no requirement to appear before a beit din. Moreover, a Jewish conversion has to be completely voluntary, but a child is not considered by halakha to have moral agency until he or she comes of age (bar/bat mitzvah–13 for a boy, 12 for a girl). So the conversion of a child is basically this: he or she is ritually immersed in the mikveh, and raised as a Jew. But when bar or bat mitzvah, he or she can choose whether s/he wants to “accept the yoke of Torah” or not. If the child decides s/he is Jewish, the symbolic conversion as a child stays in effect and the child is considered completely Jewish. If s/he doesn’t want to be Jewish, the conversion is retroactively annulled.

boy-801504
“I hereby accept upon myself the insanity that my parents accepted for me. And I’m lovin’ it.”

In terms of adoption, a child who was not born to a Jewish biological mother is not considered Jewish by halakha, even if s/he is adopted and raised by a committed Jewish family. So in this case s/he needs to undergo conversion, as above.

Gray Areas

I heard of a case recently where an entire family of ultra-Orthodox Jews found out that they were not actually halakhically Jewish because their maternal ancestor had not undergone what their rabbinic authority considered a proper conversion. Since it was clear that they intended to keep halakha and had adequate knowledge of it, they did not have to appear before a beit din, they just immersed in the mikveh.

In cases where there is some doubt about whether a conversion was performed properly, the person may choose to undergo a giur l’chumra, a “conversion for the sake of stringency.” It would basically be a condensed version of the conversion process, without the “dissuasion.”

What about Conservative and Reform Conversions?

The Conservative movement has a similar process of conversion, and in the past, since many times the people who sat on the Conservative batei din (rabbinic panels) kept Shabbat and kosher to Orthodox standards, some Orthodox authorities considered those conversions to be valid. Nowadays it’s trickier, and usually if someone underwent a Conservative conversion and wants to become Orthodox, he or she may choose to undergo another conversion under Orthodox supervision.

Reform conversions are different, varying from community to community on the exact procedure. They are generally not recognized by the Conservative movement, and are definitely not recognized by the Orthodox.

All Is Not Rosy

I have to add, from first-hand accounts, that the rabbinic courts can make life very, very difficult for converts or for adoptive parents, and unnecessarily so. There are sometimes a lot of ugly politics, and this problem is tenfold in Israel, where the Rabbinate holds the authority over marriage, divorce and conversion, and can be picky about whose conversions they accept as valid. (Marriages among people of other religions are handled by their religious authorities.) If the Rabbinate does not consider you Jewish, you can’t marry a Jew in Israel. Couples like this often travel to Cyprus or elsewhere to get married.

On the one hand, I believe that the Rabbinate has good intentions and is trying to prevent major rifts in the Jewish people. On the other hand, I believe that given that Israel is a secular state, there should be an option for civil marriage for people who do not wish to go through the Rabbinate. I don’t think that the situation as it is now prevents intermarriage or other unions that the Rabbinate disapproves of; I think all it does is make people hate the Rabbinate and the religion they represent. And I already went on a rant about my views on gay marriage in a secular state, so I don’t have to run off on that tangent here.

The issue of who is considered halakhically Jewish, especially in a world where a majority of Jews do not follow halakha and accept a more liberal definition of Judaism, is a very sensitive and sticky issue for all involved. The point of conflict for the friend who I mentioned at the top of the post is that she was born to a non-Jewish biological mother, and adopted by a Reform family that did not believe there was any need to convert her. So her family, her community, and of course she herself define her as Jewish, but halakha does not. I can only imagine how infuriating and demeaning it must feel to have somebody tell you that according to their beliefs, you are not what you have always known you are. 🙁 I wish there were a more comfortable middle ground.

…Ugh, I can’t end on another a sad note! I think we need a puppy.

pug-755533

There.

Love,

Daniella

Passover, Part II: Seder Night 101

Jewish Holidays, Jewish symbols, Jewish traditions, Mitzvot, Observant Jewish lifestyle, Observant Judaism, Passover, , , ,

Dear Josep,

In Part I, I mentioned that the Seder (and Passover in general) are all about interactive and experiential learning that is usually directed towards the next generation: the kids. This actually does not begin on Seder night, but on the night before, with a special ritual we call bedikat chametz.

Bedikat Chametz

In the weeks and days before Passover, as mentioned in Part I, we thoroughly clean and check our homes for any recognizable traces of chametz (leavened products; see part I for explanation). On the evening before Passover, we hold a special ritual to symbolically finish this task, called bedikat chametz, “checking for chametz”. We make a blessing, and then turn off all the lights in the house, and by the light of candles and flashlights, search for little pieces of chametz that were intentionally hidden by one of the family members (traditionally it’s 10 pieces). Obviously, this would be an extremely inefficient way to actually check for chametz; this is more symbolic than anything else, and it’s a fun game for the kids, kind of like a treasure hunt in the dark! When all the pieces of chametz have been found, we recite a passage in Aramaic that effectively nullifies any chametz that we have missed in our search. We declare that if there is any chametz left, to us it will be like “the dust of the earth”.

The following day, any remaining chametz (that will not be sold) must be burned or otherwise destroyed in a way that makes it unusable (such as pouring bleach all over it).

(True story: I cleaned, searched, vacuumed, and scrubbed my house top to bottom, and first day of Passover this year, I discovered two granola bars of dust in my purse. Thanks to the above declaration, it’s all good–I simply destroyed the evidence and removed it from the premises. 😛 )

The Seder

The holiday begins with lighting candles at sundown, as with every other Biblical holiday. A service is held at the synagogue, and then all families return to their homes to begin the Seder. It is a very strong tradition to have the Seder with lots of people, generally with one’s extended family, and/or lots of guests. When an Israeli asks me what I’m doing for Seder this year and I say, “Just the five of us,” s/he gives me a look that is halfway between pity and horror. Even Jews with very little connection to tradition and halakha tend to attend some kind of Seder. I guess the parallel would be like how Christmas is celebrated so widely even by people who don’t really consider themselves Christian. We like to have quiet, intimate Seders, so there is room for discussion but things don’t drag out too long, and especially when our kids got old enough to participate, we really want to keep their attention as long as possible. Back in the USA, we generally had our Seders with my dad’s parents in New York and whatever aunts and uncles were around.

The word “Seder” means “order”, referring to the ten steps to the ritual meal that must be carried out in order. The Haggadah, briefly mentioned in the entry about the Jewish holy books, guides us through these steps, which mostly involve reading the passages aloud and eating symbolic foods that help us commemorate those events. The symbolic foods are arranged at the center of the table on the Seder plate:

Our seder plate. Explanations of each of these symbols below.
Our seder plate. Explanations of each of these symbols below.

We also set three matzot on the table in a pile and covered by a cloth.

The table is set, the kids and guests are seated, and we begin:

Kadesh (Sanctification)

The leader of the Seder (usually the head of the household) recites the kiddush over a cup of wine. This is the same kind of “declaration” of the sanctity of the day that we perform on Shabbat and other holidays. If the Seder falls on a Friday night (as it did this year), the kiddush for Shabbat is recited as well. Then, we all drink our first cup of wine while reclining. This is symbolic of our freedom, as royals used to eat while reclining. (Yes, I said “first” cup of wine. There are four. It’s gonna be a long night. 😉 ) (Grape juice is okay for those of us who would rather remain sober…)

Urchatz (Washing)

We wash our hands as though for bread, but without the blessing. We are not about to eat bread, but there is a custom to wash our hands this way before eating a food that is dipped in liquid.

Karpas (Green Vegetable)

We eat a green vegetable, usually parsley or celery, dipped in salt water. The green vegetable symbolizes spring, and the salt water symbolizes the tears we shed under the oppression of slavery. The Polish tradition is to do this with potato, which is not a green vegetable, but good luck finding anything green in Poland at this time of year 😛

Yachatz (Splitting in Half)

The leader of the Seder takes the middle matza from the pile and breaks it in half. The bigger half is hidden away as the afikoman, which will be eaten later.

Maggid (Retelling)

Maggid is the centerpiece of the Haggadah; the section that actually contains the retelling of the story of the Exodus. There is no way I’m going to cover all its contents here. For that, you’ll have to actually read a Haggadah. (Conveniently, Chabad has a full English version here.) You’ll notice that it doesn’t really follow the narrative the way you would expect. To understand why… well, you’ll just have to come to our Seder someday, and we can discuss it long into the night–as per the tradition. 🙂

So by this point in the evening, if you have never been to a Seder before, you are going to be really confused. What is going on? Why are we eating these weird things? Why is this holiday so different from other holidays?

Well, that’s how Maggid kicks off the story. The smallest child at the table recites the Four Questions: Why is this night different from all the other nights–that on all other nights, we eat chametz and matza, but on this night, only matza? That on all other nights, we eat all kinds of vegetables, but on this night, we eat bitter herbs? That on all other nights, we don’t dip our food even once, but on this night, we dip it twice? That on all other nights, we eat sitting or reclining, but on this night, we all recline?

The idea of the Seder is to make the children curious so they will ask questions like these.

The answer to those questions comes right away: Once, our ancestors were slaves in Egypt, and God saved us from their hands. The text then dwells a little on the concept of retelling the story and educating our children about the Exodus, and then goes on to describe the story of the Exodus and interpretations of the passages and events by various sages. (Remember, the Haggadah is an extremely old text that was written around the time of the Talmud, so the passages reflect rabbinic discourse of that period.)

The most poignant part of the Seder, in my view, is the following passage, recited in the middle of Maggid: “And it is [that promise] that has stood for our fathers and for us, for not only one has arisen against us to destroy us, but in every generation they arise against us to destroy us, but the Holy One, Blessed be He, saves us from their hand.” This line, written so many centuries ago, has rung true at every single Seder since. This is a beautiful version composed by one of my favorite singer/songwriters, Yonatan Razel, who here changes some of the lyrics to present and future tense to emphasize how relevant this ancient passage still feels.

Rachtza (Washing)

We wash our hands again, this time actually for bread–that is, for…

Motzi Matza

That first word refers to the blessing we make over bread, hamotzi lechem min ha’aretz, “…who brings bread out of the ground”. We make two blessings over the matza–one for the enjoyment of food, and one for the mitzva–and eat the proscribed amount of it while reclining.

Maror (Bitter Herbs)

These are eaten to represent the bitterness of slavery. We usually eat either romaine lettuce or horseradish or some mixture of both. (The horseradish on the plate is that purple stuff. It’s purple because it’s mixed with… la remolatxa1. 😛 That is how it’s usually served with the famous (or is it infamous…?) gefilte fish.) We first dip the lettuce or horseradish into that brown mush, which is called charoset, and represents the mortar used by the slaves to make the bricks. It is traditionally made with apples, wine, nuts, and/or dates, and is supposed to be sweet, so it sweetens the bitterness of the herb representing slavery.

Apparently Ben & Jerry’s produced a charoset-flavored ice cream this year. o.O

Korech (Sandwich)

Now we follow a tradition established by Hillel the Elder in the days of the Second Temple. Tradition has it that Hillel sandwiched all the symbolic foods of Passover–the matza, the maror, the charoset, and the Passover sacrifice (a lamb)–and ate them together. Since we have no Temple, we cannot make the sacrifice, so we leave out the lamb. BTW, if you’re still wondering about the shankbone and the egg on the plate–the bone represents the Passover sacrifice, and the egg represents the Chagiga (holiday) sacrifice.

Shulchan Orech (Setting the Table)

This is where we have the feast! Everybody’s favorite part. 😛 Traditional foods include knaidlach, or matza balls, dumplings made of ground matza, in chicken soup; the aforementioned gefilte fish, which are balls of ground fish, usually carp; and lamb, in commemoration of the sacrifice. (I happen to dislike lamb. So, beef or chicken it is. As to gefilte fish, usually I can take it or leave it, but I enjoy it as a special Passover thing.)

Tzafun (Hidden)

So remember the piece of matza the leader of the Seder hid away way back before Maggid? Now is the time to find it: it’s the afikoman (that word apparently comes from the ancient Greek for “dessert”). We are required to have a proscribed amount of it as the last thing we eat. But first, the kids have to find it! Another treasure hunt. 🙂 This is a great way to keep them awake and engaged. Another tradition developed out of this that the children then hold the afikoman “captive”, thereby indefinitely delaying the end of the Seder, and “bargaining” to give it back in return for a gift or a treat.

Barech (Bless)

Now we recite Grace After Meals, over a third cup of wine (the second was drunk at the end of Maggid), and then drink that cup and recite the blessing after drinking wine. The final cup of wine is poured.

Hallel (Praise)

Hallel is a special prayer recited on holidays, comprised of Psalms 113-118. The first part of Hallel is recited at the synagogue, and it is continued here, and then we go on to read additional Psalms along the same general theme of God being awesome. The final cup of wine is now drunk. (And if it’s really wine, so are we. 😛 )

Nirtzah (Acceptance)

The name is referring to God accepting our completion of the Seder. This is when the Seder officially ends. (There are opinions that this is not a distinct section of the Seder, but that this and the previous are one section–“Hallel Nirtza”.) We sing l’shana haba’ah b’yirushalayim habnuya–next year in rebuilt Jerusalem! Then there are a few more traditional Passover songs, which are generally fun and lively and get everybody’s energy up for the final leg of the Seder. (Great for keeping the kids awake, too.)

The very last song of the Seder, at least in Ashkenazi tradition… you’d think it would be something profound, about freedom, or the purpose of the Jewish people, or maybe even about the holiday itself. But it’s this:

A cumulative song in Aramaic about a little goat that Dad bought for two zuzim (units of money), which gets eaten by a cat, which gets bit by a dog, which gets hit by a stick, which gets burned by a fire, which gets doused by water, which gets drunk by an ox, which gets slaughtered by a shochet (ritual slaughterer), who gets killed by the Angel of Death, who gets destroyed by the Holy One, Blessed Be He.

…

(And you betcha we sing it with sound effects. 😛 )

…I know. Why on earth are we ending the Seder with this silly little ditty?

Obviously, as with everything in the Seder, because it is has important symbolism. The idea of the song is that there is justice in the world, even if we don’t see it at the time; that every action has a consequence, and that, as the Talmud says: “There is justice and there is a Judge“.

Believe it or not, this silly animal song contains the deepest, most fundamental message of the Seder.

Why is it so important for us to remember that God freed us from slavery and brought us out of Egypt?

Because we must remember that there is justice, and there is a Judge, and even when the world seems unjust and terrible things are happening to good people, there is a reason for everything, and it’s all for the ultimate good. Even when we’re at the profoundest depths of despair, God’s redemption can occur in the blink of an eye.

That is the message of the Seder, and that is why the tradition of the Seder has carried us through many other “Egypts” throughout history.

So… that’s the Seder, in a nutshell. Outside of Israel, you “get” to do the whole thing all over again the following night. (I’m sure there are advantages to this, but to me it just sounds exhausting and I am grateful to be here!)

A blessed and happy Passover!

Love,

Daniella

1. La remolatxa is “beet” in Catalan. The only reason I know this word is because I served a Moroccan beet salad to Josep when he was here for Shabbat, and he asked me what it was, but we did not have a common language in which we both knew the word for this vegetable. 😛 After Shabbat I Googled it, and now I’ll never forget. (When I clarified, he was like, “Not something I eat every day!” Was that a polite way to tell me he hated it? 😛 I decided not to press the issue.)↩

Passover, Part I: Freedom, Education, and National Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

Jewish Holidays, Jewish traditions, Kashrut, Mitzvot, Observant Jewish lifestyle, Observant Judaism, The Torah, ,

Dear Josep,

So I figured out why I never sent you an e-mail specifically about Passover, even back in 2007 when I would get concerned notes from you wondering if something was wrong because you hadn’t heard from me in 5 days.

(…Yes, apparently that happened.)

(…Twice.)

The reason is that it is just not possible to capture Passover in a single e-mail. No, not even a Daniella Standard Size e-mail.

So what we’re gonna do is make it a series. In Part I, I will discuss the general concepts of the holiday. In Part II, I will go into detail about the Seder night and the Haggadah.

To begin, let us turn to the age-old template for Jewish holidays: “They tried to kill us, we won, let’s eat”. Does it apply here? Why, yes it does. 🙂

As you probably know, Passover is the celebration commemorating our freedom from slavery in Egypt, also known as the Exodus.

You know, slavery, burning bush, ten plagues, splitting the sea, all that jazz.
You know, slavery, burning bush, ten plagues, splitting the sea, all that jazz.

It begins on the 15th of Nisan, which is the day the Israelites left Egypt, and lasts seven days in Israel. This year it falls on this coming Friday night through the following Friday. It is one of the three “Regalim”, holidays mentioned in the Torah, on which we were required to make a pilgrimage to the Temple in Jerusalem. (“Regel” means “foot”.)

All Regalim, unlike rabbinic holidays, are celebrated similarly to Shabbat, with the same types of restrictions, barring a few differences with regards to the preparation of food. Such a day is known as a “Yom Tov” (literally “good day”). In the case of Passover, it begins and ends with one Yom Tov in Israel (two each outside of Israel), with five days of “chol ha’moed” (“the mundane of the holiday”=days that are still part of the holiday, but with much fewer restrictions) in between. That’s a total of seven days in Israel, and eight outside of Israel. (Why is it different outside of Israel? A reason that is long, complicated, and not so interesting in my opinion. 😛 But if you insist, Wikipedia keeps it simple.)

The first night (or two nights outside of Israel) is the crux of the holiday: the Seder night. You may have heard of the Seder; it is believed to have been Jesus’s “last supper” (hence the proximity to Easter). As mentioned, we will elaborate on the Seder in Part II.

But first: why is the Exodus such an important event in the history of our people?

There is a vast amount of rabbinic literature that addresses this question, but here’s the simple answer: the Exodus marks the birth of the nation of Israel. The narrative of the Bible, up until that point, follows a number of individuals, or at most a family, and their interactions with God. We became a multitude under slavery; we became a nation, with a destiny and a purpose, when God gave us our freedom.

It is said that God wanted us to be slaves before giving us the Torah to develop our sense of empathy and justice. You can never really understand someone until you’ve experienced his pain. And you can never know and appreciate the true value of freedom if you have never been a slave. Our purpose is to be a “light unto the nations”, to spread kindness, compassion and justice throughout a corrupt world. We could not have done this without first knowing pain, cruelty, and injustice.

The goal of the Seder night is for every one of us to relive the experience of being freed from slavery. It is a multi-sensory, hands-on educational production, and it revolves around passing the message to the next generation. As we’ve discussed, educating children is a very important mitzvah, and the purpose of some of the strange customs on Seder night is to provoke the children to ask questions. Raising questions is a classic Jewish educational method. We even tend to like excellent questions better than we like excellent answers. 😉

So, that’s freedom, and education. “National obsessive-compulsive disorder”?!

Well… yeah. This is another thing that makes Passover so special, and also such a pain in the neck. Over the seven days of Passover, we are not allowed to eat or possess “chametz“. Chametz means leavened products. That is, any product made out of grain (wheat, barley, oats, spelt, or rye) and water that was cooked over 18 minutes after the flour came in contact with the water–therefore beginning the process of fermentation that causes the dough to rise and become puffy.

Um… wait, you say. Is there any type of grain product that is baked in under 18 minutes?!

Why yes there is. It’s called… matza.

"Shmura Matzo". Licensed under CC BY 2.5 via Wikimedia Commons.
Appetizing, I know.
“Shmura Matzo“. Licensed under CC BY 2.5 via Wikimedia Commons.

This is the bread of Passover, referred to in the Haggadah as the “bread of affliction”. Apt, because it tastes like cardboard, and we are required to eat a fair amount of it on Seder night. (Okay, okay, it’s not that bad. It’s like a very plain cracker.)

So what’s the deal with unleavened bread?

(Good, good, keep up the questions! 😉 )

The practical answer is that the Israelites were granted their freedom very quickly and they did not have time to get ready for their trip out of Egypt. The Torah says that they did not have time to let their dough rise for bread, so they made matzot to take on their journey. The prohibition against eating chametz, and the mitzva of eating matza, are both in commemoration of that. There is also an idea that chametz represents the ego, and that on Passover we clean it out of our homes and souls.

So the thing is, you know how obsessive-compulsive Jewish law is about things we’re not allowed to eat… and this applies to chametz too. In fact, it is even more strict than the laws of kashrut. This means that we have to literally kasher our kitchens before the holiday. (Which, as I’ve been trying to tell you all these years, is not nearly as fun as you think it is. 😛 ) Most of us have an entirely different set of dishes and cookware set aside specifically for Passover, because not everything can be kashered, and because, again, kashering pots and pans can be a serious pain.

We are also not allowed to own any chametz, which means we have to clean our houses thoroughly (especially us parents of toddlers…) to make sure no bits of crackers/cereal/bread are in accessible places. People (by which I mean “crazy Jewish housewives”) often take this to the extreme and use it as an opportunity to do a very thorough “spring cleaning”… but much of this is not really necessary.

The prohibition against eating chametz also gave way to the most famous of legal fictions in Jewish law. Obviously, getting rid of all one’s chametz can be impractical at best and financially damaging at worst, especially for stores and factories. So we have a rather silly solution: we “sell” the chametz to a non-Jew during the seven days of Passover, keep it covered/hidden during the holiday, and “buy” it back afterwards.

…By the way, can I interest you in some instant oatmeal and maybe a few pitas? 😛

(I kid, I kid. These days we can sell our chametz very easily through rabbis who centralize the “sales” and sell them to a designated non-Jew. We can do this through our synagogue or even on the Internet.)

Well, that’s Passover in a nutshell. Stay tuned for Part II, in which we will discuss the details of the aforementioned multi-sensory, hands-on educational production we call the Seder. 😉

Bona Pasqua!

Love,

Daniella

Circumcision. Wait! Don’t Run Away Screaming!

Jewish traditions, Mitzvot, Observant Jewish lifestyle, , , , , ,

Dear Josep,

This Sunday we attended a circumcision ceremony for our friends’ firstborn son, and it reminded me that this was one of the topics we originally agreed on discussing last year. You said we should save it for last among those topics, because it is “delicate”, and I will stick to my promise of no gory details 😛 I have a fairly funny memory of when you first brought it up eight years ago, in the context of what is required for a conversion. I was like “…Do I seriously have to talk to this 24-year-old male Christian about circumcision?! How did I get my 19-year-old religious Jewish female self into this?!” Well, eight years, a husband, and three sons later, I am well over being shy about it 😛

These days, circumcision has become one of those hotly debated early-parenting topics, alongside breastfeeding, birth choices, and vaccines. As I tentatively learned more about this debate, I understood that people circumcise their sons for a variety of reasons that have nothing to do with religion–health-related, social, or aesthetic. There was a period in history in which all boys were circumcised in the USA as a matter of public health policy. The health benefits, at least according to the current recommendations by the American Academy of Pediatrics, outweigh the risks of the procedure, but not by enough to recommend that it be done universally. Obviously, it is extremely daunting to imagine carrying out an irreversible surgical procedure on your son, even more so on his most sensitive parts, and many parents feel that it is cruel to do this without the child’s consent. I totally hear that argument and it very well may be that if I weren’t Jewish and didn’t believe God required it, I might not have done it myself. On the other hand, it is a fairly simple procedure when the child is a baby that becomes more complicated and difficult when he is older, so it’s more complex than just waiting to let him decide. The debate taps into all kinds of deeper issues, like what it means to be responsible for your children vs. respecting their autonomy, what it means to protect your children from harm, etc. Fascinating topic, but we’re not going to get any further into it than that here.

Because the fact is that I feel kind of outside of the debate. I circumcise my sons for one reason and one alone, that has no logical basis and therefore is basically non-debatable: “God said so.” Genesis 17:10: “This is My covenant, which you shall keep, between Me and you and your seed after you: every male among you shall be circumcised.” (I mean, you can argue about the divine origin of the Torah, and whether God exists and all that, but that’s a whole different conversation!)

Circumcision is one of those mitzvot that I feel test me and my commitment to Torah the most. It is really hard to stand there while someone intentionally hurts your tiny eight-day-old son, and listen to him cry in pain, and you can’t do anything to comfort him. Of course, as the mother of a child who underwent 3 surgeries in his first 4 months of life and several more since, I have become a lot tougher about things like this. Sometimes you have to let someone hurt your child for his overall well-being. I believe circumcision is essential for his spiritual well-being, so I grit my teeth and get it done.

As I wrote about that awful Shabbat last year without power, “Some mitzvot (commandments) are very hard to follow. Ultimately, our willingness to stay committed despite how difficult it is can bring us closer to Him, and Him closer to us. It is an eternal sign between us. Most times, it is a bed of petals. Occasionally, it is a bed of thorns. Ultimately, it is all roses.” (Incidentally, yet another snowstorm is being predicted this weekend, and we are braving staying at home… wish us luck :-/ )

Why would God ask us to do something like this? Well, circumcision is like kashrut in that it’s a chok, the type of mitzvah without a logical explanation or given reason. So the answer is that we don’t know. Some sages teach that making a permanent physical mark on a part of the body that embodies our most base desires, is a symbolic expression and reminder to “master” those desires. The Maharal of Prague (Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel) teaches an idea that I really connect to:

In Genesis 1:26, God says, “Let us make man in our image”. There are many commentaries trying to explain why God used the plural in this statement. My favorite explanation is that God created us incomplete; the completion of our own creation is in our own hands. That is, He is inviting us to become a partner in our own creation. By making good choices and striving to be better and to seek Him, we complete ourselves. The Maharal explains that circumcision is a physical manifestation of this idea.

So what about women then, I hear you ask?

What, childbirth isn’t enough?! 😛

No but seriously, the Maharal says that women are created more whole spiritually and therefore do not need this physical completion.

On to the practicalities. What does a circumcision ceremony look like? (Wait!!! Don’t run away! I will stick to my promise of no gory details! 😛 I’m not going to describe the procedure itself, I’m going to describe the ceremony around it.) (Okay? Are you breathing? Good. 😛 )

The circumcision is performed on the eighth day of the baby’s life, barring any medical reasons to postpone it. In essence, the ceremony involves welcoming the baby to the Jewish people. So it begins with the congregation saying the words: “Barukh haba”; “Welcome”. Though the obligation for circumcising one’s son is on the baby’s father, the procedure is usually carried out by a man called a mohel. There are mohels who are also doctors, but for the most part these are guys who have trained specifically to do circumcisions. I have heard that even gentiles sometimes prefer to have a mohel perform it because they are more experienced and well-trained in this particular procedure than most pediatricians. The mohel is also sort of the “master of ceremonies” and leads the congregation through the ceremony.

So the father brings the baby into the room–usually on a decorative pillow.

“This is comfy, but why are you holding that knife?”
By Zivya (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons
Some verses are recited responsively by the father and the congregation, and eventually the baby is placed on someone’s lap, who is seated on the “Chair of Elijah”. (This is usually a grandfather, uncle, or other loved one, who the parents wish to honor with this role. There are lots of symbolic “honor roles” in the ceremony–who gets to pass the baby between the mother and the father, who gets to recite which blessing, etc.) The mohel performs the procedure–making a blessing beforehand, because it’s a mitzvah–and then someone else reads a prayer blessing the baby and the parents, and announcing the baby’s name. You see, it is customary to wait until the brit to call the baby by his name, because he is not considered a part of the community until he has been circumcised. There is an idea that the parents have “divine inspiration” when they select the name for their children that borders on prophecy. We believe names have deep significance and affect the child’s destiny. As you know, we put a lot of thought into our sons’ names. Usually, by this time, the baby is already calm. After the blessings have been recited, the baby is handed back to the mother. A festive meal follows. (…Of course. Because no Jewish event is complete without food!) In Ashkenazi communities, it is customary to serve bagels, because they are round, symbolizing the life cycle.

….Don’t think too hard about the symbolism. Moving right along. 😛

The Sephardi/Mizrahi circumcisions I’ve attended involved a full-out feast with plenty of meat. In one I attended last year, the son of a couple of friends of North African descent, there were large platters of sweets and candies going around, and lots of songs I didn’t recognize. But there was the same spirit of joy, lots of singing and clapping and dancing. It’s really a joyful event, of welcoming a new baby into the community, and celebrating the new parents and/or big siblings.

So what about girls, I hear you ask? How are girls welcomed into the Jewish community?

Well, yes, there’s much less pomp and circumstance around it. A female baby’s name is usually announced during a Torah reading in the middle of a prayer service–on Monday, Thursday, or Shabbat. (I was born on a Monday before dawn, and my mother says my father went straight to prayer service and announced my name right then.) It is customary to hold a simchat bat, a “celebration for a girl”, which is basically just a party. Some people make it more like a brit by reciting verses and waiting to announce the name on that day. I attended a really beautiful simchat bat like that once. But it’s not really required by halakha, so people often put it off until the baby is a few months old, or indefinitely 😛 Speaking of putting off religious ceremonies for babies, I am waiting to hear about your traditions around baptism. 😉

See? That wasn’t so bad! 😛

Love,

Daniella

***

Blog readers: Tell us about how babies are welcomed into your communities!

Links in the Chain: On Educating Children

Education, Jewish traditions, Judaism, Mitzvot, Observant Jewish lifestyle, Observant Judaism, , , ,

Dear Josep,

I remember you telling me once that one of the things you liked about Jews and Judaism was the strong emphasis on education and love of learning. Jewish literacy rates were always significantly higher than those of the surrounding populations, and it all comes down to the fact that teaching our children is one of the most important commandments in the Torah. Combine that with the love of delving into the depths of the Torah that characterized our ancestors, and it’s no wonder there’s a completely out-of-the-park disproportionate representation of Jews in the sciences and other fields that require a lot of study.

As with everything, the Sages guide us in how to properly educate our children and raise them to serve God and be good Jews and good people.

You asked me last year about a few things that stood out to you in my kids’ appearance, and I was going to write you an e-mail on “boy mitzvot”, but that will pull me into the topic of gender and Judaism and I just don’t feel like opening that can of worms right about now. 😛

So there were two things you pointed out: the payot, “sidecurls”:

R1's are particularly impressive :)
R1’s are particularly impressive 🙂

And tzitziyot, the four-cornered garment worn underneath the shirt with fringes on each corner:

tzitziyot

When you see a Jewish boy with these things, he is probably over three years old. Why? Because age three is what we call gil chinuch–the “age of education”. It is when we start teaching them about the Torah and the mitzvot. There is a custom to let their hair grow out until the third birthday, so that we can cut it that day to teach them about the mitzvah of payot; the prohibition to shave that area above and behind the ears to create a rounded shape–because this was a symbol of idolatrous practices back in the day. (The payot don’t need to be that long, but like with beards, growing them out is an outward symbol of piety.) We also have them start wearing tzitziyot and kippot* at this age. These are all highly visual and experiential mitzvot that make the children look and feel different, and that’s why they’re the best ones to start with.

The mitzvah of tzitzit is sourced in the third chapter of the Shema prayer: “‘Speak to the children of Israel, and tell them that they make, throughout their generations, fringes in the corners of their garments, and that they put with the fringe of each corner a thread of blue. And it shall be unto you a fringe, so that you may look upon it, and remember all the commandments of the Lord, and do them; and so that you will not go about after your own heart and your own eyes, after which you go astray; so that you may remember and do all My commandments, and be holy unto your God.” (Numbers 15:38-40) So the very idea of this commandment is that it is a visual reminder of God’s presence… sort of the clothing version of the mezuza. 😉

Kippot are actually not a Biblical commandment and even rabbinically they are only required when studying Torah or praying. The idea is modesty before God when speaking of Him. But today most observant Jewish men wear them all the time, and they have become an expression of Jewish identity, to a point where not wearing one is considered to be making a statement. So practically speaking we think of it as a requirement.

Anyway, back to chinuch. Age three is also when we start teaching them to recite blessings and basic prayers, and to light candles for Shabbat. Observant Judaism is so complex and there are so many details, we don’t try to give it all over at once; we introduce things slowly and organically. You probably don’t remember when we were walking home from the playground on Shabbat and one of my kids picked up a coin that was on the ground; I mentioned that we are not allowed to carry money on Shabbat, and you asked if you should take it from him, and I said no. I don’t want them to experience Shabbat as something restrictive and harsh, so I choose my battles carefully. Children are not obligated in mitzvot until their bar or bat mitzvah–at age 12 for girls and 13 for boys. In Judaism, this is the age where they become morally responsible for themselves. By this age, of course, most of them have been keeping all the mitzvot for years, with the possible exception of fasting on fast days.

I was thinking about this lately as I listened to H and R1 recite the blessing over tzitzit in the morning. There is a concept in Yiddish and Hebrew that is not quite translatable into English, called nachat (or naches in Yiddish); it’s that sense of contented joy and pride you get when your children or other loved ones live up to your hopes for them and “do you proud”. That’s what I feel when I hear the sweet voices of my children reciting that blessing. Slowly, carefully, I am taking this precious gift passed down to me through hundreds of generations starting at Mount Sinai, and passing it on to my own children; becoming a link in the chain that roots us in the past and raises us towards the future.

May you have lots and lots of nachat from raising your own son. 🙂

Love,

Daniella

***

*Kippot is the plural of kippah, also known in Yiddish as a yarmulke; a special cap that Jewish men wear. Josep knows all about this and owns at least one, which he likes to wear when he is here and confuse all my neighbors. 😛

Jew Food, Part II: The Vegan Section (well, sort of.)

Hebrew calendar, Israel, Jewish traditions, Judaism, Kashrut, Kosher, Mitzvot, Observant Jewish lifestyle, Observant Judaism, , , , ,

Note: this is the 2nd post in a 3-part series on kashrut. Click here for Part I, and here for Part III!

Dear Josep,

Welcome to Part II of the Great Jew Food Tirade! (Here is Part I in case you missed it.)

In this part we’re going to talk about plants.

Now, if you can recall what my plate looked like while you and the rest of the press team were happily devouring your “pimp salmon” 😛 you will remember that fruits and vegetables, as a general rule, are just fine within the laws of kashrut. So why am I writing an entire section on them? Well…

Mitzvot HaTluyot Ba’Aretz (Commandments Connected to the Land of Israel)

Observant Jews indeed wander freely through the produce aisles of supermarkets in the USA and Europe. Ironically, it is actually in the land of Israel that we have to be more careful. Because while there is no problem inherent to any plant, when the land is owned by a Jew and is located in Israel, there are a number of commandments that apply that must be observed for the plants to be okay to eat. These are the mitzvot hatluyot ba’aretz, which I mentioned briefly in the entries about shmita (which is one of them) and the Jewish New Years (because Tu B’Shvat is used to calculate “fiscal years” for these commandments).

I am not going to elaborate on what all these commandments are, because there are a lot of them and the details will probably bore you. But they basically split into two categories: mitzvot that involve giving to the poor (such as leaving fallen grapes or stalks for them to collect, leaving a section at the corner of the field unharvested for them to harvest, etc.), and mitzvot that are connected to the Temple service (such as bikkurim, bringing the first fruits to the Cohanim at the temple; terumah and ma’aser (tithing); challah (which is probably where the name of the Shabbat bread came from), separating a portion of the bread dough for the Cohanim) or other issues of sanctity (such as the prohibition against crossbreeding plants or eating fruits from a tree in the first three years after it is planted).

Now, the ones connected to the Temple are no longer relevant; some of them are observed sort of symbolically (like terumah, ma’aser and challah), but they still must be observed for the produce to be considered kosher.

For fields owned by non-Jews or located outside of Israel, these commandments are not relevant.

However, there are other problems associated with products produced in non-Jewish settings…

Wine

So, for instance, you have known for a long time that there is such a thing as kosher wine, by which one would logically (and in this case, correctly) deduce that there is such a thing as non-kosher wine. But think about this for a minute. We’re talking about 100% pure crushed grapes, fermented in barrels that hold nothing else. Grapes are inherently kosher, and given that the mitzvot hatluyot ba’aretz are not in the picture, what could possibly be non-kosher about wine?

According to the Talmud, there are a number of things that must be avoided under the general prohibition of idolatry. One of them is drinking wine that used for some kind of ceremonial practice by idolaters.

Buuut, I hear you say, that would explain why you couldn’t drink wine made in, say, India. But what about wine made by Christians or Muslims, who are, for the most part, not considered idolaters? (“For the most part” because the concept of the Trinity makes us go :-/ . But the sages who actually lived among Christians did not consider it idolatry. That’s a topic for another e-mail. 😛 We have no such debate regarding Islam.)

So, the sages extended the prohibition to include all non-Jews and non-observant Jews, pretty much because you don’t really have any way to know what their beliefs about the wine are, and because of the severity of idolatry, we need to be extra, extra careful about this. Idolatry is one of the only three commandments that we are not allowed to transgress even if it means our only other option is to die. The other two are murder and sexual immorality.

Digging through my archives, I discovered that you actually provided another answer to this question when we first discussed this issue many years ago. I told you that our editor-in-chief in Spain had asked why we still observe this law about wine if there is no longer idolatry in the Western world. You said: “I disagree with [her] about the idolatry thing. Maybe we don’t have idols like in the old times, but there’s still a lot of idolatry with things like the TV, supermodels or superstars, money, fame, sex… And it’s caused by the same basic principle: the emptiness of the soul. When you’re full of God, you don’t need anything more. So you don’t have to put the TV at the center of the house, or the sex in the center of your life. The old people put other gods instead of Him in the center of their lives because they had empty souls. That’s what I think.”

Well, I’m definitely not arguing with that. 😉

In any case, not so very long ago, you couldn’t get really good kosher wines. (Ever heard of Manischewitz? If not, good.) Today, though, there are some really great wineries in Israel and abroad that produce a wide selection of good kosher wine. Like, for instance, the one you bought us last time you were here, which we finally opened a couple days ago. (And is, by the way, delicious. Thank you. 😉 )

L'chaim. (Thanks for this, BTW. It's delicious. :) )
L’chaim.

Baking and Cooking by Gentiles

Another issue that comes up here is bread that is baked or food that is cooked by a gentile. This is a rabbinic restriction based on the idea that it is difficult to trust someone who does not keep kashrut himself or see any importance in it, to be careful enough about it when cooking for you.

There are ways around this. According to Ashkenazi custom, it is enough for a Jew to light the fire for the food to not be considered bishul nochri (food cooked by a non-Jew). That’s how kosher restaurants are able to employ non-Jews in the kitchen.

Another restriction I should mention here, even though it concerns an animal product, is chalav nochri. The Sages ruled that we may not consume milk produced by non-Jews (…that is, their cattle…) out of concern that milks of other, non-kosher animals might be mixed in. The famous American rabbi Moshe Feinstein ruled that this is no longer a concern in places of modern industry where there is strict regulation and supervision, and you can be certain that what you’re getting is cow’s milk. (This is actually not true in all Western countries, by the way… including Spain. I was told that I couldn’t rely on this ruling regarding even plain milk in Spain.) Most Americans hold by this ruling, but many Israelis don’t, because of the wide availability of chalav yisrael (milk produced by Jews) in Israel. The Rabbinate of Israel holds that derivatives of chalav nochri (a.k.a. avkat chalav nochri), such as powdered milk, are okay, but not straight milk. So there was a big scandal in recent years about the Rabbinate removing Haagen Dasz ice cream from the shelves, even though it is certified kosher by the Orthodox Union in the USA, because of this difference in halakhic observation. (Ben & Jerry’s, the other really good foreign, kosher brand, has its own factory here that uses chalav yisrael, so we can still buy decent ice cream. Fortunately, Eitan and I are American and hold by Rabbi Feinstein, so we can eat Haagen Dasz too. 😀 )

Anyway.

In all of the above, beside the practicalities of trusting non-Jews with kashrut… I also see an agenda on the part of the sages to make it more difficult for Jews to get socially intimate with non-Jews. Jews not being able to eat at non-Jews’ tables makes it harder for them to develop the kinds of relationships that could lead to conversion, intermarriage, and assimilation. That may not be so politically correct, but assimilation is the biggest threat to Jewish continuity in the modern era, and… well, this is a topic for a different e-mail. 😛

Little Friends

So the last issue to do with eating fruits, vegetables, and grains, is the fact that we are not allowed to eat bugs (see part I), and therefore they must be thoroughly checked to assure that no creepy crawlies have found their way into our food.

Now, someone who has peeked ahead and knows the 1/60th rule that I will explain in the next entry, might ask: unless we’re talking about the kind of bug that would make any housewife run screaming, we’re talking about tiny, almost microscopic creatures, that are certainly less than 1/60th the volume of the food.

I refuse to post a picture of a bug. Have a puppy instead.
Photo credit: Andrea Schaffer under CC BY 2.0

So why aren’t they batel (“nullified”)?

Because they are a briya shleima, a “whole creature”. Meaning, that because it’s the bug’s whole body, it cannot be nullified.

But then how do we ever eat anything?! What about microscopic bugs?!

So this rule only applies to bugs that can be seen by the naked eye. If you need a magnifying glass, let alone a microscope, to see it–it doesn’t count.

Still, you can imagine, checking for bugs can be incredibly labor intensive and frustrating. For some kinds of fruits and veggies it’s no big deal–fruits, including fruits that are generally thought of as vegetables (like cucumbers and tomatoes), only require a once-over to make sure they don’t have wormholes or something like that. By contrast, leafy green vegetables must be pulled apart, soaked in water with soap or salt or vinegar, and then examined–leaf. by. leaf. (I should mention that there are different standards, and some are more lenient–allowing to check a representative sample, for instance, but checking each leaf individually is the mainstream view.)

One way of getting around this problem is growing the plants in special conditions where bugs are extremely unlikely to come in contact with the vegetables. In Israel, Gush Katif vegetables are grown hydroponically, meaning in that they are grown in greenhouses, detached from the soil:

Photo credit: Ryan Somma under CC BY-SA 2.0
Photo credit: Ryan Somma under CC BY-SA 2.0

The environment is carefully controlled to assure that no bugs will get in. In this case, we are permitted to eat the produce without checking for bugs (but most authorities still require a thorough soaking and rinsing before use). There is also an opinion that frozen vegetables are not a problem because any bugs that may be in there will explode in the freezing process (…) and therefore are no longer “whole creatures”. This is not exactly reassuring, but our bug-free standards are way more OCD higher than pretty much anyone else’s, and you have to draw the line somewhere…

So that concludes Part II! Stay tuned for the third and final installment. 😉

Love,

Daniella

Missed Part I? No problem! Click here to read Jew Food, Part I: Vegetarians, Avert Your Eyes.

Blessings: Finding God in an Apple

Jewish traditions, Mitzvot, Observant Jewish lifestyle, Observant Judaism, ,

Prefer to listen? I read this post for the Jewish Geography podcast:

Dear Josep,

You may have noticed that in many of my explanations about the way we perform certain commandments, I mention that we say a blessing beforehand, that always starts with the same formula: Blessed are You, Lord, our God, King of the Universe, who…

Reciting blessings is as regular a part of daily life as prayer. (Well, technically, it is, in itself, a form of prayer.) Most of the blessings I’ve mentioned are the kind we recite before performing a mitzvah. But there are other categories too, and in this e-mail I will address the different kinds of blessings. But first, what do I mean by “blessing”? These “blessings” are short statements that express gratitude for something. So why are they called “blessings” and not, I dunno, “thankings”? And even stranger, why do they all start with the statement, “Blessed are You”? Isn’t it we who are blessed by Him? The Catholic “grace before meals” prayers I have seen usually include some form of “Bless us, O Lord”, not the other way around!

Well, first things first: what does the word “bless” mean anyway? In Hebrew, the root that means “bless” is ב.ר.כ, b.r.kh, and the sages explain that it means “to increase” or to “bring down Divine abundance”. When I “bless” you, I am asking God to increase your health, wealth, happiness or whatever it may be, to shine His light on you… in essence, to give you more of Himself. So what could it possibly mean for me to “bless” God for creating the apple I’m about to eat?

The key to understanding this is to recognize the purpose of these blessings. It is not merely to show gratitude. The purpose of a blessing is awareness.

When I hold an apple in my hand and say, “Blessed are You, Lord, our God, King of the Universe, who creates the fruit of the tree“, what I am really saying is a lot more than just “thanks for making this apple”. What I am saying is, “Your presence in this world has been made that much greater, has increased, through this fruit you created that I am about to enjoy”.

I am declaring that whatever it is I am making the blessing for–whether it’s a food I’m enjoying, a roll of thunder I heard, or a mitzvah I am about to perform–is increasing God’s presence in the world, through my recognition of His role in creating or commanding it.

So we’re back to what I have always said is the main theme of Judaism–channeling the Divine into the mundane and revealing the spiritual through the physical. Through this worldly experience, I experience God; and when I declare that recognition, I make His presence in the world that much more known.

Very simply put: in this apple, I see God.

And He looks delicious.

There are three main types of blessings.

Blessings of Enjoyment

These are blessings we make over something we enjoy with our senses. The most common ones are, of course, blessings over food. We recite blessings both before and after eating. There are different blessings for different categories of food–bread (“…who brings forth bread out of the ground“), grain products that are not defined as bread (“…who creates different kinds of sustenance“), wine (“...who creates the fruit of the vine“), fruit (“…who creates the fruit of the tree“), vegetables (“…who creates the fruit of the ground“), and everything else (“…from whose word all came into being“). If that sounds complicated, wait until I tell you that bananas and pineapples are halakhically “vegetables” because they are non-perennial plants… or that food can switch categories according to how it is prepared or eaten (for instance, orange juice). And don’t even get me started on what defines a grain product as bread, or why we say “the fruit of the vine” for wine, but “the fruit of the tree” for grapes! The point is that to make the correct blessing, you have to have a basic awareness of how that food came to be on your plate. And making the blessing gives you an opportunity to reflect on this process. The apple came from a tree, which grew from the ground, thanks to sunlight and water and nutrients from the soil, and it’s God who made all this happen.

“After” blessings are also divided by category: the long birkat hamazon (“blessing for sustenance”/”Grace After Meals”) for after eating bread or a meal with bread (this is the blessing we made after the meal on Shabbat), a shortened version called me’en shalosh for grain products that are not bread, or fruits that fall under the category of the “Seven Species”. These are the seven species referred to in Deuteronomy 8:8; the fruits that the land of Israel is especially celebrated for. Those are: wheat, barley, grapes, dates, figs, pomegranates and olives.

These are a popular decoration motif in Jewish art.

The last “after blessing” is boreh nefashot. It’s one of the most disregarded blessings because it is so short, but in my view, it is one of the most beautiful and meaningful. It goes like this: “Blessed are You…who creates numerous souls and their deficiencies; for all that You have created with which to maintain the life of every being. Blessed is He, the life of worlds.”

The profundity of this blessing lies in its first section: “who creates numerous souls and their deficiencies“… why would we be thanking God for creating a deficiency? Because the very reason we are thanking Him for giving us something to eat, is that He created hunger. If we were not hungry, we would not enjoy the fulfillment of that lack. Take this idea beyond physical sustenance, and you will have a lot to think about. 🙂

Enjoyment blessings are also made on smelling something pleasant. These ones are very specific too, ranging from pleasant scents from flowers and trees, to the scent of herbs, to the scent of fruit, to the most specific–balsam oil. This, too, is a moment to pause and reflect on where this pleasant experience comes from, and using it to channel Godliness into the world.

Another blessing in this category is shehechiyanu: “Blessed are You, Lord, our God, King of the Universe, who has granted us life, sustained us, and enabled us to reach this occasion.” This is the blessing we make over new experiences (such as wearing new clothing), or occasions that are rare enough that we especially enjoy them when they come around (such as holidays, or eating the first fruit of a season).

Blessings for Commandments

Jews consider the Torah to be the greatest gift of all, and as I’ve mentioned, the act of performing a mitzvah is an act of channeling Divine energy into the mundane. This is a very appropriate time to declare God’s increased presence in the world through this act.

Blessings of Experience

They are called “blessings of sight” or “of hearing”, but I would call them “blessings of awe”. These are the blessings we make when we see or hear something that reminds us of God’s presence in the world. For example, when I hear a roll of thunder, I recite: “Blessed are You, Lord, our God, King of the Universe, whose strength and might fills the world.” When I see a streak of lightening, or experience an earthquake, or see an especially mighty mountain or river, I recite: “…who performs an act of creation.” When I see the Mediterranean Sea for the first time in 30 days, I say: “...who created the Great Sea.”

There is a special blessing for seeing a rainbow, which refers to the story of Noah: “…who remembers the covenant, and is faithful in His covenant, and keeps His promise.” The promise and covenant being: “And it shall come to pass, when I bring clouds over the earth, and the rainbow is seen in the cloud, that I will remember My covenant, which is between Me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.” (Genesis 9:14-15)

photo (3)
We get some pretty magnificent rainbows out here on the edge of the desert!

There is another special blessing that we make on flowering fruit trees, only during the month of Nissan (your birth month!): “…who has made nothing lacking in His world, and created within it good creations and good trees for the sons of Adam to enjoy.”

Another blessing of note is Birkat HaGomel; a blessing we say when we have been saved from a potentially life-threatening situation, such as surviving a dangerous illness or childbirth. We are required to say this blessing in front of at least ten people, because when God performs a miracle, we have an obligation to spread knowledge of it as much as we can. (This concept–pirsumei nisa, “publicizing the miracle” in Aramaic–is familiar from the holiday of Chanukah. We display our chanukiyot in a prominent window facing the street for this reason.) The person who was saved says: “Blessed are You, Lord, Our God, King of the Universe, who bestows kindness upon the culpable, for He has bestowed kindness upon me.” Those in attendance answer, “Amen. May He who has bestowed kindness upon you, always bestow kindness upon you.”

There are blessings for seeing an especially wise person; for seeing a king; for seeing a group of 60,000 Jews gathered in one place (it has to do with the number of Israelites gathered at Mt. Sinai); for seeing a place where a miracle happened for the Jewish people (such as the Red Sea, the walls of Jericho, or the Jordan river crossing); for seeing a place where a miracle happened to that individual or to his parents; for seeing especially beautiful people or creations, or for seeing especially unusual-looking people or creations… and for hearing good news, (“…hatov h’hameytiv“, “...who is good and does good“), or bad news (“…dayan haemet“, “…the True Judge“).

There is even a blessing for going to the bathroom! “…Who created man with wisdom and created within him many openings and many cavities. It is exposed and known before Your Throne of Glory, that if one of them were to be ruptured or one of them were to be blocked it would be impossible to survive and to stand before You for even one hour. Blessed are You, Lord, Healer of all flesh who acts wondrously.” As we are painfully reminded every time we have a stomach virus, properly functioning personal plumbing is definitely something to be grateful for!

…Basically, as the rabbi in Fiddler on the Roof says, there truly is a blessing for everything.

Or should I say… in everything.

Because the whole purpose of making a blessing is to look deep into the world we live in, and find God in it.

Amen

When one hears someone else recite a blessing, s/he is required to answer “amen”. Ever wonder what the word “amen” means? The root of the word in Hebrew, א.מ.נ, a.m.n., is the same root as the word, אמונה, emunah, “faith”. Basically, it is a statement that means, “What you say is true”. When you answer “amen”, it is as if you had made the blessing yourself; you are confirming the declaration of the increase of God’s presence, and thus, increasing awareness of God’s presence yourself.

And now, of course, a blessing from me to you: may you always find God, even in the most mundane and unlikely places.

And a joyful Three Kings’ Day! 😉

Love,

Daniella

***

Blog readers: Which is your favorite blessing? If you could create a new blessing for something that doesn’t have one yet in Jewish tradition, what would it be for and how would you phrase it?

Shabbat: A Sacred Space in Time

Jewish traditions, Observant Jewish lifestyle, Observant Judaism, , ,

Dear Josep,

So, Shabbat is something you are a little familiar with, having seen it–or at least part of it–first-hand. But I don’t think I’ve ever really explained it top-to-bottom, and given its centrality in observant Jewish life, I believe a proper e-mail is in order.

First of all, as you know, the commandment to “observe the Sabbath day and keep it holy” is not only a Biblical commandment, it is one of the Ten Commandments. There are two reasons listed in the Bible for keeping the Sabbath: “as a remembrance of the Act of Creation”, and “as a remembrance of the Exodus from Egypt”. That first reason has fairly straightforward to the concept of a day of rest. In Genesis, it says that God created the world in six days and then rested on the seventh. Of course, in the mainstream Jewish interpretation we do not take any of that literally. For one thing, how could there be “days” before the sun itself was created (on the fourth day)? For another, how could a God who has no body or needs of any sort “rest”? What does that even mean? Did He continue creating afterwards? Not that we know of, right? So why do we say He “rested” on the seventh day–what about the eighth, and the ninth, and every day after that?

We must conclude that we are not talking about the kicking-up-your-heels-with-a-glass-of-lemonade-on-a-Sunday-morning kind of rest. And that’s good, because if what we’re supposed to do on Shabbat is “rest”, why aren’t we allowed to do something ridiculously easy like flip a light switch, or relaxing, like playing music?

So here’s the thing. In Judaism (and in most spiritual practices) we believe that the physical world that we see, touch, smell, hear and taste, is just one aspect of the universe, and that there is a parallel spiritual world as well. One of the central concepts of Judaism is channeling the sanctity of the spiritual world into the physical world. We do this through observing the Torah–God’s “guide book to life”, which practically speaking means observing the commandments. So in a way, the act of keeping a mitzvah is a space in the realm of action where the Divine and the mundane interact.

There are a number of “meeting points” between the spiritual and physical worlds according to Judaism. In the realm of space, for example, there is a physical place where the Divine and the mundane meet. That place is (was…) the Temple, and by extension, the city of Jerusalem, and the Land of Israel. Their holiness is in that they have a central role in channeling the spiritual into the physical.

There also exists a “meeting point” in the realm of time. That meeting point is Shabbat.

To Jews, Shabbat is a time above time. It exists on a different plane than the rest of the week. The rest of the week, we have a mission in the world–to act as partners in God’s creation, to take the raw materials He has given us and build the world into a better place. You know how in the story of man’s creation in Genesis, it says that man was created “in God’s image”? Christians take that in an entirely different direction… but in Judaism, what we believe this means is that God made us like Him by giving us the ability to create. While other animals also have a limited capacity to create things, they do not do so with the intention of creating something new, but rather to sustain themselves. We have an aspiration to become greater than we are and make the world greater than it is. This is what defines us, and this, we believe, is why we are here.

On Shabbat, something changes. We step back from our role as creators, and recognize that we are also a creation. God’s creation. If you will, it’s sort of like an office party where we toast the Boss to acknowledge his role in making this all possible. 😉 So all the things we are prohibited to do on Shabbat, are acts of creation. We are supposed to use that time to focus on everything God gave us and helped us create–family, friends, good food and wine, studying Torah, and otherwise “basking in the Divine light”. In our tradition, Shabbat is “a taste of the World to Come”–both in the sense of the Messianic era, and in our idea of Heaven. A time when we will no longer have to partner with God in creation; where our work will be complete, so we can finally rest and enjoy being creations of God.

So what, practically, does this look like? Well, you’ve seen part of it, but to be comprehensive I’ll take us chronologically from lighting the candles to the havdalah ceremony.

Bringing In Shabbat

I elaborated upon the Shabbat candles in this entry, so I won’t go into their significance here. The lady of the household is usually the one who performs that ritual. We wave our hands in front of the flames in a beckoning gesture, three times, to signify “bringing in” Shabbat, and then we cover our eyes and make the blessing: “Blessed are You, Lord, our God, King of the Universe, who sanctified us with His commandments and commanded us to light the Sabbath candles.” It is customary for the woman to then pray for her family and herself, as this is considered an auspicious time for prayer.

Then evening prayers are held at the synagogue. I should note, by the way, that morning, afternoon and evening prayers are not only held at the synagogue on Shabbat, but every day. Men are obligated to pray three times a day in a minyan, a quorum of ten men. The Sabbath prayers are longer and more festive. The synagogue we took you to holds prayers in the style of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, which means that it has a lot more singing and dancing than most services. In any case, the regular evening prayers are preceded by a collection of Psalms and special songs. This section of prayers is called Kabbalat Shabbat, “the reception of Shabbat”. The most famous of these songs is Lekhah Dodi, a poem written by Rabbi Shlomo Alkabetz, a Sephardi Kabbalist who lived in Safed in the 16th century. It compares the Sabbath to a bride coming to meet her groom (the nation of Israel). The poem is really beautiful; Wikipedia has a good translation of the lyrics under “Text”. The melodies you heard were ones composed by Rabbi Carlebach, but I thought you would be interested to know about the melody sung in most Sephardi synagogues. It is an ancient Moorish melody brought to Israel by refugees from Spain–meaning it is actually older than Lekhah Dodi itself. Here is a beautiful rendition by Ehud Banai. He is singing Psalm 95, which is the opening Psalm to Kabbalat Shabbat, and then Lekhah Dodi.

The Evening Feast

After we come home from synagogue, as you know, it’s time to eat! We are required to eat three festive meals on Shabbat–one at night, one in the morning/afternoon following prayers, and one towards sunset. The meal opens with the kiddush ceremony, a prayer recited over a goblet of wine. Kiddush means “sanctification”, and reciting this prayer over wine is sort of a declaration of the holiness of the day. Why over wine? Because the presence of wine and bread are required for any meal of “distinction”–a se’udah, or feast, which is often required as part of fulfilling a major commandment. Aside from the holidays, we are also required to have a se’udah following a marriage or a circumcision ceremony. Any significant moment in Jewish life is celebrated with a feast. Which brings me back to what I’ve been telling you about Jews all these years… we’re all about the food! 😉

So the head of the household makes kiddush and all those present answer “amen” and have a sip. Next we must wash for bread. We wash our hands before eating bread all the time; this is not a special Shabbat thing. Like I showed you, we pour water from a cup over our hands, three times for each hand, and then recite a blessing over washing hands (which I spared you 😉 ). Because washing hands is supposed to occur right before eating bread, we are careful not to speak (except for the blessings and “amen”) until we have eaten it, so there is no hefsek, or “break”, between washing and eating. And that is where my beautiful challahs come in:

Behold my challah-baking prowess!

It is not, of course, required that they be home-baked. 😉 I just happen to love baking them. It is also not required that they be braided, or as sweet and delicious as mine are 😛 (Though that is the Ashkenazi custom.) What is required is to use two full loaves of bread to make the blessing. They symbolize the manna God gave the Israelites in the desert; every day, each Israelite would get one portion of manna, but on Friday, they would get two, one for Friday and one for Shabbat.

So the head of the household makes the blessing over the challah and then distributes it to the family and guests, and then we are free to proceed with our meal. Beyond the wine and bread, there is no specific requirement for what the meal should contain, though it is customary to serve meat, as it is festive. It is customary to sing special songs about the Sabbath during the meal, and to discuss ideas from the Torah.

Speaking of guests, hosting guests is actually a mitzvah, and it is common to invite friends, neighbors and family over to share the meals on Shabbat and holidays. It’s like a dinner party every single week. 😀

Shabbat Day

In the morning, there are services at the synagogue, during which the weekly portion of the Torah is publicly read. That practice goes back to the days of Ezra and Nehemiah and the Jews returning from the first exile, in attempt to familiarize all Jews with the Torah, even those who couldn’t read. Studying Torah has always been a value of utmost importance for Jews, which is why we had such an exceptionally high literacy rate throughout history.

After the service, we have the second feast. In American congregations, it is common to have the kiddush at the synagogue with wine and refreshments, and then to continue the meal at home starting from the challah. Israelis tend to have prayers earlier and go straight home for kiddush and the meal.

The afternoon is spent enjoying friends and family, reading, napping, and/or studying Torah. There is a specific mitzvah to enjoy oneself on Shabbat, so we try to set aside the best food and (permitted) entertainment for that day.

And also our nicest things. A majority of stuff categorized as "Judaica" is for use on Shabbat. Pictured here are a pair of candlesticks (with the blessing for the candles inscribed on the shaft), a board for slicing the challah, our kiddush cup, and one of our prettiest challah covers (cloths used to cover the challah while kiddush is being made).
And also, use our nicest things. A majority of stuff categorized as “Judaica” is for use on Shabbat. Pictured here are a pair of candlesticks, a board for slicing the challah, our kiddush cup, and one of our prettiest challah covers (cloths used to cover the challah while kiddush is being made).

Se’udah Shlisheet and Havdalah

Towards evening, there are afternoon prayers, and then the third meal–se’udah shlisheet. This meal does not require wine or whole loaves of bread, and in a pinch it doesn’t even have to include bread, so naturally it’s a lighter meal. We usually just have more challah with spreads. It is customary to sing songs with sort of sad melodies during this meal, to express our sadness that Shabbat will soon be leaving.

When three stars have emerged, it is time to pray the evening prayers, and then to “make havdalah”. Havdalah means “differentiation”, and the ceremony marks the end of Shabbat and the beginning of the new week. It is recited over yet another goblet of wine, starting with some verses from Isaiah: Here is the Lord of my salvation, I shall trust and I shall not fear; for my strength and my song, He has become my salvation…” And some other verses from the Tanakh. Then, the blessing is made over the wine.

Next comes the blessing for besamim. Besamim means “spices”; we smell something pleasant, like cloves or cinnamon, to sort of “ease the sadness” of Shabbat leaving. Next, the blessing over the candle. It is customary to then look at the reflection of the light on our fingernails. The idea is that it would be improper to recite a blessing for something and then not use it, so we use the light of the candle… to examine our fingernails. I have no idea why that of all things became the custom. I’m sure someone has a very profound Kabbalistic explanation somewhere. 😛

Next comes the final blessing: Blessed are You, Lord, our God, King of the Universe, who differentiates between holy and mundane, between light and darkness, between Israel and the nations, between the Seventh Day and the Six Days of Action. Blessed are You, Lord, who differentiates between holy and mundane.

The candle is then put out, usually by spilling a little wine onto a plate and putting the flame out with it. And that’s it, the new week has begun! We sing a song asking for God’s blessing for the coming week, and for Elijah the prophet to come and announce the coming of the Messiah.

…And then, to clean up the mess. 😛

Well, I’d say this qualifies as a Daniella Standard Size E-mail! If you’re confused or wish for an elaboration on a certain aspect, you know how to find me–and don’t forget, you still owe me a full Shabbat. 😉 (I certainly won’t forget. You know I never forget anything. 😛 )

Feliç Any Nou!

Love,

Daniella
***

Blog readers: Anyone want to volunteer an explanation for the fingernails thing? Anything else you’d like to add or ask about Shabbat?

From the Archives, October 2006: Life as an Observant Jew

From the Archives, Observant Jewish lifestyle, Observant Judaism, ,

This is a compilation of passages from a few e-mails sent about a week after Josep and I met eight years ago. In it, I am answering his question about what it means, practically, to be an observant Jew.

***

Dear Josep,

The meaning of life for a Jew is pretty much exactly as you phrased it. To serve God by making his world a better place, in improving ourselves and in helping the rest of the world improve. Judaism is about life in this world, not about life in the next world, contrary to many other religions. We do have a whole philosophy about the next world, but it is not a major part of the religion and there are many different opinions about what happens after you die.

You want to know more about my lifestyle? There’s something that would fill a good library. 😉 You saw a little of it in Barcelona–about keeping kosher and the Sabbath. Let’s see. Jews pray three times a day, but women (considered, on the whole, more spiritual than men) are not required to say all three formal prayers, so I start off my day with the morning prayers and continue to talk to God freely throughout the day as I please (and everyone else thinks I talk to myself. 😉 ). I feel I have a close and comfortable relationship with God. I feel that He is more than my Father and my King, He is also my closest Friend. Whenever something good or bad happens to me I immediately offer a few words to Him letting Him know how I feel. They say about King David that he used to lie in his bed and talk to God at night, and when I read that I got quite a shock, because that’s what I do, too. I feel He laughs with me at all the silly, ironic things that happen in life and cries with me when things are not so good, and showers me with love in every imaginable way.

But we must not get me started on my relationship with God, because this e-mail will never end. 😉

Before we eat something we make a blessing. This is not only to thank God for giving us food to eat, but also to remember the origin of the food and think about where it came from–for instance, before I eat an apple, I say in Hebrew, “Blessed are You, Lord of the Universe, who created the fruit of the tree.” The apple comes from a tree, and the tree comes from God.

Women wear modest clothing–skirts below the knee and shirts with sleeves, usually to the elbow, and a neckline that isn’t too low. I prefer to be thought of as a person, not a sex object, and not have men’s thoughts skittering around things they shouldn’t be thinking about when they talk to me. Of course I can’t testify to the truth of this, but I’ve had male friends tell me that even a little inch of skin makes a difference. So I feel much more comfortable in modest clothing. Why skirts and not pants? I personally don’t think there’s a problem with pants (my mother wears them all the time), but there are those who do because of laws against cross-dressing and modesty and whatever. I prefer skirts because I find them more comfortable (and prettier. 😀 ).

I also mentioned about physical contact between men and women. A handshake is not a problem, or any kind of formal greeting (which is why I had no problem with the Catalonian kiss-on-the-cheek greeting), but beyond that–not unless they’re married or related by first degree (meaning I can beat up my little brothers as much as I want. 😀 ). I tend to be lenient about this with strangers, but once a person gets to be a friend I find it important. Sometimes one thing can lead to another and it’s important to set down a boundary that you simply don’t cross, in my opinion.

[Concerning Shabbat, I quoted a long passage from an excellent and highly relevant book called “Letters to Talia“, which I can’t post here for copyright reasons. The gist of it was that the actions that are forbidden on the Sabbath are those that express man’s creative power in the world, and that Shabbat is about giving up our role as creator and partners in creation with God, and returning the world to its Owner, remembering that we, too, are creations and not just creators. In this way, Shabbat is another expression of what the author sees as the purpose of halakha–to develop discipline, humility self-refinement, and awareness of one’s purpose in life. Here is a later entry where I elaborate on Shabbat.]

I think Dov’s explanation digs deep into the heart of why I love being Jewish, and things you asked about–how we make ordinary things holy. By choosing when we will or will not eat something or do something, we are making it holy. By making the conscious choice to act on our desires or not to, we are putting our God-given ability to make free choices into our lives, and thus putting God into our lives. I decide when I eat. I decide what I eat. I decide when I go on the computer and when I turn on the light. I decide these things not according to my instincts and desires, but according to what makes me as a human different from all other animals–my ability to act despite those instincts and desires. And I choose to live my life the way God commanded my ancestors and me through His Torah, believing that sticking with Him every step of the way and channeling my desires to fulfill His will is the best way to fulfill my purpose on this earth.

Take care,

Daniella

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Blog readers: What do you do to charge your own life with a sense of purpose?