Apikorsus Online

In Honor of Birkat Ha-Chamah

2009-04-08T07:42:00.003-05:00

In case you missed it, there will be another on Wednesday, April 8, 2037. Mark your calendar.

Election Day Thoughts

2008-11-04T09:17:00.003-05:00

Now and then I turn on the TV and, against my better judgment, flip to one of the twenty-four hour news networks. There’s been a lot of talk lately about how “stressful” this election is to many Americans. People are making appointments with psychotherapists to work through their fears that if the right guy doesn’t win, the world will go up in smoke.

I can’t say that I’ve always been very level-headed about these things myself, although for me, it’s a little bit different. I’ve been planning to vote for Obama from the outset, and just about every development since the primaries—not to mention every debate and every article I’ve read and discussion I’ve heard by professional wonks—has supported my conviction that this is probably the right decision. But then there’s this little voice in my head that says, "What if the McCain people are right? What if Obama is elected and the Middle East falls apart, capitalism collapses, and the world goes up in smoke? It’ll all be my fault." At this point, I remind myself about the electoral college, and how (to paraphrase a friend) every vote counts, but mine doesn’t matter.

Unfortunately, this does little to dispel the worry that I am a Traitor to the Jewish People. (I believe they call this “Jewish guilt.”) The argument goes something like this:

The difference is that unlike Shepherd Smith (who, for the record, is not exactly a left-wing reactionary), I tend to walk away from the conversation worrying that my position is the dangerous one. There’s no rational reason for this. It’s just a neurosis.

Well, today I am feeling less neurotic, and I’ve decided to share my thoughts on this subject. Of course, I’m not expecting to affect anyone’s vote at this point. You may even have already voted. But if you’re sick with worry over how an Obama win will result in the death of Israel, maybe this will calm you down some. (Probably not, but I can try.)

First, as Shepherd Smith pointed out, Obama has repeatedly emphasized the importance of the U.S.’s relationship with Israel. Does this mean anything? Probably not—every candidate does it—but it’s certainly unfair to say that Obama is anti-Israel. Nothing he’s said or done has demonstrated any ill-will toward the Jewish state.

Most of the focus of the “Obama equals death of Israel” argument has been on his stated willingness to “sit down” with Ahmadinejad, as well as other leaders whom he himself has pointedly labeled “America’s enemies.” In and of itself, this is not a controversial position. Our government has talks with enemy leaders all the time, and McCain has admitted that he would also pursue diplomatic relations with Iran and other countries. The argument between the candidates has been over “high-level” talks vs. lower-level talks and “preparation” vs. “preconditions.” There may be real differences here—it’s hard for someone like me to tell—but it’s certainly not the difference between being pro- or anti-Ahmadinejad. Both McCain and Obama have strongly criticized Ahmadinejad for his words on Israel, and both recognize him as an enemy.

The truth is, there’s only so much that the U.S. can do about the existence of countries and leaders that hate Israel and the Western World. We can’t “bomb Iran,” as McCain famously joked; we don’t have the resources for another war, and even if we did, it wouldn’t necessarily be a good idea. All we can do is speak softly and try to convince the world that we still have a big stick. Obama is generally better at speaking softly, while McCain is better at bragging about his stick. But in the end, I don’t think their policies would be very different.

One other matter has emerged recently, relating to an apparent relationship between Obama and Rashid Khalidi, an outspoken critic of Israel. According to the LA times, Obama has had dinner with Khalidi’s family a number of times and has remarked that the latter has encouraged him to consider his “blind spots and biases” and to continue the “conversation” with Palestinian leaders. To me, this sounds like pure politics and nothing much to worry about. But don’t take my word for it. Take Martin Perez’s:

I assume that my Zionist credentials are not in dispute. And I have written more appreciative words about Khalidi than Obama ever uttered. In fact, I even invited Khalidi to speak for a Jewish organization with which I work.

Moreover, the Israelis are trying to live cooperatively and in peace with Palestinians whose unrelenting positions make Khalidi almost appear like a Zionist.

I’m not saying that an Obama presidency would be better for Israel than a McCain presidency. I’m no foreign policy wonk, and there are many complicated issues involved. I’m just suggesting that we all take a deep breath here. Pour yourself a nice cup of tea or a glass of wine and watch the election results—or don’t. The world isn’t going to go up in smoke if it doesn’t work out the way you wanted. And even if it does, there isn’t much you can do about it now.

If I Have Been Unkind

2008-10-08T12:36:00.003-05:00

If I've wronged anyone reading this, in word or deed, by action or by neglect, I hope that you will forgive me.

As someone said to me recently, good luck with the book and with the seal and everything.

Coming Back to You

2008-10-06T21:34:00.003-05:00

You may be wondering where I've been. Or maybe you're used to this already. In any case, it's aseret yemei teshuvah, so I'll just jump right into the hard stuff.

A friend of mine wanted to talk about teshuvah recently. It bothered her, she said, that the people who spend the most time in shul beating their breasts and feeling guilty are the ones who need to do it the least. I agreed. That’s why I always feel so crappy this time of year, I told her. All these Jews who are so much more pious than me are waking up early to pray and repent, and here I am just going about my life, barely doing anything at all.

That wasn’t what she meant, though. She was thinking of all the Jews who would be eating ham sandwiches on Yom Kippur, and wondering why she had to deal with all this guilt, when in the general scheme of things, she’s a pretty decent Jew.

After she left, I admitted to DH that I see things pretty much the same way. I know we're not perfect -- me, DH, my friends -- but I really don't think we're bad people. I always find myself thinking this during the high holidays, as I mumble my way through all that self-deprecating liturgy: Overall, I'm really a pretty decent human being.

“Then why do you always get so depressed?” he asked.

Depressed is probably too strong a word, but it’s true: I do get moody around the High Holidays. What I feel crappy about, I tried to explain, is that I don’t feel crappy enough. With all those hours of prayer designed to induce guilt and remorse, you can’t help feeling remorseful if you don’t feel remorseful.

The problem is that I just haven’t figured out where I stand vis-à-vis halakhah and morality. I think I understand how this process ought to work for a very pious Jew: He or she might, for example, be overcome with guilt for missing the proper time for prayer on various occasions over the past year. The road to teshuvah would be clear: confess, pray for forgiveness, and make a concerted effort not to oversleep any more. On the other end of the spectrum, if someone were, say, involved in an adulterous relationship, she might be likewise overcome with guilt (or at least, she ought to be). And the proper path would be equally clear (if somewhat more difficult): Repent, break off the relationship, and so forth. But what about me? There are lots of things I could do if I wanted to be “frummer.” I could keep kosher more strictly, for example. But that would interfere with my relationships with various family members and non-Jews, and even if halakhah does warrant that, I’m not convinced that it’s the right thing to do. On the interpersonal level, I could try to be kinder and more generous, but I’m not sure that’s the right thing for me to do either. It so often seems to result in my making promises that I don’t keep, in abandoning people who don’t need me, and in resentment on all sides.

I don’t mean to suggest that there’s nothing clear for me to work on. Keeping commitments I’ve already made is an obvious one. I could also be more attentive to my loved ones and try to “be there” for them, even if I can’t always meet all their needs. But that’s hardly enough to keep me occupied for five weeks of breast-beating including a twenty-five hour fast.

So that’s where I am.

Another Recipe

2008-08-04T20:44:00.004-05:00

This is a pretty weird blog, isn't it? Over the past couple of months, I've gone from nonstop gloom and doom to nonstop berry recipes, with one chick-flick post in between. Pretty soon, I expect to post some more gloom and doom of a seasonally appropriate variety, but first I have a recipe for fish.

The fish recipe is actually seasonally appropriate, too, although that is strictly a coincidence. This week, many observant Jewish carnivores are taking a break from red meat and poultry in commemoration of the destruction of the Temple. DH and I rarely eat meat on weekdays, anyway (and meat is permitted during the Nine Days on Shabbat), but we happen to have tried a particularly good fish recipe tonight, so I thought I'd share it. (See this post for one take on the propriety of eating "gourmet" meatless dishes during the Nine Days.) We started with this recipe, but we used tilapia rather than trout (it was on sale), replaced the half cup of fresh tomatoes with a 14.5-ounce can of fire-roasted tomatoes, and increased the number of shiitake mushrooms. (It's hard to go wrong with shiitakes.) Here's the result:

Fish With Shitake Mushrooms, Ginger, and Tomatoes

1 lb fillet of trout or tilapia, or a similar thin, mild-tasting fish (maybe sole?)*
Salt and pepper
2 green onions, chopped
4 large fresh shiitake mushrooms, stemmed, caps thinly sliced
1 14.5-ounce can diced tomatoes, preferably fire-roasted
2 teaspoons minced peeled fresh ginger
2 garlic cloves, minced
4 teaspoons soy sauce
2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease a baking sheet or coat with nonstick spray. Rinse fish, pat dry, and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Place fish on baking sheet.

Combine remaining ingredients in a medium bowl and mix. Spoon over fish. Bake uncovered until fish is just cooked through, about 20 minutes.

*You can also use whole trout, cleaned, boned, and butterflied and baked skin-side down, as per the original recipe.

Two years ago, I posted nine other simple meatless recipes for the Nine Days on the Kosher Blog and rounded them up here. Some of the posts have more than one recipe in them, so you have to scroll down to see them all.

SHF #45: Berries!

2008-08-03T18:38:00.006-05:00

It's been a while since I've participated in Sugar High Friday, but when I saw this round's theme, I had to jump in. Berries have become a minor obsession with me lately (possibly because I was allergic to them as a child). Since early June, I've been eating berries nearly every day—often two or three times—which you might think would have dampened my enthusiasm somewhat, but you'd be wrong. Actually, it would be convenient if something did dampen my enthusiasm a bit. Strawberry season is long over, and the local blueberries are pretty much gone, too; even New Jersey blueberries have been hard to come by as of about a week ago. I bought some raspberries and gooseberries at the farmer's market on Tuesday, but they were gone by lunchtime on Wednesday (a situation that I can't blame on DH, who had exactly one berry), so this recipe is made with strawberries from California and blueberries from Michigan. I'm all for eating local, if you live someplace with a growing season longer than ten seconds.

But enough of that. On to the sugar. We weren't having guests, so I knew I'd be eating most (or, as it turned out, all) of this dessert on my own, so I wanted something light and easy. This recipe fit the bill: it's mostly fruit, and it took all of five minutes to assemble. Another perk: I already had all the ingredients (except the berries, which I'd planned on buying anyway; see above). Taste-wise, there are no surprises: if you like berries, orange, and ricotta (as dessert—this seems to have been a turn-off for DH), then this is for you. Personally, I loved it. As I said, no surprises :)

Berries With Ricotta Cream

adapted from Epicurious
Serves 4 (or 1, if you're me)

1 cup whole-milk ricotta cheese
1 tablespoon orange liqueur [I used Carmel orange brandy, and it was good anyway!]
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon grated orange peel
berries [the original calls for 1 pint strawberries and 1.5 pints raspberries; I used strawberries and blueberries] combined with 1 tablespoon sugar and 1 tablespoon orange liqueur [or not]

Combine ricotta, liqueur, honey, and sugar. Let stand 30 minutes (or longer). Top with berries and eat.

Visit Food Blogga in the next few days for lots more berry recipes!

(In case you're wondering: DH managed to get the camera working by some method he read about on the Internet that seemed to involve a lot of smacking. Maybe he'll post something about it on that nerdy blog of his. Anyway, I'm very grateful, but it seems to me that the picture quality has deteriorated somewhat, so if those berries look kind of blurry, that's probably why.)

More berry recipes on this blog:
Berry Sorbet
Vegan Blueberry Ice Cream
Strawberry Shortcake
Strawberry Frozen Yogurt (the recipe is actually here)
Strawberry Cheesecake Ice Cream
Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp
Raspberry Ice Cream

Vegan Blueberry Ice Cream

2008-07-11T12:20:00.003-05:00

It looks like the camera is kaputt, so I can't take a picture of the beautiful purple vegan blueberry cheesecake ice cream that I made today. I can tell you, however, that it is quite delicious IMHO. The "parve cheesecake" flavor may not be for everyone (I haven't tried it on the guests yet), but I recommend giving the recipe a shot even if you find the idea somewhat disgusting.

The recipes on Agnes's blog are all made with soy creamer, although she suggests some alternatives here. Silk brand creamer, I recently confirmed, is nondairy even though it is labeled OU-D. I discuss the halakhic implications in this Kosher Blog post.

Now I have to leave the apartment so that I can get some work done without eating all the ice cream. Shabbat shalom.

Strawberry Shortcake, Cream On Top

2008-07-01T22:14:00.005-05:00

"I think next week will be the last week for strawberries."

That's what the guy at the farmer's market told me today as I bagged my half gallon of berries. So, all you fellow New Englanders, get them now! Local strawberries are different from the ones from California or Florida: smaller, more delicate, and red all the way through. Of course, all you need to enjoy them is a bowl -- no, I take that back, you don't need a bowl, but you do need a napkin. At any rate, you certainly don't need extra sugar or cream. But having made and eaten my first strawberry shortcake last Friday, I don't think I'll go another summer without one. There's just nothing like strawberries and cream, let alone bright red, juicy native strawberries and freshly whipped cream with real vanilla. And, of course, shortcake. I used this buttermilk shortcake recipe, which was lovely. (I use SACO cultured buttermilk blend.) Sadly, when I went to take a picture of my last, carefully guarded shortcake, I discovered that the batteries in my camera were dead. I guess I could have run out and bought new ones, but I didn't. I just grabbed a spoon and enjoyed.

Here's my version of the recipe:

For the Shortcake:

2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/3 cup butter, chilled and cut into pieces
3/4 cup buttermilk (or 3 tbs powdered buttermilk and 3/4 cup water)
1 tsp vanilla extract

For the Whipped Cream:

1 pint whipping cream
4 tbs sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract

1 pint strawberries, washed, hulled, and sliced

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Make the shortcake: Combine the dry ingredients (including powdered buttermilk, if using) in a food processor and pulse a few times to blend. Add the butter and continue to pulse until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add the liquid ingredients and pulse until the dough comes together.

Use a 1/4 cup measuring cup or an ice cream scoop to drop dollops of dough onto a parchment-lined baking sheet. (They won't be neat.) Bake 15 minutes, or until golden.

Make the whipped cream: Combine cream, sugar, and vanilla in a large bowl and beat with an electric mixer until soft peaks form. (It will not be as stiff as commercial whipped cream.)

Just before serving, slice the shortcakes in half and top with whipped cream and strawberries. (I just put the components on the table and let my guests assemble their own.)

Yield: 10 shortcakes

Also recommended: David Lebovitz's Strawberry Frozen Yogurt (I commented on the recipe here) and strawberry cheesecake ice cream.

(Icon courtesy of A Veggie Venture)

Deconstructing Carrie

2008-06-25T16:23:00.005-05:00

The first time I watched Sex and the City, it was at my parents' place with my sisters, who were already fans of the show. At the time, I didn't get the appeal, or how they could stand Sarah Jessica Parker's voice and the lame "musings" that were supposed to constitute Carrie Bradshaw's column. Years later, when the show was being rerun on TBS, I turned it on one Tuesday night and quickly became addicted. I think it was somewhere in the middle of season two, when the show had become wittier and the characters, who had begun as static stereotypes, had developed just enough to be somewhat sympathetic. I also discovered that Cynthia Nixon as Miranda was compelling enough to compensate for Sarah Jessica Parker as Carrie. And, like so many women, I fell in love with Steve, the gentle bartender who takes endless abuse from Miranda and keeps coming back for more.

(Warning: Minor movie spoilers ahead.)

I almost never watch movies in theaters, but when the Sex and the City movie came out, I decided to seek out some female friends to see it with, since I knew that DH would never watch it with me on Netflix. After reading this review (e-mailed to me by the very friend I was going to watch it with!), I started to worry that the movie would be two hours of everything I didn't like about Sex and the City and none of the things I did. Fortunately, I was wrong. It certainly was silly, and it had more than its share of cringe-worthy lines (particularly toward the end), but it was also funny -- occasionally hilarious -- and there were lots of great outfits, which is all that any one who's watched the show can reasonably expect.

Still, I'm a graduate student, and it's impossible for me to watch a movie like this without feeling the urge to take it apart. And what's the point of having a blog if not to indulge in this sort of thing? So here goes:

I'm sure I'm not the first to point out that Sex and the City is fundamentally a traditional romance with a veneer of sexual liberation. The "girls" (as they call themselves) are all ultimately looking for a man to settle down with (at least by the end of the series) -- preferably one who can support their shopping habits, which seem to run them several thousand dollars a spree. (It's not clear where all this money is supposed to be coming from at the outset. Miranda supposedly works eighty hours a week at a law firm, but it's hard to figure out when those hours could be to leave room for all the daytime outings and wild nights. The others are total mysteries: Charlotte runs an art gallery until she gets married, Samantha is an event planner-turned-publicist, and before her first book is published Carrie supports herself by writing a weekly sex column -- in Manhattan! It's also not clear how they manage to walk around in those shoes without ending up on crutches -- but I digress.)

The movie, like the series, is totally unapologetic in its promotion of stereotypes. These are mostly related to the women's relentless pursuit of "labels and love," but there are others: the bald lawyer Jew with the vaguely Yiddish accent; the latino womanizer; and of course, the flamboyantly gay men who always show up just long enough to offer fashion tips and comic relief. The movie also introduced a new stereotype in the person of Carrie's "assistant," an updated version of the kindly black maid. At the end of the movie she leaves the "big city" to marry a man of the appropriate race and class (and girth), and everyone lives happily ever.

Sorry if I ruined the surprise.

Anyway, like I said, I enjoyed the movie, and if you liked the series, you probably will, too. If you don't -- or if, like so many of us, you do but are a little bit embarrassed about it -- you may enjoy this:

And Now For Something Completely Different

2008-06-24T22:12:00.004-05:00

The women of my family tend to be fairly well endowed. I guess that's why my mom sent us this article, from Slate. It begins with some familiar thoughts:

As a woman who loves sports, I've always found the concept of breasts bothersome. If all goes according to plan, they will fulfill their intended function for about three of the 70 years that I have them. The rest of the time, they alternate between getting in my way and embarrassing me.

I'm not a sports person, and I do appreciate breasts for their ornamental value, but I have to agree: they do tend to get in the way. I'm somewhat lacking in the inventive spirit, though, so it never occurred to me that breasts could be functional as well as ornamental (aside, of course, from the limited function that nature intended). Not so Adrienne So (no pun intended -- really), who not only hit on the idea of an energy-generating bra but actually ran it past "some scientists."

LaJean Lawson, a former professor of exercise science at Oregon State University, has studied breast motion since 1985 and now works as a consultant for companies like Nike to develop better sports bra designs. Lawson was enthusiastic about my idea but warned it would be tricky to pull off. You would need the right breast size and the right material, she explained, and the bra itself would have to be cleverly designed. "It's just a matter of finding the sweet spot, between reducing motion to the point where it's comfortable but still allowing enough motion to power your iPod," she said.

That was just to lighten up the mood around here. Speaking of lightening up, I recently tried making berry sorbet with agave nectar, a natural low-glycemic sweetener, in place of maple syrup. It came out well. In the process, I learned that the apple juice in the recipe is really unnecessary and that omitting it yields a better texture.

One final non-sequitur based on an e-mail from a family member. Littlest Sister sent me the following message this morning:

I was wondering if you knew of any gooey parve cake recipes (it's my friend Wendy's birthday on Sunday and her roommate needs one)Maybe you could make a blog post about it. Say it's a special request. You need to put something new up there anyway.

"Parve" and "gooey" are a tough combination, but a friend of mine did make a very delicious, rich parve chocolate cake for her birthday, and it turned out to be based on this recipe. She just substituted soy milk for the milk in both the cake and the frosting. It was totally undetectable.

If you want something really gooey, you can make a parve flourless chocolate cake simply by substituting margarine for the butter. This is a good recipe. The biggest challenge is finding high-quality parve chocolate. I like Scharffen Berger, but it's pretty expensive and mostly sold at specialty stores.

That's all for tonight. There are a few more posts in the works, but I may not get around to publishing them until, say, sometime around the battle of Gog and Magog. I'll try, though.

This Post is Depressing

2008-05-25T11:54:00.004-05:00

Don't say I didn't warn you.

A friend of mine keeps asking why I haven't blogged for so long. As usual, there are a variety of reasons. One of those reasons is Isaac. It's hard to think of blogging and not writing about something that occupies my thoughts so often. At the same time, I know that there's no way to write about Isaac's death without being self-absorbed (if I write about my own feelings) or trite (if I write about it from any other perspective). And I don't feel like eulogizing Isaac any more, at least right now, as much as he deserves it. There have been so many eulogies.

I don't want to stop blogging forever, though, so here it is: one long, trite, self-absorbed post. After this I'll get back to blogging recipes and destroying Judaism or whatever I usually do.

When I first read this post, I was still in a state of deep mourning. My initial thought was, How can she even compare Isaac's death to the attack on Mercaz HaRav? How can anyone compare it to anything? Nothing will ever be the same now. The world has come to an end!

Of course, it didn't take me long to realize that my line of thought was completely illogical. If the world ended when Isaac was hit by that truck, eight worlds ended when those shots were fired in Jerusalem. Those kids have families and friends who love them, too. They had their whole lives ahead of them.

The fact is, the world ends every day. And yet it doesn't. Two weeks after Isaac's funeral, DH and I went to the wedding of some friends, a couple we've known about as long as we've known Isaac and Margot -- a couple that's just as happy and loving and perfect for each other as Isaac and Margot were. I didn't want to go at first (although I knew I would anyway). I didn't think I could be happy for them. The whole thing just seemed so ridiculous and random and unfair. After two weeks, though, while I was still sad, still thinking about Isaac nearly all the time, I was able to be happy for my other friends, too. There is a time to mourn and a time to dance, as the old wisdom goes. This was a time to dance, and I danced until I was exhausted. Life is too short and uncertain not to be happy at a wedding.

One of the unexpected effects that Isaac's loss has had on me is that it's actually become easier to watch the news. I used to often feel torn when I heard reports of tragedies -- torn between the horror and sadness that I thought I should feel (and sometimes did) and the knowledge that I had to get on with whatever I was doing, and that no one person can or should feel the pain of the world. And of course, there was always the urge to change the channel and watch Law & Order reruns or cartoons. It's different now. I feel like I've internalized the great sadness of it all -- not that I've experienced, God forbid, the loss of a parent or a child or spouse, let alone the whole world I know, just that I understand loss and tragedy in a way that I didn't before. Well enough, if I may say so. I no longer have that notion that I should sympathize with the families of fallen soldiers or the victims of natural disasters and terrorist attacks. I get it. The world has ended again. And I still have to finish making dinner.

Today was Memorial Day, with its strange American custom of honoring the dead with sales and barbecues. (Not that Americans are unique in this respect. Jews commemorate shloshim and yahrzeit with food and try to comfort mourners with endless boxes of rugelach. I guess we still have to eat.) I spent much of this morning doing housework with CNN in the background, and the news stories were punctuated with messages from military families about loved ones they recently lost. It's terribly sad, but after all, it's no one I know. I had laundry to fold, exams to grade.

I know that it will be a long time before Isaac's parents and sister and soulmate are able to "change the channel" and focus on ordinary things, let alone be happy at a wedding. They will probably never be where I am now, generally enjoying life in spite of the sadness. The same is true, of course, for so many whose loved ones have been cut down before their time. But even for them, the sun will keep rising every morning, and life will go on. For whatever it's worth (and I do realize that it isn't much, if anything), my thoughts are with them today, wishing them strength.

Thank You for Not Being A Jerk

2008-04-05T23:06:00.003-05:00

It's hard to know how to deal with others' loss. Everyone grieves differently, and words that one person finds comforting can seem insensitive to someone else. I've definitely been insensitive to mourners in the past. But there are some things that everyone should know not to do:

your

A Simple Jew

2008-03-26T19:44:00.002-05:00

An anonymous commentator calling himself "The Pachad Yitzchak" wrote the following in response to my last post:

I don't know what simply a Jew is, except a guy in a brown fedora at the back of a Young Israel at 11:00 on Shabbes. Apart from that, simple Judaism is only for the most engaged and ideologically complicated people.

This Pachad Yitzchak (I don't think he would mind your knowing) was Isaac Meyers, a Harvard doctoral student who was killed by a grocery truck last monday on his way to an early morning shiva minyan. The line about the guy in the brown fedora (which I didn't pick up on at the time) was a reference to a song called "A Simple Jew" that Isaac wrote for his band, the Rothchilds ("the plutocrats of pop").*

Isaac wasn't the kind of "simple Jew" described in his song. His understanding of Judaism was broad and deep and sophisticated, and, as you can tell from his songs, he also had a sense of humor about it. In other ways, though, Isaac was as simple and straightforward as they come. He never hesitated to do what he thought was right, and he always did it in the most understated way. There's no way to even begin to describe what we lost with his passing.

At Isaac's funeral, the presiding rabbi, Jeremy Kalmanofsky, read a poem by Chaim Nachman Bialik that I thought captured the situation as well as any human words possibly could. Afterward, I searched for it on the Internet and found it here. You really must read it in Hebrew if you can; the translation doesn't measure up. Isaac could have written a better one — he had a great sensitivity for these things. But he's not here.

*You can hear "A Simple Jew" and other Rothchilds recordings here.

Why is the Conservative Movement Worse Than Every Other Movement?

2008-02-18T22:44:00.003-05:00

This post got me thinking.

It's no secret that the Conservative movement has major problems. It originated in the late nineteenth-century as a denomination for Jews who didn't want to reform as much as the Reform movement but didn't want to do the whole Orthodox thing, either. While leaders of the movement will insist that it has a more intricate philosophy than "not Orthodox and not Reform," the truth is that it's been struggling to define that philosophy since its inception, and I don't think there was any time throughout the movement's history when it didn't seem at risk of fragmentation.

None of this bothers me as much as it seems to bother so many people I talk to. This may be partly because I don't really consider myself a Conservative Jew. It's not that I'm ideologically post-denominational; it's just that I don't really think of "Orthodox," "Conservative," and "Reform" as labels that belong on people. There are Conservative rabbis (I often rely on one for halakhic opinions) and Conservative congregations (I attend one), and there are Conservative responsa and position papers, which I read with interest because some of them reflect approaches to Judaism that approximate my own. But as for me, I am simply a Jew. So it doesn't bother me that the movement doesn't always reflect my ideals, or even that it doesn't seem to have a clear-cut mission. From my perspective, the movement's function is to serve as an umbrella organization for similarly-minded Jewish leaders to build and sustain communities, grapple with contemporary issues, and educate the next generation. Granted, it doesn't always do these things very well, but it hobbles along. And since I don't generally expect much from religious institutions (or institutions in general), I'm not seriously disappointed.

But Katrina makes an observation that I don't think I ever fully appreciated: Jews affiliated with the Conservative movement seem uniquely disenchanted with it. Yitz Greenberg is supposed to have said that it doesn't matter what denomination you belong to, as long as you're ashamed of it (I know I've quoted this before, but it's good), and I always thought that the disillusionment shared by so many of those committed to Conservative Judaism was just a healthy realization of their movement's flaws. On the other hand, Katrina claims that Jews committed to the Reform movement generally seem pretty gung-ho about it, and I've known a fair number of Jews who seemed quite enthusiastic about modern Orthodoxy as well. On the other hand, I've rarely met a Conservative rabbi or educated layperson who didn't regard the Conservative movement with positive contempt. Maybe there really is something wrong with this picture.

ELF Becomes Disenchanted With Politics

2008-02-18T21:35:00.003-05:00

No, I'm not really a total newcomer to the human race. But Saturday's paper particularly upset me, and it's still hurting.

The worst part was learning that Clinton is calling for the delegates she won in the Michigan and Florida primaries to be to be counted. We all know that the Democratic primary process this year is a total mess, but demanding delegates you won in a contest in which your opponent wasn't on the ballot because he was following the party's rules is tantamount to saying that you'll do anything to win, democratic process be damned. I voted for Clinton, and it's a vote that I'd been looking forward to casting for some time. But at a time when unchecked presidential power is one of the most serious issues facing our country, this isn't the sort of thing that I can shrug off.

Then there was McCain's vote against a bill restricting government interrogation techniques. I've never been a McCain supporter per se -- I disagree with his positions on nearly every issue of substance -- but like so many Americans, I've always respected him, and I was quietly thrilled to see him sweep the Republican primaries. He seemed competent, sensible, and principled (at least as politicians go), not least because of his stand on torture. Now, he seems to be doing an about-face and hoping that no one but right-wing Republicans will notice. (His vote supporting phone companies that assisted in Bush's warrantless wiretapping program doesn't inspire confidence, either.)

That leaves Mr. Smith, a.k.a. Barak Obama. He may not have much experience, but he says that we Can, and while I'm not sure exactly what it is that we can do, people seem pretty excited about it. And he did get this endorsement. I guess there's something to be said for electing a guy who makes people feel good. It may not be the only necessary qualification for Leader of the Free World and Commander-in-Chief in Wartime, but then again, he couldn't easily make things much worse.

This Post Doesn't Make Sense Unless You Know Hebrew

2008-01-16T19:59:00.000-05:00

While listening to the story of the Exodus this past Shabbat, I started thinking about the Fantasy Haggadah. Among other things, I was thinking about what to call it. There's a sort of formula for Hebrew titles of Jewish holy books. They tend to be short phrases -- often from the Bible or another traditional Jewish text -- usually consisting of two nouns in construct or a noun modified by an adjective. The title can have something to do with the content of the book, or it can be based on the author's name. For example, since my Hebrew name is Chaya, DH occasionally refers to my imaginary book of Jewish philosophy as ספר חית השדה.*

Anyway, as we moved through the Torah portion, I scanned for good names for a Haggadah. The first that came to mind was הגדת ליל שמורים, but that seemed kind of bland, and I figured it was probably taken (it is). Then I came up with a number that almost certainly aren't taken:
הגדת לב מצרים
הגדת צעקה גדולה
הגדת שבעת ימים (because that's how long it'll take to get through the seder)
הגדת שה תמים (maybe better for a Christian haggadah?)
הגדת המול כל זכר
הגדת מה זאת (my current favorite)

Opinions?

*It was really funny the first time he said it. I guess you had to be there.

The Amazing Fly-Lady

2008-01-13T22:25:00.000-05:00

Yes, yes, I'm still here. I've been de-cluttering my life with the aid of a certain website by a certain super hero with a purple tutu and wings. I should probably be ashamed (it's a little bit "feminine mystiquey," as a friend of mine would say), but I've found it really helpful. (For the record: I don't need Flylady because I'm the only one who does housework around here. I need it because my husband is a fairly neat, organized type,* and I am a scatterbrain and a slob.)

The point is, I've been trying to organize my time as well as my apartment, focusing on the more essential things first, and I'm just now getting around to figuring out where things like blogging fit in. I really do expect to start posting on a more regular basis now. Honestly.

That's all for tonight, though. I have to finish up my Before Bed Routine.

*His parents, if they are reading this, are undoubtedly shocked and appalled that anyone could assert such a thing, but that is because they don't know what genuine slovenliness looks like.

Going Biblical

2007-10-28T22:13:00.000-05:00

Chana started a fun-looking biblical character meme recently. I thought that answering the questions would be an easy way to produce a quick non-culinary post, but then I realized that they weren't easy to answer at all. Here are my best responses for now:

Which biblical character do you feel you are most like?
Often, I think I'm most like like Isaac: a quiet, gullible type who generally does as he's told. Other times, I think I'm more like Eve.

Which biblical character would you marry?
This was harder to answer than I expected. Barak is an obvious choice — he's very loyal — but I don't feel like I know him very well. Elisha can do lots of neat tricks, but he's bald and I don't think he's very good with children. Bilaam has a great ass, but that's about it. (Yeah, I know. Sorry.) I might be able to learn to love Jacob, even though he is a bit of a jerk at times. But if I were Isaac, he would be my son, and that isn't even legal in Massachusetts. So I really don't know. Boaz, maybe? He seems nice. And he's rich, which doesn't hurt.

Which biblical character would you want on your team (or on your side, during a war?)
I'm going to have to be unoriginal and go with YHWH (a.k.a. God).

Which biblical character would you want to be close friends with?
Ruth. I know she'd always be there for me. Also, she has balls (metaphorically speaking, of course), which I kind of admire.

Which biblical character do you think would make an excellent Disney villain?
I'm going to be unoriginal again and choose Haman. He's devious and thoroughly evil, but also a bit of a buffoon. Disney seems to like that in a villain.

Join in the fun! (You can see some more responses here, here, and here.)

Whole Grain Apple Cake with Bourbon Sauce

2007-10-22T23:22:00.000-05:00

Looks like I'm late to the SHF game again. The posts were due at midnight and it's now 12:22. Typical timing (though I really was working on something much more important). Maybe Spitton Extra will be gracious and admit me, anyway. If not, my loyal readers will still get the recipe.

This month's theme is apples and alcohol. This was convenient for me, since I already had an 8-inch whole grain apple cake in the freezer and was trying to come up with an accompaniment. I settled on bourbon sauce.

The cake recipe is based on "Legacy Apple Cake" in King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking. I clipped it from the Boston Globe, where it was published on May 31, 2006. The sauce recipe is from Adger House B&B (I found it through Google). My only significant change to both recipes was to substitute Earth Balance sticks for butter. All in all, it was a good dessert. The cake was a little bit crumbly, but otherwise it averted the usual pitfalls of whole grain baking: it was nice and moist and not at all bitter. The bourbon sauce was very intense. It would be a great booster for one of those non-dairy ice creams.

Whole Grain Apple Cake with Bourbon Sauce

Cake

Makes 9x13-inch rectangular cake or two 8-inch square or 9-inch round cakes

Butter, margarine, or vegetable oil spray for the pan
2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour, plus more for the pan (the original calls for King Arthur brand traditional or white whole wheat; I used Arrowhead Mills pastry flour because I had it)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt (omit if using salted butter or margarine)
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice, or 2 teaspoons apple pie spice
1 cup (2 sticks) butter or margarine, preferably unsalted
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup boiled cider or apple juice concentrate
3 apples, peeled, seeded, and chopped (don't ask me what size)
1 cup walnuts, chopped (I substituted pecans)

1. Set oven at 325 degrees. Grease and flour a 9x13-inch pan or 2 smaller pans (see above).

2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice or apple pie spice; set aside.

3. Using an electric mixer in a large mixing bowl, cream the butter or margarine with the brown and granulated sugars until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, stopping between each addition to scrape the sides and bottom of the mixing bowl. Beat in vanilla and cider or apple juice.

4. With the mixer set on low speed, beat in the flour mixture until evenly moistened. With a rubber spatula, fold in the apples and nuts.

5. Spread the batter in the prepared pan. Transfer to the oven and bake for 45 minutes or until a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean.

6. Remove the cake from the oven and set on a wire rack to cool completely.

Sauce

1/2 cup brown sugar
3 teaspoons butter or margarine
1/4 cup Bourbon

Melt butter over medium heat. Add brown sugar and Bourbon. Simmer on low heat, stirring often to cook off some of the alcohol, about 5 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature, spooned over the cake.

I took a picture of the cake, but I can't find the cable for my digital camera, so it'll have to wait. (I'll post the pic whenever I find the cable, which I hope will be soon.) In any case, head over to Spitoon Extra this Friday for all the SHF recipes (which may or may not include this one). I'm sure it'll be great.

Hey, man, I thought that you were dead. . .

2007-10-22T12:23:00.001-05:00

...No, man, I've been right here this whole time
playing bass guitar

I don't actually play guitar, but that's a pretty cute clip, don't you think? (Lyrics are here. Hat tip to PaleoJudaica.) Anyway, the point is, I'm not dead. I just haven't been blogging because my computer crashed at the beginning of September, and then classes started (I'm teaching Hebrew for the first time), and there were the holidays, and then I guess I just fell out of the habit. I'll post again soon, though, with a recipe, and there will be some non-food-related content later on.

Anniversary Biscuits

2007-08-24T16:18:00.001-05:00

DH and I always celebrate birthdays and anniversaries the same way: we go out to eat. This year, though, our anniversary is on a Friday, and we can't go out on Shabbat, so we're postponing our celebratory meal until Sunday evening.

Still, I thought it would be nice to do a little something on the Big Day itself, and as you all know, I'm always looking for an excuse to bake. There was no question of doing something for dinner, since we've been invited to a friend's, so I decided to make a nice breakfast. I didn't have to wake up early or start the night before. These biscuits can be prepared in about ten minutes, plus 10-12 minutes in the oven.

The recipe is adapted from "Baking Powder Biscuits" in Betty Crocker's Homemade Quick Breads. I substituted butter for the vegetable shortening and used a food processor instead of a pastry blender. I also cut the recipe in half, since there are only two of us.

Buttery Biscuits

1/4 cup cold unsalted butter, in slices
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tbs sugar
1`1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
about 1/3 cup milk

Heat oven to 450 degrees F. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a food processor and pulse to mix. Add the slices of butter and continue pulsing until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Transfer to a bowl. Add milk gradually, stirring, until the dough forms a bowl.

Turn dough onto a lightly floured surface and gently roll in flour to coat. Knead lightly. Pat 1/2 inch thick. Cut with a 2 inch cookie cutter or an overturned glass. Gather any leftover scraps of dough into a ball, pat it out, and cut more biscuits until the dough is used up.

Place the biscuits about 1 inch apart on the cookie sheet. Bake 10-12 minutes or until brown around the edges. Serve hot.

Makes about 6 biscuits.

Ben & Jerry's Raspberry Ice Cream

2007-08-22T23:11:00.000-05:00

Raspberry isn't the first flavor that comes to mind when I think of Ben & Jerry's, but it's listed in the "Greatest Hits" chapter of their recipe book, so I figured I'd give it a whirl. I'm glad I did. This ice cream is delicious, creamy, and very fresh-tasting, with little juicy bits of berry throughout. And the raspberries came from the farmer's market, so I get to use Blush again!

One thing I should mention about the Ben & Jerry's book is that the recipes couldn't be much easier. They'd never ask you do anything as complicated as tempering eggs or seeding berries. I'm okay with a few seeds, but I'm not comfortable feeding my guests raw eggs, so I substituted their egg-free sweet cream base for the one with eggs. If you're willing to live on the edge, you can add two whole eggs and substitute one cup of milk for the half-and-half. Ice cream with eggs supposedly keeps better long term (not that I would know).

Since my raspberries were pretty mild, I also reduced the sugar from 1 1/2 cups to 1 cup, and I thought it was about right. Use your judgment.

Without further ado:

Raspberry Ice Cream

1 pint fresh raspberries
1 to 1 1/2 cups sugar
Juice of 1/2 lemon
2 cups heavy or whipping cream
2/3 cup half-and-half

Combine the raspberries, 3/4 cup of the sugar, and the lemon juice in a bowl. Cover and refrigerate 2 hours, stirring every 30 minutes.

Pour the cream into a mixing bowl. Whisk in the remaining sugar, a little at time, then continue whisking until completely blended, about 1 minute more. Pour in the half-and-half and whisk to blend.

Drain the juice from the raspberries into the cream mixture and blend. Mash the raspberries and stir them into the cream mixture.

Transfer the mixture into an ice cream maker and freeze following the manufacturer's instructions.

Makes a little over 1 quart.

(Cross-posted to the Kosher Blog.)

Farmer's Market Finds

2007-08-22T20:47:00.000-05:00

We foodies tend to get excited when summer comes around and farmer's markets start popping up everywhere. Summer's almost over, though, and so far, I've found very little at my local farmer's markets that seemed blog-worthy. Maybe it's because it's been a drought year, or maybe I've been making lousy choices. Either way, most of the the produce I've picked up has been no better than what we get at the supermarket. A few times I bought "interesting" items, such as shungiku, which the sign at the market said was "good in stir-fries." When I got home to my computer, I learned that shungiku is also known as "edible chrysanthemum," and that's what it tastes like -- a flower. (Sorry, but eating flowers has never been my thing.)

Then, recently, the yield started to improve, culminating in this batch of heirloom tomatoes, which I bought on Monday:

They were a mixed bag, but the good ones were very good. As I collected the tomatoes at the market, I scribbled down their names with little descriptions (such as "big bumpy red"); if my notes are accurate, the ones in the picture are (from top, left): Green Zebra, Black Plum, Red Zebra, Speckled Roman, Brandywine, Pineapple, and Costoluto Genovese. The Speckled Roman was decidedly the sweetest and most flavorful (though this probably has more to do with the individual crop and even the particular tomato I selected than the cultivar). The Black Plum and Green Zebra tomatoes were also very good. In general, the greener tomatoes were crisper and easier to slice, but otherwise they tasted very similar to the red ones.

Between Monday and Tuesday lunch, I ate most of the tomatoes with extra virgin olive oil, basil (another farmer's market purchase), and Cappiello mozzerella. Next week, though, I plan to get a little more creative. If you're looking for ways to use great summer tomatoes, there are some ideas in today's New York Times Dining & Wine section; some simple pasta recipes from the Boston Globe Magazine; and, of course, lots of recipes in A Veggie Venture's Alphabet of Vegetables.

Another vegetable I've done well with this year (as on previous years) is Asian eggplant. Asian eggplants come in a variety of shapes, sizes and hues, but the ones I've seen have generally been thinner and more purple than globe eggplant and Italian eggplant, which are rounder and almost back. I like the Asian varieties much better, and have only been able to find them at farmer's markets. They have few seeds and tend not to be bitter, so there's no need to salt them. I've used them in tofu stir-fry, pizza, and pasta sauce.

And here's another nice find: kohlrabi.
Kohlrabi is one of the vegetables I learned about from A Veggie Venture. It looks exotic with all those tentacles, and mine had the added allure of being purple (they are more commonly light green, as in the Wikipedia pic), but kohlrabi is actually quite mild and approachable. Just cut off the stems with a paring knife and use a good peeler to peel it, and you have a nice, crunchy, low-calorie snack.

It may be too late for perfect strawberries, but I have hope for the end of the season. The corn is already here, and before long we'll be seeing that fabulous winter squash. I'll try to keep you posted on my finds. Feel free to share yours. (If you have a blog, you can even use Blush, the Sweet Tomato).

(Cross-posted to the Kosher Blog.)

Listening to Eicha

2007-07-23T16:32:00.000-05:00

Several years ago, a friend of mine who happens to be a medievalist was telling me about the the difficulty she had connecting to Tisha B'Av. I told her what I generally thought at the time, which was that if you pay attention to the book of Eicha (Lamentations), you can't fail to be depressed by it. She said, "I don't know. It sounds just like all the other descriptions of sacked cities I've been reading lately."

At first I was taken aback, but later I realized that she was making an important point. From the standpoint of traditional Jewish theology, the destruction of the Temple is unique among catastrophes, which is why we continue to mourn it in so many different ways. But I was referring to the human tragedy in the book of Eicha, and, gruesome as that is, it isn't any worse than many other catastrophes than have befallen countless peoples throughout history. Those of us who study the past learn to accept descriptions of horrible events as a matter of course. Those of us who study Jewish history may find Eicha even more difficult to relate to, as we've come to see the event it describes as a practically inevitable consequence of regional politics, one of many similar scenarios that were playing out throughout the Near East. More and more, as I read the book of Eicha, that is what I see.

The traditional solution to this would be for me to try to understand the spiritual significance of the destruction of the Temple and the exile of God's presence. But that doesn't work for me right now. Instead, I'm trying to do something much smaller: to hear Eicha in the voice of its authors, people who actually witnessed the brutal destruction of everything they held dear. I can't do this every time I hear about a tragedy; no one can have that much empathy and live. But as a Jew, I can try to connect to this one paradigmatic tragedy this one time a year, with as much of myself as I can.

Postscript:

Last year, I wrote two posts linking to my favorite Tisha B'Av reading on the web, as well as to my own previous posts (link, link). As usual, I recommend Hitzei Yehonatan for both new and old material. (There are two new relevant posts, dated July 16 and 23. Don't get too turned of by the zodiacal stuff.) I also read a nice piece by The Curious Jew about how she relates to some kinot better than others, and I'm looking forward to reading The Velveteen Rabbi's thoughts on Eicha. I'll continue to update if I come across anything worthwhile.

A safe fast to those who are observing it.

The Ongoing Destruction of the Temple

2007-07-22T00:35:00.000-05:00

I don't mean that in a metaphorical sense. This is about the actual destruction of Temple Mount artifacts by the Waqf, the Muslim religious trust that controls the area. This destruction has been going on for many years and I haven't blogged about it; there are many bloggers who can offer more informed coverage of biblical archaeology than I can. I've been paying more attention lately, though, because my little sis was recently involved in a Bar-Ilan run project to sift through the debris overturned by the Waqf's bulldozers in the hope of preserving precious archaeological remains. The project has uncovered thousands of artifacts from various periods, some of which are of major historical significance. There is only so much that such a project can accomplish, however. Aside from the damage to the artifacts themselves, their wanton removal from their original site makes the authenticity of many items difficult or impossible to establish. Often, the rubble has even been mixed with modern-day garbage.

Here are some words on recent developments from Hershel Shanks (Hat tip to PaleoJudaica):

Within the last few days, a trench two-feet deep — starting from the northern end of the platform where Jerusalem’s Dome of the Rock sits — has begun working its way toward the southern end of the Temple Mount. The work is being done without any regard for the archaeological information or treasures that may lie below. Destruction is particularly great in places where bedrock is no deeper than the trench. Some of the digging is being done with mechanical equipment, instead of by hand as a professional archaeological excavation would be conducted.
[. . .]

That the Waqf, the Muslim religious trust that serves as custodian of the site, should wish to install new electric and telephone lines is understandable — provided that the necessary trench is first dug as a professional archaeological excavation. That is the required procedure everywhere in Israel before work can be undertaken at sites with archaeological significance.
[. . .]
The Waqf has a long history of ignoring Israel’s antiquities laws, and Israel has a long history of ignoring these violations. As early as 1970, the Waqf excavated a pit without supervision that exposed a 16-foot-long, six-foot-thick wall that scholars believe may well be the eastern wall of the Herodian Temple complex. An inspector from the antiquities department saw it and composed a handwritten report (still unpublished) before the wall was dismantled, destroyed and covered up.
[. . .]
In 1999, to accommodate a major expansion of an underground mosque into what is known popularly as Solomon’s Stables in the southeastern part of the Temple Mount, the Waqf dug an enormous stairway down to the mosque. Hundreds of truckloads of archaeologically rich dirt were dug with mechanical equipment and then dumped into the adjacent Kidron Valley. When archaeology student Zachi Zweig began to explore the mounds of dirt for antiquities, he was arrested at the behest of the Israel Antiquities Authority — for excavating without a permit.

In an excellent article, well worth reading in full, Dr. Richard Benkin provides some background and perspective:

There is extensive evidence to support the notion that Israel never intended to take over the former Jordanian territory to the east of the 1967 armistice lines. In fact, there is record of frantic communications between Israeli leaders and Jordan’s King Hussein, urging him to stay out of the impending war. History records that he did not. Facing a new set of territorial realities, Dayan and others foresaw the volatility of the site and felt they could reach an accommodation with the Jordanian-controlled Waqf. Moreover, secularist Israeli leaders, like Dayan, saw the Mount as little more than an historical curiosity for Jews, while recognizing its religious significance for Moslems. Neither can it be denied that Israel’s historic commitment to tolerance and its respect for all religions in the area—in stark contradiction to its neighbors—contributed to the decision as well. Thus, the two organizations agreed to maintain the status quo in exchange for the other’s non-interference.
An uneasy but effective truce was maintained until 1993, the year of the Oslo accords. Shortly after the accords were signed, the Jordanian-controlled Waqf withdrew in favor of members appointed by and beholden to Yassir Arafat’s Palestinian Authority. The Jordanian-appointed Waqf was not exactly friendly to Israel. It did, however, recognize the practicality of maintaining the status quo. The PA’s appointment of a Minister for Waqf Affairs effectively radicalized the situation and formally subordinated all Mount activities to political aims.
It was less than three years later that the above actions began. The Israeli government and Antiquities Authority were facing a new challenge. Up until that point, the Authority could count on voluntary compliance with its edicts, which were supported by all academics and researchers of good will and were based on long established principles respecting the integrity of inquiry. The new Waqf, however, gave greater priority to politics than historical truth. Its leaders were not schooled in the same set of principles as other researchers. Moreover, it adhered to a PA article of faith to reject the authority of any Israeli agency or institution. Thus, any attempt by the government to enforce its authority, or the 1993 Supreme Court ruling confirming it, would face fierce Arab opposition, involving mass demonstrations and other public displays. Israel could expect international condemnation and declarations that it was attempting to derail the Oslo peace process. Actions by the Arab world to discredit attempts to stop the Waqf’s illegal activity and other nations’ inaction in even questioning their claims confirm Israeli fears. In Orwellian fashion, official Arab and Moslem media throughout the Middle East accuse the Israelis of plotting to destroy the “Moslem” Mount. One Iranian piece quotes the Jerusalem mufti of accusing those who have protested Waqf actions as creating “a big hue and cry to justify [Israel’s] interference in [Moslem] affairs.”

Usually, around Tisha B'Av I write about the human tragedy that the fast commemorates. Loss of life, after all, seems much more serious than the destruction of a building, however sacred, and the relationship between Tisha B'Av and the physical temple has always been a complex one for me. Two years ago, when Judith Weiss hosted a Temple Mount blogburst for Tisha B'Av, I virtually ignored the Temple Mount part.

But physical remains are a vital source for reconstructing Jewish history, for understanding who we are and where we've come from. They give us the ability to transcend time, reaching back to the past and bringing new knew knowledge to future generations. That which is discovered today could transform our understanding of our past. That which is removed or destroyed may hide truths that will never see the light of day.

Go to PaleoJudaica for ongoing coverage of Temple Mount events.

Ice Cream Maker Update

2007-07-12T09:34:00.000-05:00

I have, in fact, been using my ice cream maker quite regularly. I just haven't posted many recipes, partly because so few of the desserts I've made have stuck around long enough to have their pictures taken. It's a pity, since some of them were quite pretty, but so be it. I may as well post the recipes, anyway. (Several can be made without an ice cream maker; I'll mention that wherever applicable.)

One of my first dairy desserts was a maple-pecan ice cream from Joy of Baking. It was very good, rich and custardy, with a prominent maple syrup flavor. I served it with bread pudding, but it could easily stand alone.

I also tried making Coffee Heath Bar Crunch from Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream and Dessert Book, but for various silly reasons I didn't end up quite following the recipe. It was yummy, anyway, but I'd rather not post what I did — there were too many little mishaps. Instead, I offer this "concept recipe":

Not Quite Ben & Jerry's Coffee Heath Bar Crunch

ingredients for 1 quart coffee ice cream, from your favorite recipe*

4 original Heath Bars (1 1/8 oz each) or 4 1/2 oz (about 1 cup) Heath Bar pieces (available in the baking isle of many supermarkets)

If using whole Heath Bars, use a sharp knife to cut them into 1/2- to 1-inch chunks. Place the chunks or pieces in a bowl, cover and freeze.

Make the ice cream. After the ice cream stiffens (about 2 minutes before it's done), add the candy, then continue freezing until the ice cream is ready.

I've also tried a couple of David Lebovitz's frozen yogurts. I made this strawberry frozen yogurt twice, with fresh California strawberries (the local ones weren't in yet), and Stonyfield Farms whole milk organic yogurt. It came out a gorgeous shade of pink, which I was determined to photograph the second time, but I couldn't find the camera. The flavor was slightly tart and very refreshing. (DH said, "I don't usually like strawberry ice cream, but this I like.") Since I made it with unstrained yogurt, the texture was very light, more like sorbet than traditional frozen yogurt, with just a bit of creaminess.

Just last night, I made this vanilla frozen yogurt, and Oh My Goodness, was it ever wonderful. (Bear in mind that I love yogurt, even plain. This recipe is for real yogurt lovers, not those looking for a less fattening substitute for ice cream.) It would be superb with a little bit of fresh lemon juice and zest, topped with fresh berries. (There are a few tips in the comments for making frozen yogurt without an ice cream maker. Sandhya's method looks simplest.)

Now that I know how creamy frozen yogurt can be, I'd like to try the strawberry version with strained or Greek-style yogurt. Stay tuned.

In the parve department, I returned to my berry sorbet, this time using fresh berries rather than frozen. The berries weren't terrific (I got them from Haymarket), but they still made delicious sorbet. I don't think it was better than the one made with frozen berries, though. Oh, and I accidentally left out the vodka, which didn't seem to do any harm to the texture. (See DebraG's comment on the original post for a tip on making sorbet without an ice cream maker.)

Finally, I tried this chocolate sorbet recipe, also from David Lebovitz. It was rich and chocolaty, and the texture was much smoother than that of my first chocolate sorbet, but it was still slightly gritty. (One of the commenters had the same problem.) This won't stop me from making it again; maybe I can improve the texture by boiling it longer, or something. I served it in a dish of strawberry rhubarb compote, a nice combination that I may repeat.

That's all for now, but there will definitely be more.

*For that characteristic Ben & Jerry's richness, you'll want to use a recipe that makes ice cream with about 25% butterfat. Based on my estimation, this Emeril Lagasse recipe should fit the bill (not that I've tried it). If you prefer to use fresh coffee rather than instant, you can try this recipe, from David Lebovitz (via Elise).

(Cross-posted to the Kosher Blog.)

On Worldly Goods

2007-07-10T07:58:00.000-05:00

Yes, I know. It's been a while . . . again. My excuse this time is that we've been moving. I won't say exactly why, but I will say that we didn't have a whole lot of time to do it. Between the first of June and the second of July we had to find a new apartment and transfer all our earthly possessions. (Thankfully, we had lots of help from friends). Then we had to unpack and arrange the furniture, which wasn't a trivial task. Unlike the old place, which was an attic, our new apartment has straight walls, so we have room for one more 28-inch bookcase, which we sorely need. Otherwise, though, it's smaller, and we really have too much stuff for this amount of space.

I've lived in apartments all my life (except when I lived in dorms), so I'm used to not having as much space as I'd like, and I've learned to view willingness to get rid of just about anything as a virtue. I guess that's why I was so ashamed when just about everyone involved (the old landlord, the new landlord, friends and family) expressed astonishment at how much we own.

We have gotten rid of things: a table, an armchair, a stereo; two old TV's we had piled behind our bed; some gifts we hardly ever use, like the large wooden candlesticks and the decorative glass dishes and the individual wooden salad bowls. I also gave away more than half my clothing, partly because it was in lousy condition, but also to prove to myself that I'm not a greedy materialist. Maybe that wasn't such a good idea — I hate shopping, and now I have nothing to wear. But I was trying to compensate for all the things I wasn't willing to get rid of, like kitchenware and books.

Actually, that's about it — kitchenware and books. But oh, what a lot of that there is. The cookware overload is partly a result of keeping kosher (we have two sets of pots and four sets of dishes). But even for observant Jews our age we have quite a lot of cookware, and I'm not willing to give it up. Without a crockpot, we couldn't make cholent. Without crepe pans, we couldn't make blintzes. Without a 10-inch tube pan, I couldn't make 10-inch tube-shaped cakes. Without a 9-inch tube pan...well, you get the idea.

In defense of my book hoarding, I'd point out that I'm not nearly as compulsive a book buyer as most of my bibliophile friends. I'm aware of the limits of space and finances, and I try to bear them in mind when I decide which books to buy and which to take out of the library. With a few notable exceptions, I deliberately don't form attachments to works of fiction; I try to give my novels away as soon as I've finished them. So I think I deserve the books I've decided to buy and keep, even if they are taking up a large amount of wall space.

Still, I feel guilty.

I've tried to view this move as an opportunity for catharsis. When that didn't work, I tried creativity. We've created a printer stand from Sterilite containers full of Passover dishes — pretty neat, wouldn't you say? To make it less ugly, I covered it with a sarong I bought years ago at Venice Beach, so now it looks like a pile of Sterilite containers with laundry hanging on it. Okay, so that didn't really work. I'll figure something out.

Anyway, I'm going to try to stop feeling guilty about owning things and focus on more important matters, like feeling guilty about not making progress on my dissertation. Many thanks to those of you who helped move our accumulated detritus. If any of you are interested in large wooden candlesticks or size 6 1/2 suede shoes, come and get them before they collect the trash.

Haymarket

2007-06-05T23:23:00.000-05:00

A friend of mine likes to buy produce at Haymarket, mainly, she says, for the "experience." I've lived in the Boston area for close to a decade, but until this past Friday, I never got around to going to Haymarket. It's open Fridays and Saturdays only, which doesn't quite fit my routine (usually involving shopping and cooking for Shabbat Thursday night and then eating leftovers for several days).

Classes are over, though, and the weather has been nice, so I decided to make the trek. But first, of course, I had to Google "Haymarket Boston" to find out what to expect. The general consensus seemed to be that the market is characterized by crowds, rude vendors, and lousy produce, but with prices low enough to make it worthwhile.

I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the produce. Most of it was as good or better than what I usually find at the supermarket, and the crowds and vendors weren't too bad, either. I attribute this mainly to my having gone Friday morning. The prices were, as advertised, ridiculously low. (This is apparently due to the low overhead cost of running a booth at an outdoor market as opposed to a store.)

I spent exactly $20. Here's what I got:

3 lbs. rhubarb

2 lbs. strawberries

1 lb blueberries

1 lb raspberries

1/2 lb blackberries

2 heads Boston lettuce

1 bunch spinach

1 bunch radishes

1 bunch scallions

1 bunch parsley

4 red peppers

6 large lemons

7 tomatoes on the vine

1 Vidalia onion

1 ginger root

Two of the peppers turned out to be rotten inside, some of the berries were sour, and the tomatoes got smooshed on the T, but for what I paid, it hardly mattered. We've had many salads since then, and there are mixed berry sorbet and Moroccan preserved lemons in the works.

In conclusion, I highly recommend not having a real job if you live in the Boston area and want good quality, dirt-cheap produce. If that's not an option, consider taking a Friday off at some point, for the experience.

(Cross-posted to the Kosher Blog)

Strawberry Cheesecake Ice Cream

2007-05-21T13:57:00.000-05:00

A friend of mine (we'll call her the Enabler) recently asked whether I'd be making ice cream for Shavuot — maybe cheesecake ice cream? I answered that I'd thought about it, but I couldn't very well make ice cream to serve with cheesecake, let alone cheesecake ice cream.

But apparently I could.

Let me explain. The cheesecake recipe we're using this year (a no-bake version, since our oven is broken) calls for 12 ounces of cream cheese. Cream cheese comes in eight-ounce packages, so we bought two and had four ounces extra — exactly the amount called for in this recipe. And strawberries are at the height of their season, so we had two pounds in the fridge. Tell me that isn't a sign from God. (Actually, don't. I prefer the illusion.)

In any case, I'm very pleased with the result. The ice cream has a mild cheesecake flavor without being overwhelmingly rich, and the fresh strawberries really hit the spot. Here's the recipe:

Strawberry Cheesecake Ice Cream
Adapted from Joy of Baking

4 oz cream cheese
3 large egg yolks
2/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar (divided)
2 cups half-and-half
1/2 vanilla bean or 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract (I used extract)
1 pound (about 2 dry pints) strawberries

In the inner container of a double boiler (or any medium stainless steel bowl), blend the cream cheese, egg yolks, and 2/3 cup sugar with a whisk or, preferably, an electric hand mixer until light and fluffy (about 2 minutes). (At this point, you may wish to begin heating the water for step 4.)

In a small saucepan, heat the half-and-half to the scalding point along with the vanilla bean, if using. (If using extract, do not add it at this point.) Stir frequently to prevent a skin from forming. When the cream reaches the scalding point, the milk will begin to foam up rapidly. Immediately remove from heat. Take out the vanilla bean and scrape the seeds out with the back of a knife, then mix the seeds back into the half-and-half.

Slowly pour the scalding half-and-half into the cream cheese mixture while whisking the mixture to prevent the eggs from cooking. (If any lumps do form, force the mixture through a strainer.)

Fill the outer container of the double boiler (or a saucepan) with water and bring to a boil. Place the bowl or container of custard over the simmering water and heat, stirring constantly, until the custard reaches 170 degrees F or coats the back of a wooden spoon. Remove from heat and continue to stir for a few minutes. Set aside.

Cut up half the strawberries and puree them in a food processor or blender. Stir the remaining two tablespoons of sugar into the puree, then stir the puree into the custard along with the vanilla extract, if using. Cover the mixture with plastic wrap, cool to room temperature, and refrigerate several hours or overnight, until thoroughly chilled.

Freeze the chilled mixture in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions. Chop the remaining strawberries. Remove the ice cream from the machine and stir in the strawberries. Transfer to freezer to harden.

Cross-posted to the Kosher Blog.

Standardizing Orthodoxy

2007-05-10T23:12:00.000-05:00

Rabbi Josh Yuter has a good post on the Orthodox Rabbinical Council of America's recent agreement with the Israeli Rabbinate on the standardization of the conversion process. The backstory is that the Israeli Rabbinate has been refusing to recognize conversions performed by North American Orthodox rabbis with whom they are unfamiliar. As a result, converts who believed their credentials to be impeccable have been unable to marry in Israel or to move to Israel under the Law of Return.

As Yuter notes, easing these tensions with the Israeli rabbinate has the potential to make the lives of many converts a great deal less onerous. Standardization may have its own benefits as well. Judaism is known for discouraging potential converts in order to make sure that those who do convert are genuinely comitted. This policy has some merit, but all too often it becomes an excuse for what can only be described as hazing, as religious courts attempt to prove their rigor by making the lives of conversion candidates as difficult as possible. People I know who have persued Orthodox conversions have been dragged through a lengthy procedure during which they had little sense of the court's requirements or how much progress they were making toward fulfilling them. This is a particular hardship for young singles, since potential converts are not allowed to date or have romantic relationships. Standardization of the conversion procedure could eliminate some of the ambiguities that make the process so difficult for converts as well as alleviating regional courts' perceived need to compete with each other over the rigor of their conversions.

On the other hand, standardization in the Orthodox world usually means capitulation to the right. Those who call themselves Orthodox Jews — and Orthodox rabbis — espouse a wide range of beliefs and practices. The RCA, however, is now claiming the right not only to determine the criteria for conversion but to decide which rabbis are worthy performing conversions. In addition, children who convert are required to attend an Orthodox day school through 12th grade, and the RCA reserves the right to decide which day schools are "serious" enough to qualify. Yuter observes, "as the religious and political dynamics of the RCA/BDA [Bet Din of America] changes, the regional Batei Din [religious courts] will be forced to adapt or lose their authorization." More distressingly, so will the converts.

All in all, I'm troubled. But of course, I have no say in this matter. We'll see what happens.

New Look

2007-05-07T21:47:00.000-05:00

When I started this blog, the Blogger template options were all pretty hideous. That has changed, however, and now Blogger has some new (or not so new) features that come with the new (or not so new) templates. So I have finally decided to switch. I may play around with the colors a bit more, but I think I've settled on the basic look. I'm already much happier.

I should have done this a long time ago.

Berry Sorbet

2007-05-07T21:15:00.000-05:00

Read the recipe on the Kosher Blog.

New Recipe Book

2007-05-01T22:49:00.000-05:00

Ever since I read Meredith's comment on this post, I've been thinking about Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream and Dessert Book. (Well, not continuously, but almost.) At a recent Shabbat meal, I asked a friend whether she thought I should buy it. She said, "It sounds great to me, but I know about your problem."* Several weeks later, what should show up in the mail but that very book, sent by that very friend. If you ask me, this is the perfect way to solve a cookbook-buying addiction: Get other people to buy the books for you!

It's a really fun looking book, with whimsical drawings and lots of little tips and anecdotes. My favorite pointer so far is one that accompanies the recipe for Egg Nog Ice Cream:

Because the recipe calls for eight egg yolks, we've always wondered what to do with the extra egg whites. I put them in a covered bowl and store them in the refrigerator. After a month, I throw them out.

I expect that you'll be reading more about this book in the future.

*Yeah, there was a link in her answer. Really.

Conservative Teshuvot on Mikveh: The Language Issue

2007-04-23T18:17:00.000-05:00

For Shabbat Tazria-Metzorah, I spoke about the teshuvot on mikveh recently released by the CJLS. These were not very well publicized, mainly, I imagine, because they were overshadowed by the teshuvot on homosexuality.* I intended to blog about the mikveh teshuvot once I finished blogging about the ones on homosexuality, but I don't seem to be making much progress with the latter, so I may as well address the mikveh teshuvot now. Like my d'var torah, however, this post will focus on the issue of terminology rather than the technical halakhic aspects of the teshuvot, which I'm still working through.

Okay. A few preliminary points:

The biblical concept of tum'ah (usually translated "impurity" or "defilement") is unambiguously negative. The clearest evidence of this is its frequent use as a metaphor for sin. This does not mean, of course, that contracting impurity is inherently sinful; impurity is caused by all sorts of unavoidable things, such as illness, sexual intercourse, and handling a corpse (someone's gotta do it). An analogy that I like to use is illness: Being sick doesn't reflect negatively the person who suffers from the illness, but we do recognize the condition as negative, and we therefore often use illness as a metaphor for morally negative traits ("that man is sick").

In biblical law, menstrual impurity (niddah) is no more severe than forms of impurity that affect men (ejaculation, penile discharge) or men as well as women (scale disease, contact with a human corpse, etc.).

Since the major consequence of impurity is that it bars one from contact with the sancta, rabbinic law as it ultimately developed regards most purity regulations as irrelevant for practical purposes now that the Temple is no longer standing. Niddah is an exception for a purely technical reason: Leviticus 18:19 prohibits sex with a woman in a state of menstrual defilement (tum'at niddah). This, according to rabbinic reasoning, necessitates that a menstruating woman refrain from sex with her husband for a fixed duration of time (see below) and then immerse in a mikveh.

Over time, the laws of niddah became increasingly stringent. Perhaps the most significant stringency was the conflation of the categories of niddah and zavah, with the result that couples had to wait seven days from the cessation of menstruation rather than from the onset of menstruation before resuming intimacy. This approximately doubled the length of the period of separation to about half of every month (for those who struggle with arithmetic). This is the halakhah as it is observed in contemporary Orthodox communities (at least in theory).

Now, a summary of the teshuvot:

Rabbi Miriam Grossman, following an argument advanced by Rabbi Joel Roth, rules that niddah be observed for seven days beginning at the onset of menstruation (or until bleeding ceases), in keeping with the original Torah law. She also differs from traditional Orthodox opinion in permitting non-sexual physical contact between husband and wife during niddah, eliminating the requirement of internal self-exams (bedikot), and accepting certain other leniencies. The purpose of these leniencies is to make the laws easier for more Jews to observe and to avoid putting strain on relationships. Grossman also advocates mikveh use outside marriage, particularly by women who are sexually active (in keeping with the Conservative movement's current position on premarital sex: "We don't approve, but we know you'll do it anyway").

At least as important for Grossman as these practical halakhic matters is the terminology used to refer them. She rejects "purity" language (that is, the terminology I've used throughout this post) in favor of the language of "holiness." Mikveh use, in her opinion, should be viewed as a means of sanctifying the body and sexual relationships rather than as a means of determining a woman's ritual status. In a 1992 article in Conservative Judaism Magazine entitlted "Feminism, Midrash, and Mikvah," she wrote:

one cannot talk about purity (taharah). . . without calling to mind -- if only subconsciously-- the fact that it is a relative state in contradistiction to impurity (tum'ah)... [S]uch an association has a negative impact for women. (Similarly, we would not want to use the term Niddah laws, as niddah can also be defined as "defiled.")

In the article, Rabbi Grossman proposed using the phrase kedushat mishpachah, "family sanctity." In her teshuvah, she proposes substituting kedushat yetzirah, "the sanctity of God's creation," to shift the emphasis away from the marital relationship and toward a woman's own relationship with her body. (Personally, I think it's a bit idealistic to try to introduce language that no one familiar with the subject will understand, but I appreciate the conundrum.)

Miriam Berkovitz maintains the rabbinic model of waiting seven days following the cessation of menstruation, though she rules leniently with regard to non-sexual contact, internal exams, and various other matters. Berkovitz concedes that it might be a good idea to use the language of holiness rather than purity, but she considers it important to maintain the traditional focus on marital life, so she opts for Grossman's earlier phrase, kedushat yetzirah.

Rabbi Avraham Reisner, like Susan Grossman, argues for returning to the biblical seven-day model, though he does so on slightly different halakhic grounds. He differs from Grossman in retaining the category of zavah, meaning that a woman experiencing an irregular flow of three days or more must wait seven days following the cessation (rather than the onset) of bleeding. Reisner also argues forcefully for maintaining the language of purity. Here's a bit of his argument that I found particularly eloquent:

Fundamental to the biblical description of reality is the notion of the twinned states of tum'ah (impurity) and tohorah (purity), one of which (tum'ah) is incompatible with the sacred....It would be convenient, but inconsistent with the Biblical foundation of our religion, to simply profess disbelief in a system described by the Torah at length. It might be noted, in this regard, that God, the soul and the metaphysical reality of Shabbat in the fabric of the universe are all Biblical notions that remain impervious to scientific address.

Reisner goes on to discuss the theory, promoted by such scholars as Jacob Milgrom and Baruch Levine, that the biblical attribute of impurity is rooted in an association with death. Menstrual blood, like semen, according to this theory, causes impurity because it constitutes a loss of potential life. On this basis, Reisner proposes that the cycle of niddah and purification can be viewed as a process of continual rebirth and renewal.

When I read the voting records for the three teshuvot, I was struck by the fact that Susan Grossman voted in favor of Miriam Berkovits's teshuvah in spite of their radically different practical conclusions, while she voted against Avraham Reisner in spite of their basic agreement on practical halakhah. This brought home like nothing else how important the language issue is to Rabbi Grossman.

Frankly, I can see where both Grossman and Reisner are coming from. On the one hand, I think that the concepts of purity and defilement are worth trying to understand and apply to our lives. On the other hand, applying these consequences to women alone can have troubling implications.

These are my thoughts for now. More later, God willing.

* I'm told that congregational rabbis weren't informed of their existence, which led to some rather awkward moments.

Passover Reading

2007-03-29T14:42:00.000-05:00

One of the reasons I've been posting so frequently is that, for the first time since we got married, DH and I are going away for the whole week of Passover, meaning that we don't have to clean our apartment. It's been so long since I've actually had time to think about the Seder before sitting down to it that it's making me a little bit giddy.

Here's some stuff that I'm printing out to read over Shabbat:

David Kraemer on leavened and unleavened bread
Hitzei Yehonatan on Passover
Adderabbi on the Haggadah (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)

Here are some radical Haggadot:
The Velveteen Rabbi's Haggadah
The Love & Justice in Times of War Haggadah

And here are some traditional Haggadot (mostly Hebrew).

Shabbat Shalom and Chag Kasher veSameach!

Michael Pollen on the Seder

2007-03-29T14:24:00.000-05:00

I know, this is my third post today. I'm not usually like this, and I won't keep being like this, because I have other things to do. But having just posted on Michael Pollen yesterday, I couldn't pass up the change to read and link to this interview in the Jew and the Carrot, a blog sustainable food and the Jewish community. Toward the end, the interviewer, Leah Koenig, asks Pollen to talk a bit about Passover, which he apparently mentions at the end of The Omnivore's Dilemma. Here's what he says:

I think ceremonies around food are very important and I’ve always loved Passover and Thanksgiving because they revolve around ceremonial meals where we rehearse our key relationships, both to one another and to nature. The seder is the older and more profound one – but Thanksgiving is important to our identities as Americans.
I think there’s not enough ceremony in our eating, so any time we are forced to slow down and rehearse the relationships, and symbolism and the meaning of the food we eat, and the connections that they enact, is enormously useful. We do so much thoughtless eating and the seder is an opportunity for very conscious eating. Everything on your plate has a very specific meaning – it ties to history and ties to nature.

Granted, there's a lot more to the seder than ceremonializing food, but I think that's an important part of it. Something to think about Monday night.

Everything You Never Wanted to Know About the RA Haggadah

2007-03-29T12:32:00.000-05:00

In response to my previous post, a commenter asked a question about the slightly different selection of midrashim in the Rabbinical Assembly Haggadah:

Can you please elaborate on why the originals were replaced and how the replacements are better?

I started to post a response, but then I realized that it was getting much, much too long for a comment, so I am going to post it here.

[Warning: serious liturgical minutia ahead.]

First off, I should clarify that I had nothing to do with the composition of the RA Haggdah, nor do I know anyone involved with the project, so I can only guess at the reasons for the changes. Second, I wouldn't go so far as to say that the RA's version is "better" than the traditional version; it's a matter of the purpose of this particular Haggadah. I presume that where choices were made, the goal was to produce a text that is accessible, thought-provoking, and relevant to contemporary Conservative Jews.

Now for the details. As far as I can tell, they begin with the midrashic exegesis of Deuteronomy 26:5-8. The RA Haggadah begins by quoting the entire passage, which I think makes the text a bit easier to follow. It skips the initial interpretation of ארמי אבד אבי, which states that Laban the Aramean was worse than Pharaoh, because he attempted to destroy all of Israel (via Jacob) rather than Pharaoh alone. I would imagine that this was omitted because it requires a strong familiarity with Genesis to appreciate, and because it's difficult to figure out what relevant message to take from it. However, my theory is undermined by the fact that this interpretation does appear in the commentary; it is simply absent from the Hebrew text and translation. Maybe the editors set a word limit for this part of the Haggadah?

The second change is a simple expansion. The traditional Haggadah comments on וירד מצרימה, "he [Jacob] went down to Egypt," with אנוס על פי הדיבור, "he was compelled by the [divine] word." The RA Haggadah adds a quotation from Genesis 15:13 to explain that Jacob's descent to Egypt was a fulfillment of God's statement to Abraham.

To my great sadness, the RA Haggdah skips the comment on ורב, which comes from Ezekiel 16:7,6. The passage is not at all family friendly, and its relevance to the verse in Deuteronomy is rather obscure, so I think I understand why it was omitted, but I miss it. (I'm planning to compensate this year by giving a shiur on it on Shabbat Chol Ha-Mo`ed.)

The next change is somewhat interesting. On וירעו אתנו המצרים, "the Egyptians dealt harsly with us," the traditional Haggadah comments, "as it is said, 'Come, let us deal cunningly with them, lest they multiply, and if it should come to pass that a war should occur, they too will join our enemies, and fight against us, and go up out of the land'" (Exodus 1:10). On the surface, it isn't clear how the verse from Exodus serves as an interpretation of the verse from Deuteronomy. The RA Haggadah explains: "They made us appear to be bad (וירעו אתנו), for it is written that Pharaoh said to his people, 'Behold, the Israelites are too many and too mighty for us. Come, let us deal cunningly with them...'" It also adds another intepretation (דבר אחר): "They were ungrateful, for they paid back in evil the kindness that Joseph had done for them, as it is written, 'A new king arose over Mitzrayim* who did not know Joseph' (Exodus 1:8). He acted as if he did not know Joseph." In this case, I think that the RA version is not only easier to understand, but also provides more to chew on. This latter midrash is the first of a series of RA additions that present the Egyptians and Israelites as archetypes of evil and good, respectively. This presentation is somewhat problematic from a contemporary perspective, but it comes straight from the midrashic tradition, and I guess the editors saw it as an opportunity to include some moral lessons.

On ויתנו עלינו עבודה קשה, "and they imposed hard labor on us," the traditional Haggadah simply quotes Exodus 1:13: "And Egypt made the children of Israel serve with rigor." The RA Haggadah offers a midrashic interpretation: "They would impose a difficult task upon the weak and an easy task on the strong, a light burden upon the young and a heavy burden upon the old. This was work without end and futile, for the Egyptians wanted not only to enslave them but also to break their spirit."

On ונצעק אל ה אלהי אבתינו, "and we cried out to the Lord, God of our ancestors," the RA Haggadah adds a comment on "God of our ancestors:" "Because of the merit of the ancestors, we were redeemed from Mitzrayim. As it is written, 'God heard their moaning, and recalled his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob."

On וירא,"and [God] saw," the RA Haggadah adds, "what did He see? He saw that the Israelites had compassion for each other. When one of them finished his quota of bricks, he would help others."

On את ענינו, "our affliction," the traditional Haggadah explains, "this refers to the separation of husbands and wives" [my paraphrase]. The RA Haggadah adds a midrash about how the Israelite women ensured that procreation continued by bringing their husbands warm food and drink while they were in the fields and by offering them comfort and encouragement. It seems clear to me that this is mainly an attempt to include women in the Haggadah, but it's kind of nice and it works.

On ואת עמלינו, "and our burden," the traditional Haggadah comments, "this refers to the sons, as it is said, 'every son that is born you shall cast into the river, and every daughter you shall save.' The RA Haggadah adds the midrash that the Israelites continued to circumcise their sons even though they knew that they would die shortly after birth.

On ואת לחצינו, "and our oppression," the traditional Haggadah reads, "this refers to the force used, as it is said, 'and I have also seen the oppression with which Egypt oppresses them'" (Exodus 3:9). The RA Haggadah reads, "this refers to the straw. For Pharaoh decreed, 'you shall no longer provide the people with straw for making bricks; let them go and gather straw for themselves (Exodus 5:7). Whenever the Egyptians counted the bricks and found the quota unfilled, the Israelite overseers refused to deliver their fellow Israelites to teh Egyptians. Instead, they submitted themselves, and willingly suffered punishment in order to lighten the ordeal of the Israelites."

On ביד חזקה, "with a mighty hand," the traditional Haggadah comments, "this refers to the cattle plague(דבר), as it is said, 'Behold the hand of Adonai will be on the field..." On ובזרוע נטויה, "and with an outstretched arm," it reads, "this refers to the sword, as it is said, 'and a drawn sword was in his hand, stretched out over Jerusalem'" (1 Chronicles 21:16). The RA replaces these comments with something more accessible: "When the Egyptians made the life of our ancestors bitter, the Holy One said, 'I will redeem them,' as it is written, 'I will free you from the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from their bondage. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and through extraordinary judgments. I will take you to be My people, and I will be your God. And you shall know that I, Adonai, am your God'" (Exodus 6:6-7).

On ובאתות, "and with signs," the RA Haggadah includes the interpretation in the traditional Haggadah, which refers to Moses' staff, and adds another: "This refers to God's commandments. For they are an eternal sign that God saves and redeems, and a remembrance for all generations of the covenant between the Holy One and His people. Thus it is written, 'And this shall serve you as a sign on your hand, and as a symbol on your forehead -- in order that the teachings of Adonai may be in your mouth -- that with a mighty hand Adonai freed you from Mitzrayim'" (Exodus 13:9).

The next change is quite small, and it may be based on a variant text. On the word ובמפתים, "and with wonders," the traditional Haggadah reads, "this refers to the blood, as it said, 'and I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke'" (Joel 3:3). In place of "this refers to the blood," the RA Haggadah reads, "this refers to the plagues."

After this, the traditional Haggadah includes a sort of rabbinic math competition, in which the number of plagues is inflated from ten to 300. This entire section is omitted in the RA Haggadah, presumably because it seems like too much reveling in others' misery (and because, my God, they made maggid long enough already!).

Now that I've gone through all of this in detail, I realize that the RA's Haggadah Committee is more like me than I thought: they added a lot more text than they removed. All the more reason to create my flexible fantasy version.

*The RA Haggadah uses the transliteration "Mitzrayim" rather than "Egypt" in order to emphasize the symbolic significance of the Israelite place of enslavement rather than the actual location. Kind of silly? Maybe, but I can see why they made that decision.

My Fantasy Haggadah

2007-03-29T08:22:00.000-05:00

My family always used a traditional Haggadah. We have a set of cheap Haggadot without commentary (the red and yellow ones) to use at the seder so that everyone can be on the same page. We also have a collection of Haggadot with various commentaries, which are used to spark discussion. The traditional Haggadah is a complex book -- too complex, really, to be properly utilized by anyone without an extensive Jewish education -- but over the years, I've come to really like it. For me, that appreciation derived in a large measure from learning Mishnah Tractate Pesachim, which outlines the structure of the Seder and allowed me to discern the order behind the chaos. It also came from the questions and ideas raised by many years of discussing the Haggadah and reading various commentaries. I've often wished that I could shed more light on the Haggadah for other people at the Seder, for many of whom I think it is still a random collection of obscure texts, strung together in no particular order. But that would be too complicated for Seder night. People want to get to the meal eventually, and I'm not even sure that everyone would be interested.

After I got married, I began to attend Seders at my in-laws', where I was introduced to the Rabbinical Assembly Haggadah, which is almost traditional. It follows the sequence outlined in m. Pesachim (and explains it in the commentary more clearly than any other Haggadah that I've seen). There are some subtle differences, however. Where the mishnah prescribes that one expound on Deuteronomy 26:5-8, the composers of the traditional Haggadah settled on a particular set of midrashim from Sifre Deuteronomy. The Rabbinical Assembly includes a slightly different set of midrashim, some from Sifre and some from other sources, such as Tanchuma. I generally like the midrashim in the RA Haggadah, and for the most part, I understand why they were chosen over the few that the committee decided to omit. Still, I like the traditional Haggadah, and I miss the parts that aren't there.

A few years ago, I was discussing this with a friend, and I said that if DH and I were ever to make our own Seder, I wouldn't know which haggadah to use. He immediately responded, "you should make your own!" Since then, I've had a fantasy of creating my own Haggadah (with DH, of course, and whoever else wanted to participate). Early on, I realized that "my" Haggadah would be about twice as long as any other, and everyone using it would hate me. Then it occured to me that, thanks to miracle of technology, I could reformulate it slightly each year, including a different selection of readings and commentaries each time, keeping it fresh. I could expand on anything I wanted to, and whatever was omitted, I could always bring back another time. Wouldn't that be fun?

Maybe some day. . .

How to Eat

2007-03-28T08:37:00.000-05:00

Right before Passover, when many of our diets are about to be severely restricted, may not be the best time to post about this, but I just happened to read an old New York Times Magazine article yesterday by Michael Pollen, author of The Omnivore's Dilemma. I heard Pollen speak on television a few times, and was somewhat put off by his statement that he wouldn't eat anything that his great-great grandmother wouldn't have recognized as food. This struck me as a blatant example of the "naturalistic fallacy" (equating "natural" with "good" and "unnatural" with "bad"), and as evidence of an absurd nostalgia for the past, when many people -- and often, whole populations -- were frequently severely nutritionally deprived.

Pollen's argument, however, is much more subtle than that. He notes that, for all of nutritional science's advances in recent decades, there is still quite a lot about food and nutrition that scientists don't understand. For this reason, among others, we are probably better off eating "real" foods, in conjunction with which our species has evolved over the course of millenia, than "food products" engineered by scientists. Pollen also makes some other interesting, and potentially very important, observations about the Western diet, such as the restriction of our common food sources to an extremely limited number of species, the trend toward producing foods from grains rather than leaves, and the ubiquitous tendency to simplify foods to their most basic components, casting aside countless nutrients with both known, and, probably, unknown health benefits.

Pollen's basic guidelines for eating are summarized in a few words at the start of his article: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." This is a messsage to which I am generally quite receptive (although the "not too much" part is a constant stumbliing block). In recent years, I've come to appreciate how much more delicious and satisfying a balanced meal composed of "real foods" can be than the fortified "diet" garbage that I used to go for. Pollen's plea that we regard eating as a "relationship" rather than as fuel elicited a predictable "WTF" from DH, but it struck a certain chord with me. If only so much of my "relationship" weren't with desserts, I think I'd really be on the right track.

All this said, I still maintain that we shouldn't romaticize the past. It's easy to forget that without modern technology, we in New England would be without fresh produce from November to May. (Today's Boston Globe article on local hydroponic tomatoes is a fitting reminder.) As in so many areas, common sense and moderation are key. That may sound cliche, but it's no less true for that.

Latest Battle in the Kitniyot War

2007-03-27T12:58:00.000-05:00

Last year, I posted about a New York Times article that discussed, among other things, the recent trend of non-Orthodox rabbis permitting the consumption of kitniyot (legumes, etc.) on Passover. This year, Gil student discusses a similar ruling (for Israelis) by an Orthodox rabbi. Rabbi Student objects to the ruling because ignores the precedent set by Ashkenazim in Israel over the past two centuries. This objection seems reasonable to me. I only wish that more Jews would consider precedent before introducing new chumrot (stringencies) as well.*

*DH reports no new news on the quinoa front this year.

(Cross-Posted to the Kosher Blog)

JTS Decision to Admit Gay Students

2007-03-26T20:34:00.000-05:00

The Jewish Theological Seminary officially announced today that it will admit qualified gay and lesbian students to its rabbinical and theological schools.

Chancellor-elect Eisen's letter to the community announcing the decision is quite eloquent and worth reading in its entirety. I particularly liked this bit:

The debate over ordination of gay and lesbian students has served to highlight the need for serious discussion and resolution of these key issues of principle concerning what halakhah means for Conservative Jews. Such disagreements are particularly vexing to Conservative Jewish laypeople frustrated at the movement's inability to decide this and other matters quickly and unequivocally. Others, myself included, while no less impatient at times, actually take pride in the fact that our movement struggles over issues such as these. We do so as the heirs to Frankel's founding declaration of our purpose: "the reconciliation of belief and life, the assurance of progress within our faith, and the refining and regeneration of Judaism from and through itself." Both sides of the current debate have acted in accord with Frankel's call for "maintaining the integrity of Judaism simultaneously with progress." This remains, as he wrote in 1844, "the essential problem of the present." We cannot, any more than he could, "deny the difficulty of a satisfactory solution." But we must find a solution.

. . .

The proper way to do so, I believe, is not for JTS to promulgate a set of standards for Conservative belief and behavior. It is, rather, to engage Conservative Jews in discussion of what matters to them and why. Many of us are convinced, on the basis of numerous conversations with clergy and laypeople alike, that many Conservative Jews do feel a keen sense of mitzvah, in all the connotations stored up in that word by the Bible and the sages. They feel that there are deeds they should perform, activities in which they should engage, loyalties they should cherish. . . .It is my hope and belief that getting Conservative Jews to talk about these matters will be a step toward greater commitment and consensus.

Then he writes this:

JTS has already taken on the responsibility for leading this discussion. Working with the Chancellor's Rabbinic Cabinet and with the RA and the United Synagogue, we have set in motion a process that we hope will eventually include every arm of the movement as well as professional and lay leaders. Our faculty and students will be actively involved. Stage Two of that process — logically and pedagogically dependent on the first — will be reclarification of the place of halakhah in the movement: the nature, authority, and scope of Jewish law in relation to other sources of authority and guidance. We will embark on that stage in the upcoming two years.

The position of halakhah in Conservative Judaism is going to be clarified over the next two years? Good luck!

Anyway, I would like to get back to commenting on the teshuvot at some point. (I'd also like to comment on the teshuvot on mikvah that were released at the same time.) It's just that for some reason, posting about halakhah uses up a lot more of my time and energy than it should. Good thing DH has been on top of it.

Purim Recipes and Stuff

2007-03-20T13:11:00.000-05:00

It has occured to me that I should perhaps post my real Purim recipes before, say, Pesach. Above is a picture of the food at our vegetarian, buffet-style Purim Seudah. (The drinks and desserts were at other tables.)

On the menu:

Challah Rolls: From my usual challah recipe, which I'll share some time, bli neder.

"Asian" Orzo Salad: Based on this recipe, from Sadie's Luncheonette. I used tofu and halved the vegetable oil, compensating with extra soy and teriyaki sauce. You can see other changes I've made to the recipe in the comments on Sadie's post. (By now, it's pretty far removed from the original Paula Dean version.)

Bow Tie and Broccoli Salad: This is a recipe that I learned from my friend and former roommate, Jill. It consists of bowtie noodles, steamed broccoli, mayonnaise, golden raisins, sunflower seeds, and sesame seeds. The raisins, sunflower seeds and sesame seeds are sauteed in sesame oil until the raisins are plump and the sesame seeds are golden, and then everything is mixed together. I don't bother to be consistent with the proportions.

Lentil Salad: Based loosely on this recipe from Alanna of A Veggie Venture. Alanna lowered the olive oil to vinegar ratio in her dressing from more than 3:1 to 1:2; I stuck with 1:1 and added some fresh lemon juice. I used the same veggies as Alanna, minus the radishes and chives and with the addition of sliced green olives.

Chickpeas with Charmoula Vinaigrette: There is a custom to eat chickpeas on Purim that dates back to the Middle Ages, according to Gil Marks. The practice is based on the midrash that Esther kept kosher while in Ahashuerus's palace by eating only legumes and seeds. We tried a new chickpea recipe this year, from Myra Kornfeld's The Healthy Hedonist. (I made some adjustments, since I was in a hurry, but it still came out great.) Here's the recipe:

1 1/2 teaspoons whole cumin seeds [I used a reduced quantity of ground cumin]
6 tablespoons fresh lemon juice [from about 1 large lemon]
4 garlic cloves
1 1/2 teaspoons paprika
3/4 cup fresh parsley
1/2 cup fresh cilantro
salt
freshly ground black pepper
3 cups cooked chickpeas or 2 15-oz cans chickpeas, drained and rinsed [I used canned]
3 tablesppons extra-virgin olive oil

If using whole cumin seeds, toast them in a heavy-bottomed skillet over medium-low heat for about 2 minutes, or until fragrant, then grind with a mortar and pestle or spice grinder. [Obviously, I skipped this step.]

Now, throw everything in a food processor, beginning with the garlic and herbs, followed by the cumin, paprika, salt, and pepper, and ending with the liquid ingredients. Process well, taste for seasoning, and pour over chickpeas.

All right, so that last step wasn't quite in accordance with the book, but it works perfectly well.

And now for my favorite new recipe of the holiday: Bourbon Ice Cream!

I got the recipe from CDKitchen, though I've seen nearly identical ones all over the internet. The main distinguishing feature of this version is that it uses 1/2 cup bourbon per gallon rather than 1/4 cup. (That's about 10% ABV, I think, so it's not for children, pregnant women, etc.)

And as a bonus, DH making kiddush:

Until next year. . .

(Cross-posted to the Kosher Blog)

Purim Rum Cake

2007-03-04T02:30:00.000-05:00

I've seen a few versions of this recipe. This is my adaptation:

Ingredients:
1 or 2 qts. rum
1 cup butter
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 cup dried fruit
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tbs. lemon juice
1/4 cup chopped nuts

Directions:

Before you start, sample the rum to check for quality.

Select a large mixing bowl, measuring cup, etc. Check the rum again. It must be of the highest quality.

With an electric mixer, beat butter in large fluffy bowl. Add 1 seaspoon of thugar and beat again. Meanshile, it’s important to make sure the rum is still good. Try another cup.

Open the second quart of rum if necessary. Add 1 arge leggs, 2 cups of fried druits and beat till high.

If the druits get stuck in the beats, just pru it loose with a drewscriver. Sample the rum again for cinscistincy.

Next, add 3 cups of salt and or pepper (it really doesn’t matter which). Sample the wum again.

Sift 1 pint of lemon goose, add 1 bablespoon of brown thugar, of whatever color yoo can find. Mix well. Grease oven, turn cake pan to 350 greeds.

Nyow, pour the whole mess sinto the boven and ake. Check the crum again and bo to ged.

Cross-posted to the Kosher Blog.

What is this Klal Yisrael of Which You Speak?*

2007-02-22T10:28:00.000-05:00

If you follow the Jewish or Israeli news or read Jewish blogs, you've probably heard about the woman in Jerusalem who was beaten for refusing to sit at the back of a public bus. Stories like this make me wonder why I get upset over things like what rabbis eat when we have such serious problems. But then, they also make me question the reality of that "we."

I was raised with the concept of klal yisrael, corporate Israel, the greater Jewish people for whom I am supposed to have unconditional love. And I do feel a sort of kinship with other Jews most of the time, no matter how much I may disagree with them. But practically everything I see or hear having to do with the charedi community in Israel leads me to wonder whether I share anything significant with them at all, other than being human.

Yes, I know, they're like family. I'm supposed to love them no matter what they do. But no one in my family has beaten a woman for sitting on the back of a bus, so it's hard to know how to react.

I might feel differently if I learned that charedi rabbis were denouncing these men's actions without in the process somehow suggesting that the woman got what she deserved. So far, though, it seems like they're too busy building up legions of modesty police to make sure that little girls cover their ankles.

If you have any information that contradicts this impression, please let me know. It would be a kiddush hashem.

* Not my line.

News Flash: Conservative Rabbis Supposed to Keep Kosher

2007-02-11T21:32:00.000-05:00

"Do you eat dairy out?"

It's one of those phrases that only makes sense to a select group of people, in this case, Jews with some traditional background. The question refers to the relatively common practice of keeping a strict separation between meat and dairy at home while eating non-meat products at non-kosher restaurants, even though such establishments obviously do not use separate meat and dairy utensils. For the most part, the practice has persisted as a folk custom without rabbinic endorsement. In the mid-twentieth century, when kosher restaurants were few and far between, some Conservative rabbis and a few liberal Orthodox rabbis found ways to make limited exceptions, but for the most part, those who considered themselves bound by traditional halakhah were forced to concede that food prepared at non-kosher establishments was not kosher. Mordecai Kaplan, the spiritiual father of the Reconstructionist movement, endorsed the practice of keeping kosher at home while "eating out" as a way to maintain Jewish culture while allowing Jews to experience the modern world and interact freely with their gentile neighbors. This position was based on sociological considerations, however; Kaplan had no interest in preserving the traditional halakhic system.

It is not surprising that many Conservative Jews (as well as some nominally Orthodox Jews) continue to eat dairy out. People aren't entirely consistent by nature, and not everyone who keeps kosher does so for strictly halakhic reasons. Nor is it surprising that many Conservative rabbis eat out, as many are essentially Reconstructionist in theology. What continues to amazing me is how many Conservative Jews, including so-called rabbis, seem to think that "eating dairy out" is a coherent halakhic position. Many, in fact, seem to think that it is the only coherent halakhic position, and that anyone who doesn't eat at non-kosher restaurants is a religious fanatic, while anyone who doesn't keep separate utensils at home is "non-observant."

According to an article in the New York Jewish Week, a recent survey found that 71% of Conservative rabbis eat hot dairy food in non-kosher restaurants, while 92% eat hot food in vegetarian restaurants lacking rabbinic supervision. This has prompted Rabbi Paul Plotkin to begin to compose a teshuvah opposing the practice. The word teshuvah means "answer." Traditionally, teshuvot responded to specific questions, which means that they usually expressed halakhic positions that weren't maddeningly obvious. Unfortunately, the Conservative movement has apparently reached a point at which its rabbis can't appreciate what would be apparent to any outsider who gave it a moment's thought.

I fell into the Conservative movement more or less by default. For a while, I found its peculiar foibles amusing, but lately, it's really started to piss me off. I'm thinking of starting my own Deconstructionist community. Any takers?

(Cross-posted to the Kosher Blog)

Chocolate Velvet Ice Cream

2007-01-25T00:07:00.000-05:00

Look good? You can read about it at the Kosher Blog. (I'm not in the mood to cross-post.)

The Tucker Teshuvah

2007-01-14T23:48:00.000-05:00

or Theology and CJLS Politics

In my last post on the CJLS teshuvot on homosexuality, I tried to show that the Jewish legal tradition, rigidly conceived, does not reflect a hierarchy of sexual values with which many contemporary committed Jews can identify.

Fleurdelis28 had an excellent response, but Blogger was being a meanie that day, so she sent it to me by e-mail. Here's a snippet:

[A]ll those nice values we want to call Jewish may be much more evident in the narrative of the Bible than in its laws themselves. In spite of a radically different social context, there seem to be a lot of couples who do substantially love and respect each other, and when they aren't honest with each other, things don't go so well. . . .Avraham's and Yaakov's situations illustrate nicely why polygamy, though acceptable, is not such a great arrangement emotionally (even when it was your wife's idea in the first place). . . .Whatever you think is going on in the Song of Songs, it's clearly not about the relationship you'd expect from the worldview of the laws stated in the Torah. I don't have the time at the moment to go poring over the rest of the Tanach -- granted, a rather heterogenous narrative -- but I think by and large things go better for the sort of couples that do behave in accordance with those values you cite.

Yes, the Bible is quite heterogenous, but fleurdelis28 makes an important point: Biblical narratives often temper, or even undermine, the apparent thrust of biblical legislation. This is true of the rabbinic tradition as well, which consists not only of legal texts, but also of aggadah (narrative). And in fact, this very issue -- the often fraught relationship between Jewish law and Jewish narrative, including the narrative that modern Jews continue to live and create -- is one of the centerpieces of Gordon Tucker's argument for the normalization of Jewish gays and lesbians.

Fundamental to Tucker's teshuvah is the premise that the Torah is not the infallible word of God. He writes:

The deeper consequence of our theology, is that the Torah (and a foriori subsequent expressions of religious law) is not a record of commanding utterances from God, but rather a record of the religious quests of a people, and of their understanding of how God's will commands them. The long-standing -- and understandable -- tendency to divide up religious literature into halakhah (law) and aggadah (narrative) has thus always been a mistake. The law is given cogency and support by the ongoing story of the community that seeks to live by the law. . . . The ongoing, developing religious life of a community includes not only the work of its legalists, but also its experiences, its intuitions, and the ways in which stories move it. This ongoing religious life must therefore have a role in the development of its norms, else the legal obligations of the community will become dangerously detached from its theological commitments. (P. 19; emphasis in original)

My sentiments are with Rabbi Tucker, but I wonder whether the "enhanced" Halakhic* system that he advocates can practically be put into effect. Can we maintain a commitment to halakhic precedent on a daily basis while making exceptions when our consciences demand that we do so? Even if this is possible on an individual basis, is it really possible on a communal basis? And if so, what is to be the role of the CJLS in this process?

This brings me to an interesting point regarding CJLS politics. While Gordon Tucker is not the first to advocate this sort of reimagined halakhic system, he is, as far as I know, the first to do so in the context of the CJLS. Apparently uncertain what to do with his unconventional teshuvah, the members of the CJLS labeled it a takkanah (which I usually translate "rabbinic injunction," but perhaps "amendment" is more appropriate in this context). According to the CJLS's recently relaxed rules regarding takkanot, a majority of votes (13) is required in order for a takkanah to pass, as opposed to the six votes required for an ordinary teshuvah. (From what I've observed, there are normally a large number of abstentions.) The Tucker paper received seven votes in favor, which means that it failed to earn CJLS approval only because of its takkanah status. Unsurprisingly, Rabbi Tucker argued against the paper being considered a takkanah, maintaining that historically, the term was reserved for legal innovations that derived their authority from that of a particular Rabbi. This teshuvah, in contrast, "does not seek any extraordinary authority [nor does it] seek to create an unchallengeable innovation" (p. 3). Notwithstanding the semantic point, I think that the members of the CJLS were correct in recognizing that the teshuvah does demand something extraordinary, namely, to alter the parameters of halakhic discourse in such a way as to change the very role of the CJLS as a judicial body (even if it does operate in a merely advisory capacity). In effect, this paper is neither a traditional teshuvah nor a takkanah, but a recommendation for changing the entire system by which teshuvot are written. It hardly seems self-evident to me that such a document should require a mere six votes to pass.

That said, the approach to halakhah advocated in this essay is closer to my own ideas about Judaism than the more traditional approach of Joel Roth,** and I daresay that the same is true of a large proportion of Conservative rabbis, not to mention laypeople. Perhaps it should be given more of a voice in the CJLS.

* Tucker recommends using a capital "H" when referring to this more expansive type of Halakhah (p. 20). I am finding this a bit difficult to get used to, since a Reconstructionist rabbi I admire refers to a similar phenomenon as "halakhah with a small 'h'."

**See pp. 28-31 of the Roth Teshuvah for a critique of Tucker's approach.

I'm in a Book!

2007-01-10T10:51:00.000-05:00

It's not exactly what I was hoping I'd first use that line for, but why be picky? Here's the cover:

And here's the official description:

Best Recipes from the Jewish Blogosphere

These recipes from the Jewish blogosphere aren't just the same old kugel. Pareve, milchig and fleischig selections range from "almost healthy" sufganiyot to "Eyes of Haman" Purim bread to instructions for successful kosher potlucks. All recipes include URLs for the original post, and links to other Jewish blogs are on the back page. Treat your friends and relatives to this unique inexpensive Hanukkah gift which they will appreciate long after the holiday is over.

So, you may be wondering, why didn't I post this before Hanukkah? Well. . .it's a long story. Anyway, you can still buy the book before Tu Bishvat! (What, you never heard of the ancient tradition of giving Tu Bishvat presents?) It's only $4, and it includes a wonderful recipe for flourless honey pecan cake.

Click here to order.

(Cross-posted to The Kosher Blog)

Jewish Sexual Ethics

2007-01-09T00:25:00.000-05:00

It's been over a month since the CJLS released their teshuvot on homosexuality, and those of you who care are probably wondering why I haven't yet posted any comments. The primary answer is that DH and I (all right, mostly DH) have been working through the halakhic sources utilized in the teshuvot, and some of them are very complicated.

I've realized, however, that before commenting on the nitty-gritty legal issues, it's probably worth saying a few words by way of introduction. In this post, I'd like to address a question that I've raised before, namely: what are the essential Jewish values in the realm of sex and relationships, and where do they come from?

Michelle Shain offers some of the most articulate criticism of the Dorf/Nevins/Reisner teshuvah* that I've seen from a Conservative layperson:

These authors and the ten rabbis who voted with them on Wednesday, have chosen to ignore divine will as expressed by centuries of clear and uncontested halakhic jurisprudence, in favor of a 21st-century American value.

This is actually a reasonable characterization of the teshuvah. But then, it's worth examining what the Torah and all those centuries of halakhic jurisprudence have to say about sex and relationships in general. Contemporary Jewish leaders who address these subjects typically stress such values as honesty, fidelity, and mutual respect.** At the very least, they mention monogomy: sex is supposed to occur within a committed, sanctified relationship between two adults. One could make a reasonable argument that these values are promoted in our textual tradition, but as far as Jewish law is concerned, strictly speaking, they are barely on the register. Premarital sex may be considered licentious behavior, but it is not strictly prohibited as long as the laws of menstrual purity are observed. [See CORRECTION below.] On the other hand, if a married couple that has sex without the woman visiting the mikveh, the man, at least, is liable for karet, the most severe penalty in halakhah. Extra-marital sex is prohibited for a married woman, but a married man who has sex with a single woman has not transgressed the letter of the law. True, polygamy was outlawed for Ashkenazim by Rabbi Gershom ben Judah around the year 1004 CE, but that was merely a takkanah (rabbinic injunction), and it was set to apply for a mere 1000 years (you do the math). The Torah does not prohibit pedophilia or even rape per se -- the penalty for sex with a virgin is compensation for her depreciated value, either monetarily or by taking her as a wife.

So I ask again, what are Jewish sexual ethics, and where do they come from? To suggest that they do not come from the Torah or from the halakhic tradition would seem to be a recipe for chaos, but I'm not sure that we can honestly assert the contrary.

[CORRECTION: As Mar Gavriel points out in this long and intricate post, pre-marital sex is probably prohibited rabbinically, if not midde'oraita' (that is, according to the rabbinic understanding of Torah law), at least in situations that cannot be defined halakhically as pilagshut (usually translated "concubinbage.") My point stands, however: the penalty for marital sex without mikveh use is unquestionably more severe than the penalty for premarital sex with mikveh use. This is not consonant with the hierarchy of values to which most of us are accustomed. I will discuss this further in the near future, God willing.]

*In case you missed it, the teshuvot are here. The press release on this page offers a summary, although its characterizations of some of the teshuvot are somewhat misleading.
**See, e.g., Elliot Dorff's Rabbinic Letter on Intimate Relations, quoted at length on pp. 37-38 of Leonard Levy's teshuvah, "Same-Sex Attraction and Halakhah."

More on Women in Science

2006-12-19T11:54:00.000-05:00

Today's New York Times Science section has a lengthy article on women in science. The article addresses some important issues, such as the difficulty of raising children while maintaining a career in academia; advancing one's career along with that of a spouse who is also a scientist; and latent predjudices that lead to women being judged less competent than their male peers, or too aggressive when they actively pursue advancement.

Still, it irritates me to no end that the New York Times, and apparently the organizers of panels and conferences on this subject, feel the need to dismiss out of hand the possibility of cognitive differences between men and women. One would think that scientists and other highly educated people would be open to all reasonable hypotheses, that they would appreciate the possibility of a single phenomenon having multiple causes, and that they would understand that statistical trends need not have implications for individuals.

Also not addressed is the possibility that affirmative action is one of the causes of the assumption that female scientists are less compentent than males -- in other words, that what is supposed to be a solution has become part of the problem.

On the bright side, the article does offer some anecdotal evidence that attitudes toward women in science have improved significantly over the past few decades. DH also suspects that this is the case. Since it takes many years to reach the top echelons in academia, and since tenured professors tend to keep their jobs for quite some time, there is inevitably a significant lag between changes in attitude and changes in the position of women in the profession. However, I think there is reason to be optimistic.

Previous comments/rants on this subject here, here, and here.

Selling the Bible

2006-12-18T23:40:00.000-05:00

This week's New Yorker has an interesting article on the American Bible business. An excerpt:

The popularization of the Bible entered a new phase in 2003, when Thomas Nelson created the BibleZine. Wayne Hastings described a meeting in which a young editor, who had conducted numerous focus groups and online surveys, presented the idea. “She brought in a variety of teen-girl magazines and threw them out on the table,” he recalled. “And then she threw a black bonded-leather Bible on the table and said, ‘Which would you rather read if you were sixteen years old?’ ” The result was “Revolve,” a New Testament that looked indistinguishable from a glossy girls’ magazine. The 2007 edition features cover lines like “Guys Speak Their Minds” and “Do U Rush to Crush?” Inside, the Gospels are surrounded by quizzes, photos of beaming teen-agers, and sidebars offering Bible-themed beauty secrets:

Have you ever had a white stain appear underneath the arms of your favorite dark blouse? Don’t freak out. You can quickly give deodorant spots the boot. Just grab a spare toothbrush, dampen with a little water and liquid soap, and gently scrub until the stain fades away. As you wash away the stain, praise God for cleansing us from all the wrong things we have done. (1 John 1:9)

“Revolve” was immediately popular with teen-agers. “They weren’t embarrassed anymore,” Hastings said. “They could carry it around school, and nobody was going to ask them what in the world it is.” Nelson quickly followed up with other titles, including “Refuel,” for boys; “Blossom,” for tweens; “Real,” for the “vibrant urban crowd” (it comes bundled with a CD of Christian rap); and “Divine Health,” which has notes by the author of the best-selling diet book “What Would Jesus Eat?” To date, Nelson has sold well over a million BibleZines.

The success of the BibleZine was all the more notable for occurring in a commercial field already crowded with products and with savvy marketing ideas. This year’s annual trade show of the Christian Booksellers’ Association, in Denver, brought such innovations as “The Outdoor Bible,” printed on indestructible plastic sheets that fold up like maps, and “The Story,” which features selections from the Bible arranged in chronological order, like a novel. There is a “Men of Integrity” Bible and a “Woman, Thou Art Loosed!” Bible. For kids, there’s “The Super Heroes Bible: The Quest for Good Over Evil” and “Psalty’s Kids Bible,” featuring “Psalty, the famous singing songbook.” The “Soul Surfer Bible” has notes by Bethany Hamilton, who lost an arm to a shark in 2003. “2:52 Boys Bible: The Ultimate Manual” promises “gross and gory Bible stuff.” In the “Rainbow Study Bible,” each verse is color-coded by theme. “The Promise Bible” prints every one of God’s promises in boldface. And “The Personal Promise Bible” is custom-printed with the owner’s name (“The LORD is Daniel’s shepherd”), home town (“Woe to you, Brooklyn! Woe to you, New York!”), and spouse’s name (“Gina’s two breasts are like two fawns”).

I feel like I should have an opinion on this phenomenon, but I'm just amused. Anyone who buys a Bible for the beauty tips deserves what she gets.

See the slide show, too.

(Hat tip to Jewish Atheist)

The Teshuvot Are In

2006-12-13T17:31:00.000-05:00

The responsa on homosexuality discussed at the last CJLS meeting are now available online. I hope to read them and offer a few comments some time in the near future. In the meantime, DH has some preliminary observations.

SHF #28: Sugar Art - Painted Sugar Cookies

2006-12-12T21:04:00.000-05:00

I have a few friends I thought deserved some cookies about now, but until recently, I hadn't decided what kind to make. Then I saw that this month's Sugar High Friday theme is "Sugar Art," and I took it as a sign that it was time to try Nancy Baggett's edible tempera paint recipe and make some personalized cookies.

I didn't want to post the personalized cookies for SHF, so I made some more generic ones, too. Here are some Chanukah cookies:

And some non-denominational cookies:

The verdict: The cookies are tasty and the art project was fun, but it would have been more fun with a kid, and I'll probably wait until I have one before doing it again. (The cookies look like a kid made them, anyway.)

Here's the recipe (adapted from Nancy Baggett's All-American Cookie Book):

All-Purpose Sugar Cookie Dough
3 cups all-purpose white flour, plus more if needed.
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, slightly softened
Scant 1 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon milk
2 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon lemon or almond extract
Edible tempera paints

In a large bowl, thoroughly stir together flour, baking powder, and salt; set aside. In a large bowl, with an electric mixer on medium speed, beat together the butter and sugar until very light and fluffy. Beat in the egg, milk, vanilla, and lemon or almond extract if using, until very well blended and smooth. Gradually beat or stir in the flour mixture to form a smooth, slightly stiff dough. If it seems soft, stir in up to 3 tablespoons more flour. Let the dough stand for about 5 minutes, until firmed up slightly.

Devide the dough in half. Place each portion between large sheets of was paper. Roll out the portions a scant 1/4 inch thick; check the underside of the dough and smooth out any wrinkles that form. Stack the rolled portions (paper still attached) on a baking sheet. Refrigirate the dough for 45 minutes, or until chilled and firm, or freeze for 25 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease several cookie sheets or line with parchment paper.

Working with one portion at a time and leaving the remaining dough chilled, gently peel away, then pat one sheet of wax paper back into place. Flip the dough over, then peel off and discard the second sheet. Cut out the cookies. (If at any point the dough softens too much to handle easily, transfer the paper and cookies to a baking sheet and refrigirate or freeze until firm again.) Using a spatula, carefully transfer the cookies to the baking sheets, spacing about 2 inches apart. Reroll any dough scraps. Continue cutting out the cookies until all the dough is used.

Edible Tempera Paints
(These paints are made with raw eggs, but they are applied before the cookies are baked, so they're perfectly safe to eat.)
2 large eggs (divided)
2 tablespoons powdered sugar (divided)
Liquid food coloring

Using a fork and working in a small bowl, beat together 1 egg, 1 egg yolk, and 1 1/2 tablespoons of powdered sugar until the sugar dissolves. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve (a tea strainer is fine) into 3 or 4 custard cups or small bowls. In a separate small bowl, beat together the remaining egg white and the remaining 1/2 tablespoon powdered sugar. Strain this mixture into 1 or 2 custard cups or bowls. Stir in the food coloring to obtain the shades as follows: For blue, red, or purple (blue + red), add the food coloring to the egg white mixture. For all other shades, add the food coloring to the egg yolk mixture.

Using pastry brushes for larger areas and small artists' brushes for fine details, apply the paints to unbaked cookies. Apply a light coat of paint for a "wash" effect; apply a little more heavily for a smoother, more opaque, enamled effect.

Bake cookies, one sheet at a time, in the upper third of the oven for 8-11 minutes, until lightly colored on top and slightly darker at the edges. Reverse the sheet from front to back halfway through baking to ensure even browning. Transfer sheet to a wire rack and let stand until the cookies firm up slightly, 1 to 2 minutes.

Store in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks or freeze for up to 2 months.

Surprise Surprise

2006-12-06T23:30:00.000-05:00

As expectehttp://beta.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifd, the Conservative movement's Committee on Jewish Law and Standards just approved three contradictory responsa on homosexuality. The best summary I've seen comes from Andrew Sullivan (of all people):

Conservative Judaism will now allow congregations, seminaries and synagogues to have gay rabbis - or not.

Seriously, though, I think everyone involved knows where the movement is headed on this issue. It's just a question of how much time Chancelor Eisen decides that decorum requires before the new policy is implemented.

(FYI, in addition to the three rabbis mentioned in the JTA article, Rabbi Joel Roth has apparently resigned. He will be missed, but it's time for the movement to move on.)

Ginger Snaps

2006-11-29T09:07:00.000-05:00

My friend and former roommate Ayelet is an avid baker and makes many delicious desserts, but my favorite by far are her ginger snaps. She baked them often when we lived together, and the whole suite would fill with the warm frangrance of ginger. I could barely wait for them to cool.

I often use Ayelet's recipes now, but the ginger snaps have never come out quite right. Usually, the dough is too crumbly and the cookies are dry. The results were somewhat better when I monitored the temperature of the eggs and the shortening (which Ayelet never did), but they were still inferior to hers. Finally, I decided to switch to a new recipe. The one I use now comes from Lisa Yockelson of the Boston Globe (March 1, 2006). The flavors are the same, but I find the dough more workable. (Yockelson recommends preparing the dough five hours in advance to allow it time to firm up in the refrigirator, but I have not had trouble rolling the cookies while the dough is soft.) The cookies always come out well, and they are a big hit at Thanksgiving dinner.

Here is the recipe, slightly edited:

Dough
3 1/4 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 1/4 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (2 sticks plus 2 tablespoons) unsalted butter or margarine, softened*
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1 egg
1 egg yolk
6 tablespoons molasses (Yockelson recommends light molasses. I use dark.)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, ginger, cinnamon, and cloves in a large bowl.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter on medium speed for 3 minutes. Gradually add the sugar, beating all the while.

Add the whole egg and egg yolk. Beat only until incorporated. Blend in the molasses and vanilla.

On low speed, add the flour mixture in 3 additions, beating just until the dry ingredients are incorporated.

If the dough is too soft to roll, place it in a covered dish and refrigirate several hours or up to 2 days.

Sugar Coating
1/2 cup granulated sugar**
dash ginger

In a wide bowl, combine the sugar and ginger.

Take heaping tablespoons of dough into your palms and roll them into balls, then in the sugar mixture until lightly coated. Set them on the baking sheets, arranging them 3 inches apart.

Bake 8-10 minutes for soft cookies, or 12-13 minutes for crisp cookies. The cookies will rise slightly, then settle. The tops will be cracked. Let them stand on the sheets for 2 minutes, then use a wide metal spatula to transfer to wire racks. Store in an airtight container.

*If you use salted butter or margarine, omit the 1/2 teaspoon salt. (I used Earth Balance last time, and it was fine.)

** The original recipe called for 2 cups of sugar, but that was much more than necessary.

How to Lose Your Appetite in 30 Seconds

2006-11-26T23:33:00.000-05:00

I found a hilarious website today: James Lilek's Gallery of Regrettable Food. It's a collection of humorously annotated recipe books from the bad old days (mostly the 40s, 50s, and 60s) when Americans apparently thought that the best way to prepare any food was to suspend it in gelatin.

My favorites are the Knudson recipe books (especially the second) and the Ten P.M. Cookbook.

Keep a barf bag handy.

Still Alive

2006-11-15T22:34:00.000-05:00

Just checking in to say that I'm still alive, and I passed. (Yey! I passed!) All that's left now is the dissertation.

I'm going to a conference now, but I'll post about something substantive as soon as I, um, feel like it.

Morbid Interlude

2006-11-01T14:45:00.000-05:00

I'm in the middle of exams, but I had to post this YouTube video before Google purges it:

I'll be back for real in about a week and a half.

Hiatus

2006-09-14T10:35:00.000-05:00

I've been blogging way too much and I have other things to do, so I'm going to have to take a few months off. Shanah Tovah!

Kosher Cooking Carnival #10: Sweet New Year Edition

2006-09-14T00:05:00.000-05:00

Previous Carnivals: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

On Today's Menu:
Holiday Recipes
General Recipes
Menus and Anecdotes
Kashrut Issues
New Blog
Next KCC

Holiday Recipes
Actually, there weren't many submissions geared specifically toward the holidays, so here are some of my own recipes:

Foolproof Matzo Balls One of the secrets DH inherited from his mother
Italian Style Pot Roast A special brisket recipe for special occasions
Sweet Potato Apple Tsimmes Vastly superior to the carrot-and-prune variety
Flourless Honey-Pecan Cake Great for those with wheat or gluten sensitivity -- and everyone else, too
Indian Rice Pudding An exotic ending to a holiday meal
I also noticed this interesting-looking recipe on ShalomBoston.com:
Chicken With Apples and Honey According to the food editor, it's a year-round favorite, and not as sweet as you'd think.

Here's another delicious-looking brisket recipe from Doug Behrman:

Nanny's Brisket

1 4-5 lb. brisket(1st cut only)-contact your local lender for current mortgage rates
2-3 large onions
paprika
onion powder
garlic powder
salt & pepper

Grate onions in food processor until slightly liquidy
rub both sides of brisket with spices -don't be stingy!
slather both sides with onion puree
put in roasting pan and add water to come 3/4 way up side of brisket(NOT side of pot!)
roast at 350 for 3-4 hours until soft but not falling apart.
you won't be sorry.

Finally, two recipes involving pomegranate from Norman's Steak'n Burger (27 Emek Refaim, German Colony, Jerusalem*):

Chicken in Pomegranate sauce

1 large chicken, quartered
3 tbs olive oil
1 onion chopped
250 g coarsely chopped walnuts
4-6 pomegranates
The juice of two lemons
1 tbs sugar
Salt and pepper to taste

In a large heavy skillet brown the chicken pieces quickly in hot oil. With a slotted spoon, remove the chicken and in the same skillet saute the onion until nicely browned. Add the walnuts and continue to saute over low flame, for 2-3 minutes longer.

Cut the pomegranates in half, scoop out the seeds and discard the pith. Place the seeds in a blender and blend for 3-4 seconds and then strain the juice into a bowl, pressing to squeeze out the juice. (This should yield about 1 cup of juice).

Pour the juice into a skillet, add the lemon juice, sugar, 2/3 cup of water and salt and pepper to taste. Bring to a bare simmer, stir, return the chicken pieces to the skillet and cook, uncovered until the chicken is very tender (45 minutes to 1 hour).

Taste and correct the seasoning with more lemon or sugar to taste. If the sauce is too thick, thin with a little water. Serve piping hot. Enjoy!

Pomegranate Ices

1 cup sugar
1 cup pomegranate seeds, lightly crushed
6 tbs lemon juice
Mint leaves to garnish

To a saucepan with 4 cups of water add the sugar, and boil for 5-6 minutes, stirring regularly. Remove from the flame and let cool. Refrigerate until the syrup is lightly chilled and then add the pomegranate seeds and lemon juice. Pour the mixture into ice cube trays and place in the freezer.

When the mixture is half frozen, stir well and then stir again every half hour until you have stirred the mixture 4 times in all. Pour the mixture into individual sherbet or dessert cups and let freeze solid. Transfer to the regular refrigeration compartment about 10 minutes before serving, and serve garnished with mint leaves. Enjoy!

General Recipes
I've grouped all the submissions containing recipes in this category, but most include anecdotes as well.

Let's start with dessert:

Blueberry Streussel Muffins A parve adaptation from Sarah
Dutch Butter Cake A simple recipe with a touching story, from ATBH
English Caramel Custard A luscious dessert recipe from ATBH, with historical background
Lemon Sorbet Submitted by Sarah, with a picture of fruit flan (the flan was prettier than the sorbet :))
Little Chocolate Cherry Cakes From TallLatte, along with the menu from her wedding
Berry Meringue Torte From Yours Truly. (This should appear in Sugar High Friday, which promises to be scrumptious, if not necessarily 100% kosher.)

Now, for savory:

Chinese Chopped Meat Casserole An easy recipe from Rebecca, embedded in a mouth-watering post on the joys of cooking and baking

Here's an interesting recipe from Robin:

Turkey Loaf

1 lb ground turkey more or less
bread crumbs or matzah meal more or less
1 egg
mayonnaise
teriyaki sauce
cornflake crumbs or bread crumbs

Mix the ground turkey with some bread crumbs or matzah meal and 1 egg. Put it in a baking Dish bigger or smaller. Shmear mayonnaise on top and then pour some teriyaki sauce on it. Sprinkle corn flake crumbs. (Bigger dish makes the turkey loaf thinner and perhaps more mayo and teriyaki/cornflake crumbs flavoring). It looks a bit like Southern Fried chicken.

Rina offers two marinade recipes from Kathy Casey, whom she describes as "a culinary icon in the Pacific Northwest and a leading proponent of Northwest cuisine on the national scene." Rina says:

Although she recommends this Garlic Marinade for flank steak, I have also used it on salmon, chicken, and even veggie burgers. The best part about this recipe is that it uses ingredients that are readily available in most kitchens. After marinating the steak with her Garlic Marinade and grilling it, Kathy Casey tops her creation with a Blue Cheese and Herb Smear (the recipe for which I have included below). Obviously, using it on meat is a kosher no-no, but I have used it on salmon with good results (of course, that all depends on the availability of kosher blue cheese in your area--which in Seattle can be rather unpredictable). ENJOY!

Kathy Casey's Garlic Marinade
Recipe makes enough marinade for 1 to 2 pounds of meat or fish

1/4 cup kosher or vegetarian worcestershire sauce
2 teaspoons Kosher salt
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
2 Tablespoons minced fresh garlic (or I have used Dorot frozen crushed garlic)
1/4 cup olive oil

In a small bowl, combine all the marinade ingredients. Pour marinade into a plastic bag, press out any air, and zip close. Move meat or fish around in the bag to marinade. Refridgerate for an hour minimum or preferably overnight.

Kathy Casey's Blue Cheese and Herb Smear

1/3 cup of blue cheese crumbled
3 Tablespoons salted butter (room temperature)
1 Tablespoon prepared horseradish
1 Tablespoon chopped, fresh basil (or I have used Dorot frozen chopped basil)
1 Tablespoon chopped fresh thyme

Combine smear ingredients together in a small bowl and stir until smooth. Refridgerate until ready to serve. Bring to room temperature about one hour before serving.

Menus and Anecdotes
Batya shares a sumptuous Friday night menu and writes about a visit with family in NY and its gastronomic highlights.

Kashrut Issues
Is it just me, or has there been an unusual amount of kashrut controversy in the blogosphere this month? Most recently, a Monsey butcher was accused of selling non-kosher chicken, eliciting a flood of commentary from Dov Bear et. al. and commenters (link, link, link, link, link, link). Hirhurim linked to a letter about Glatt meat in the Forward, eliciting 156 comments as of this posting. And Batya reports on a class-action suit against Elite-Strauss regarding the gelatin used in their products.
We report, you decide (or something).

New Blog
The J-Blogosphere reaches a new height of nichiness with the advent of Two Heads of Lettuce, a blog devoted to tips and recipes for pluralistic Jewish dairy Shabbat potlucks. (For the food blogosphere, on the other hand, this is nothing. In the brief time I've spent perusing food blogs, I've discovered a blog devoted to vegetables, a blog devoted to cupcakes, and, most recently, a blog devoted to bananas.) Being mostly vegetarian and an attendee of occasional potlucks myself, I've been enjoying Two Heads of Lettuce immensely. Pay it a visit!

Next KCC
The next Kosher Cooking Carnival will be held at me-ander. To submit an article or recipe, you can:
1. E-mail Batya (shilohmuse at gmail dot com) or
2. use Conservative Cat's handy form, or
3. use the Blog Carnival form.
There's more info. here.

Chag sameach to everyone, and happy cooking!

*For those of you in the Holy Land, Norman's also has a special holiday take-out menu. Their telephone number is 972-2-566-6603.

September Diary

2006-09-11T21:23:00.000-05:00

Like prayer, memorial seems a basic human need. I'm not sure what the point is, but today, with millions of Americans, I remember.

9/12/01
Yesterday morning I went to class as usual and discussed Deuteronomy until 10:30, blissfully unaware that hours earlier, my world had changed.

I saw the footage on the student center television while on my way to check my mail. A great explosion, and the World Trade Center crumbled to the ground. I gaped, unable to digest the information before my eyes, unable to conceive of the New York City skyline without the Twin Towers. Then I thought, "my sisters!" They were at Stuyvesant, only a few blocks away. For the first time since I was younger than I can remember, I sucked my thumb.

I tried to call home but the circuits were overloaded. I tried to call [DH]; same deal. I called [Rymenhild], who hadn't heard the news. When I told her, she said, "This just doesn't fit my conception of the world."

Two planes hijacked. Thousands killed -- passengers, business people at the World Trade Center, pedestrians on the street. And all I could think was, "my sisters."

[. . .]

I met Rabbi [B] in the cafeteria and spoke with him briefly. He and [the Rebbitzen] don't know many people in New York or D.C. They know people in Israel, though, where nearly every day lately a shooting or a bombing sends them to the phone, checking to make sure that their loved ones are still alive. I'm sure he wasn't thinking this, but, in part because of my own guilt, I read it in the Rabbi's eyes: "Now you know what it's like."

[. . .]

The irony, the irony. It almost makes me believe in God -- this is just the kind of fucked-up thing He would do.

[. . .]

9/14/01
[Middle Sister] was crying over the phone. [Youngest] saw the second tower go down from chem lab, she said. They saw people jumping out of the windows. Their classmates were crying, "My parents work there!"

[. . .]

They walked home together, from Chambers to 72nd street (all transportation was down), through the screaming and the carnage and the debris. [Middle Sister] kept looking back, and [Youngest] said, "don't look back" -- "I'm surprised you didn't turn into a pillar of salt," I said --

"Please come home. I'd really like you to come home," she sobbed. I started sobbing, too.

"All right."

So now I am home.

I didn't stop crying that night. I put away my books and went for a walk, through the parking lot, across campus, then back to the chapel where סליחות [the Penitential Prayers] were beginning at 12. I stood outside in the shadows while people filed in, trying to stop up the tears. The service began, אשרי, and then, in the awesome tune of the ימים נוראים [Days of Awe],

יתגדל ויתקדש שמה רבא
[May His Great Name Be Magnified and Enhanced!]

I turned and walked home.

[. . .]

Years ago, on a rainy morning, the tenth of [Av], I wrote of the ashes of the [Holy Temple], still smoldering. I wrote of the rain, succumbing to the temptation to use hackneyed water metaphors -- I said that the world was crying. Well, it is raining now, and like any torrent of tears, it is making matters worse. Rescue workers continue to work in the smoke and dampness, trying to save a few lives, under the cold grey sky.

This is a time of high character -- tragedy does that. My sisters say that a shoe store owner stood on the sidewalk Tuesday, handing pairs of sneakers to women in high heels to help them get home. ([Youngest] broke down when she saw a pair of abandoned pumps lying in the street.) My sisters offered their beds to the hospital Tuesday night, but they weren't needed -- people weren't making it to the hospital; everyone was dying. So, too, the American Red Cross is overloaded with people across the country volunteering their blood, money, medical supplies, and time. If only they needed us now; we are all so eager to help. The tragedy is that they really don't need us.

[. . .]

[Rosh Hashanah] is Tuesday and Wednesday. I was going to stay in school to avoid missing French and Akkadian Monday, but it seems trivial now. I came home Thursday night; I am here for a week. School, only school. . . it is inessential.

9/15/01
[. . .]
I walked downtown with my mother today. It is out of character for both of us to want to survey the scene of a disaster, but this event remains so unbelievable that even we feel inclined to look, again and again. (I went down to Riverside Park last night and stood at the end of the pier, staring at the giant cloud of smoke that still hung in the place where the towers stood less than a week ago.) On Christopher Street, a small crowd has been gathered since Tuesday, cheering on the rescue vehicles with flags and roses and signs that say "Thank You" and "You Are Our Heroes." Flags hang everywhere, at half mast, including at porn shops, one of which sported a sign reading, "God Bless America." (My mother said she wished we could broadcast that in Afghanistan.) I have never before seen New Yorkers -- or anyone else, for that matter, on such a grand scale -- being so patriotic or generally so well-behaved.
[. . .]

9/19/01
[. . .]
בין דין לדין [between Judgment and Judgment], everyone in this secular empire with the slightest glimmering of faith is at prayer, awaiting the next phase of this horror. So I, too, am starting to pray.
[. . .]

The Day I Wasn't There

2006-09-11T07:15:00.000-05:00

What I remember most about September 11, 2001 is that I wasn't there. My mother and sisters were in lower Manhattan and I was miles away, emotionally as well as physically. It is difficult even to imagine my sisters' panic as they fled from the rubble, or my mother's terror, not knowing where they were. For my own part, I don't remember feeling anything as I dialed their number again and again, coldly contemplating the unthinkable. This was probably what they call a "defense mechanism," but I'll never know for sure. All that I know is that I wasn't with them, and I should have been.

The Ineffable Tetragrammaton*

2006-09-08T10:27:00.000-05:00

The four-letter name of the Israelite Deity, called the "Tetragrammaton," was, to all appearances, once pronounced freely. Over the centuries, however, it has become shielded by many degrees of what scholars creatively call "Tetragrammaton avoidance." When the Bible was translate into Greek around the beginning of the common era, the translators substituted the word κυριοs, "Lord," for the Divine Name. By the time the biblical text was fully vocalized, the Tetragrammaton had been replaced by the Hebrew word for "Lord," adonay, in liturgical readings. To indicate the correct reading of the Divine name, the Tetragrammaton was written with the vowels of adonay (yielding the erroneous transliteration "Jehovah"). More recently, Jews began to avoid even adonay in non-liturgical contexts, substituting euphemisms such as hashem ("the Name"). The Tetragrammaton is also avoided in writing. An early substitute consisted of two yods (the first and third letters of the Tetragrammaton). That, however, was too close to the original for comfort, so today, the letter hay, representing "Hashem," is a more prevalent choice. The very pious will avoid even hay, since it is one of the letters of the Tetragrammaton, preferring dalet, the letter preceding hay in the Hebrew alphabet. Sometimes, even non-Hebrew names of God are regarded as too sacred to be written. Many Jews substitute "G-d" for "God;" DH has even seen "Hash-m."

At this point, no one really knows how the Tetragrammaton was originally pronounced, although scholars have their (highly speculative) theories. There is, however, a conventional pronunciation used in academic circles, based on what one might call an educated guess. This places scholars with traditional Jewish leanings in an awkward position. There are times when using a proper name for the Deity is warranted, and departing from the convention to use circumlocutions or alternative euphemisms can be extremely distracting. One Jewish scholar of my acquaintance pronounces the Tetragrammaton on the grounds that he is certain that the conventional pronunciation is incorrect. Another occasionally uses "Hashem" at the risk of sounding unscholarly; a third is reputed to have said, "I'll just call him Jimmy."

I have yet to come up with a personal solution, and this has, on occasion, resulted in considerable awkwardness. Once, I was asked about a book with the Tetragrammaton in the title, and I stood there, dumbly, as though I couldn't remember it. Recently, I became so frustrated at my inability to communicate that I abandoned my principles and pronounced the Divine Name. Later, I reassured myself, noting that I hadn't articulated the medial hay, and in any case, I didn't see how the final vowel could possibly be a long /e/, and even if was, it would have been pronounced as short /i/ when the Name was actually used, etc.

All of this, of course, entirely misses the point. "Tetragrammaton avoidance" is supposed to be about regarding the Deity with a certain degree of reverence -- something that biblical scholars and aspiring scholars rarely do. Most of us are religious in some sense, but at some point, tearing the Bible to shreds and attempting to reconstruct the vowels of the Tetragrammaton does take its toll. The sense of mysterium tremendum so essential to religion inevitably begins to dissipate. Then, when we need it -- say, on the Jewish Days of Awe -- it is ever so difficult to recapture.

* DH thinks that this would be a good name for a rock band.

Carnival Time!

2006-09-01T09:44:00.000-05:00

The next Kosher Cooking Carnival will take place right here, at Apikorsus Online. Please send kosher recipes, links to posts or articles about kosher food, pictures of kosher food, odes to kosher food, etc. to Batya (shilohmuse at gmail dot com) or me (navelofwine at comcast dot net), or use Conservative Cat's form or the Blog Carnival form. (You don't have to have a blog to submit recipes or essays by e-mail.) You can also get a little widget at the Blog Carnival site that will direct you the Kosher Cooking Carnival wherever it is, whenever it is. (If you scroll way, way down, you will see that I have two in my right sidebar.)

This month, I'm particularly hoping that people will send holiday recipes. Please submit material by September 10th so that people have a chance to see the recipes before they have to do their Rosh HaShanah cooking.

Here are some links to previous carnivals: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

(Newcomers: It's the Kosher Cooking Carnival, not the Kosher Kooking Karnival, and that's a man in a gorilla suit, not a man in blackface. Relax.)

Brownie Update II

2006-09-01T09:35:00.000-05:00

I posted a second update on the brownies at Kosherblog and forgot to cross-post it here. The gist of it is, ignore everything I said in my last post and use canola oil.

Brownie Update

2006-08-20T23:03:00.000-05:00

I've made these brownies several times since I posted the recipe, and I've started to realize that, while the dairy version is indeed the ultimate, the parve version could stand some improvement. The main issue, I think, is that the saturated fat in butter gives the brownies a lush, moist texture that the margarines I've used don't match. Hydrogenated oils should theoretically provide the same texture, but Fleischmann's Unsalted Margarine probably doesn't have enough. (It is significantly softer than butter at the same temperature.) Recently, I tried Smart Balance, and the brownies were downright dry. In this case, I think that the issue was simplify fat: Regular Smart Balance is 67% fat, while butter is about 80%. The package says that Smart Balance is "great for cooking and baking," but don't be fooled.

One option would be to switch to Crisco vegetable shortening, a favorite of a friend and former roommate of mine. Vegetable shortening (like regular margarine) is somewhat out of favor right now because it is high in trans fat, which, though once thought to be more healthful than saturated fat, is now generally believed to be worse. Nonetheless, as I've been implying, it takes a bit of saturated or trans fat to achieve that butterlike texture. Vegetable shortening has less water than most margarine, so it may be just right.

Anyhow, I'll keep you posted. Not right away, though. I really do have to cut back.

(Cross-posted to Kosherblog.)

Tisha B'Av Reading II

2006-08-02T16:45:00.000-05:00

Rahel on Wouk
Dovbear on Judah Ha-Levi
Gil on the Holocaust theodicy
Soferet has the words of Rabbi Itzchak Marmorstein on transforming our inner wickedness.
The Velveteen Rabbi has a roundup and a story.
Rabbi Riskin on the hope for truth and peace.
Am Echad poses the question his own way.
Tzvi presents a paradox.
Dovbear on Judah Ha-Levi.
Soferet on the nature of the true tzaddik.

Tisha B'Av Reading

2006-08-02T16:42:00.000-05:00

It is traditional not to read for pleasure on Tisha B'Av, or even to engage in Torah study that is not directly related to the themes of the holiday. On the other hand, as much as emotionally heavy reading comes with the territory, it can be difficult to handle intellectually heavy reading when you're fasting. Appropriate blog posts seem like just the right thing, so for the past few summers, I've been keeping my eyes open for Tisha B'Av reading in the blogosphere. Here's what I've found:

General

The "miscellaneous" category usually comes at the end of a list, but these are some of the best Tisha B'Av posts I've read, so I'm listing them first:

This essay by Rabbi Joshua Yuter addresses the historical significance of Tisha B'Av (or lack thereof). Rabbi Yehonatan Chipman addresses a number of issues in this lengthy but worthwile post, including divine and human justice. He discusses the haftarah for Tisha B'Av morning here, Maimonedes' laws for the final meal here, and Psalm 137 here. All are, characteristically, very good reads.

The Contemporary Problem

For many centuries, I believe, mourning for Jerusalem came naturally to most Jews. Their experience was one of continuing exile, and they longed to return to the glorious past in which the Jews were a nation with a homeland, a respected leader, and a central place of worship. The Enlightenment, with its promise of emancipation, complicated matters as many Jews began to see more promise in the ideal of integration than in the old messianic dream. Another wrinkle came in 1967, when that dream was partly fulfilled. Notwithstanding all the problems that have plagued Israel and Jerusalem since then, it can be difficult to mourn the destruction and loss of a city that now stands intact, well-populated, and generally prosperous. The problem is expressed poignently in this post by Out-of-Step Jew.

One contemporary approach to Tisha B'Av is simply to mourn less, either by de-emphasizing Tisha B'Av in various ways, or by shortening the fast. (The Conservative Movement, characteristically, has two official responsa on the subject, one calling for the fast to be shortened and one prohibiting any such change.) In this post, BZ explains why he finds both the Zionist and Enlightenment arguments against observing a full day of mourning equally uncompelling. His approach to Tisha B'Av is, I think, similar to the one that I articulated last year.

Those of us who continue to observe Tisha B'Av as a full day of mourning may relate most easily to the human suffering described in Eicha (Lamentations) and the kinot (liturgical laments). This is the basis for the way in which Orthoprax relates to Tisha B'Av as an observant atheist, as well as the (obviously distinct) way in which Rachel Barenblatt relates to it as a Reform Jew. It is also central to the way in which I related to the fast two years ago. Viewing Tisha B'Av through this prism can be constructive if it encourages us to help alleviate suffering, as Rachel suggests here, here, and here, and as Mishkaneer suggests here. It also has its drawbacks, however, as it ignores the more particular aspects of the holiday.

Another way to approach Tisha B'Av is to focus on the call for repentence that is so intimately linked to the threat of destruction and promise of redemption in prophetic writings. Dr. Mendel Hirsch, son of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, viewed the moral imperative stressed by the prophets as the most important aspect of Tisha B'Av. Dovbear discusses his teachings here and here. (It is surely relevant that S. R. Hirsch devoted his career to combatting the challenges posed by the Enlightenment.) Josh Yuter takes a similar approach in this d'var torah.

DH proposed a more existential approach to Tisha B'Av last year, in a post that stressed the sense of helplessness that we so often feel in the face of history. He related this idea to his feelings about the Gaza pullout, but I think it has even greater resonance this year, with the latest series of foreboding developments in the Middle East.

Liturgy

The traditional Tisha B'Av liturgy is frought with difficulties for the modern Jew. The most obvious problem is that the kinnot are very difficult for the average synagogue-goer to understand, even if he or she is generally familiar with Jewish liturgy. They are written in medieval Hebrew that is often quite different from both modern Hebrew and the Hebrew of most Jewish prayers, and they are so replete with biblical and midrashic references that some can be baffling even in translation. Another issue is bringing the liturgy up to date. Most traditional communties recite kinnot for the Crusades, the Inquisition, and various pogroms in addition to the destruction of the two temples, but some are reluctant to add lamentations for Holocaust and other recent tragedies. Finally, parts of the nachem prayer recited in the afternoon amidah seem inappropriate now that Jerusalem is under Jewish sovereignty.

Menachem Butler provides an excerpt from Rav Soloveichik's writings in which the rabbi discusses his opposition to introducing new kinnot. Leaving aside his actual argument (to which), I tend to think that it is more important for liturgy to mean something to the worshipper than to be artistically or even spiritually refined. However, finding appropriate kinnot for the Holocaust is not so easy. We chose an English poem this year, which I may write about later.

Yehonatan Chipman has posted some versions of the nachem prayer that account for the current political situation. This post by Rabbi Gil Student discusses the positions of some prominant Orthodox rabbis on making such changes. (Note that most of the rabbis cited seem to subscribe to my position #2.)

Personal Reflections

The ways in which individuals relate to Tisha B'Av emotionally can be very different. This poem by Chaim Nahman Bialik describes the poet's encounter with an abandoned beyt midrash (house of study) in the language of Lamentations and Isaiah. (Adderabbi discusses the poem here.) We J-Bloggers tend to be a bit more prosaic, literally and figuratively. Estelle Feldman shares her thoughts on the destruction of the two Temples after visiting the site the Twin Towers. Naomi Chana describes a moment in Rome in which she became seriously pissed at Titus. Fleurdelis28 writes of the difficulty of seeing other people's points of view and relates the Jewish exile to Les Miserables. Soferet began to truly mourn after receiving a blessing from a British rabbi. Barefoot Jewess laments the destruction of her homes and the distance she feels from her community.

Is all this really relevant to Tisha B'Av? I'm not sure. I still feel that the ancient paradigm is broken, so I tend to seek meaning in random, disparate places. Each of these posts seemed as moving or thought-provoking at one point or another. I hope that others find something in them as well.

And Everybody Hates the Jews

2006-07-31T23:11:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I think that Jews over-emphasize anti-Semitism, but there sure are a lot of people out there who hate us. Anti-Semitic rhetoric from the Muslim world has become so ubiquitous that we hardly notice it. Then some deranged monster shoots up the Jewish Federation building in Seattle.

And of course, there's Mel Gibson. Ever since I heard about his "incident," I haven't been able to stop thinking about the South Park episode, "The Passion of the Jew." Especially Kyle's last line: "Oh, dude, I feel so much better about being Jewish now that I see that Mel Gibson is just a big wacko douche."

You have to find the humor in these situations whenever you can. If you don't laugh, you'll cry.

UPDATE: More bad news from Australia and Florida

Food for the Nine Days

2006-07-26T13:43:00.000-05:00

Today is Rosh Chodesh Av, the first of the nine days of mourning that culminate in Tisha B'Av. There is a custom* not to eat meat during this period (except on Shabbat), so I've been posting recipes for easy meatless meals over at Kosherblog. They can be found here, here, here, and here.

Writing up these recipes, I realized how much DH and I have learned from each other about cooking. Before we started eating meals together, for example, he had never made anything with tofu and I had never cooked fish. Fortunately, we both had good training -- our mothers are excellent cooks, albeit with very different styles. Still, I feel that I have a way to go before I reach my full potential.

For better or for worse, however, that is not my top priority right now. Maybe I could learn something from DH's work ethic. . .

*Not, as the Wikipedia stub implies, a law. Someone should change that.

In Defense of Democracy

2006-07-19T23:17:00.000-05:00

There's a particular argument that I've been hearing rather frequently lately, and it's beginning to get on my nerves. Here is one articulation, from the Shaigetz:

Democracy, the doctrine that claims to allow the masses to determine the general direction of their governance, has replaced religion for many as the panacea for all the worldÂs ills. A peek at the Middle East today should be enough to shake even the dimmest of brains out of that reverie....A group of bloodthirsty savages, believers in the Ashariyya doctrine - that because all that happens is caused by God anyway it is legitimate to kill innocents, will not suddenly turn into cuddly lambs just because they were empowered through a ballot box.

All right. Here's how it's supposed to work: The people vote and elect whomever they choose. If the elected leaders decide to interfere with the peace of other nations, those nations have the right to respond aggressively. After that, if the citizens of the new democracy don't like the consequences of their decision, they can elect new leaders who are more likely to protect their interests. It isn't neat. It isn't pretty. And, so far, there haven't been many signs that it is going to work in Iraq, Lebanon, or the Palestinian territories. But let's not forget that the old Mideast policy -- propping up dictators -- didn't work out too well, either. At least with democracy there is the possibility of peaceful change.

If you've been reading this blog for a while, you know that I've been ambivalent about the Iraq war from the outset. I am ambivalent about most matters of U.S. and Israeli foreign policy, which is one of the reasons why you won't find much discussion of them here. All that I mean to say in this post is that I don't think the current situation in the Middle East warrants the conclusion that Arabs, Persians, etc. are inferior races incapable of self-government. (The liberal version of this claim is that we shouldn't interfere with other cultures -- because apparently oppressive, fundamentalist governments are fine and dandy as long as they aren't composed of white Christians. To this I say: When other cultures interfere with us, we have a right to interfere with them.)

Now that I've gotten that off my chest, I'll probably retreat back into the comfortable world of dessert recipes. For good, first-hand takes on the war, I recommend An Unsealed Room and On the Face (both blogs that I thought were fizzling out before the conflict). There are also some good reads on this Lebanese blog aggregator, including LP and Rampurple.

Also from Lebanon: A satirical TV clip making fun of Nasrallah. It apparently caused riots, which is all the more reason to watch it.

The Ultimate Brownies (Really!)

2006-07-16T23:44:00.000-05:00

If Chanit can blog about food under these circumstances, I guess I can, too. And there's good news from Elfland: I think I finally found my brownie recipe.

I've tried quite a few recipes for brownies, and, with one notable exception, none of them were bad. Still, they didn't live up to my idea of what great brownies should taste like. The closest were "Fudge Brownies Supreme," from Nancy Baggett's All-American Cookie Book, but they were too sweet for my taste. This modified version of Baggett's recipe yields rich, lucious, intensely chocolately brownies that satisfy like nothing else.

Enjoy:

1/2 cup (1 stick) plus 2 tablespoons butter or margarine, or 1/2 cup canola oil
5 ounces unsweetened chocolate
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tablespoons cocoa
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup light brown sugar
3 eggs
2 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease an 8-inch square baking pan or coat with nonstick spray.

In a large, microwave safe bowl, microwave the butter and chocolate until the butter is completely melted (about 2 minutes). Remove from microwave and stir to finish melting the chocolate and blend the two ingredients. (Alternatively, melt in a saucepan over low heat). Let cool to warm.

In a small bowl, thoroughly stir toegether the flour, cocoa powder, and salt; set aside. Stir the sugar and brown sugar into the chocolate-butter mixture until well combined. Add eggs, one at a time, stirring after each addition. Add vanilla and stir until the sugar dissolves and the mixture is well blended and smooth. Stir in the flour mixture until evenly incorporated. Turn out the batter into the baking pan, spreading to the edges.

Bake in the middle of the oven for 20-30 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out moist but clean. (It's okay if the bottom 1/4 inch is still a bit fudgy.) Cool on a wire rack. Cut into squares, wiping the knife clean between cuts.

Store in an airtight container for up to 3 days or freeze for up to 1 month.

Cross-posted to Kosherblog.

No Hekhsher Required

2006-07-13T12:52:00.000-05:00

A recent Kosherblog post by Jabbett discussed the ethics of kashrut agencies certifying products that do not actually require rabbinic supervision. The post focuses on rubbing alcohol, which clearly does not require certification, as it is inedible (and also toxic). However, there are many edible products that do not require certification, either -- some less intiuitive than others. It is mainly due to ignorance that the very observant (even many rabbis) tend to insist that all processed foods be certified kosher.

This ignorance is fully understandable. Distinguishing between products that require rabbinic supervision and products that do not requires thorough knowledge of both the laws of kashrut and modern food processing techniques, and the latter may change at any time. In the age of the Internet, however, there is no reason why the kosher-keeping public should not be kept up-to-date on such matters. So I was happy to discover this site, via a comment by Jabbett on his own post. Rav Eidlitz is a renowned authority in the area of kashrut and is not affiliated with any particular certifying agency. His site contains a great deal of valuable information on keeping kosher, including a list of products that do not require rabbinic supervision. Here are a few that may surprise some readers:

Coconut Milk (not from China)
Corn (plain and cream style - frozen or canned)
Couscous (unseasoned)
Miso (unflavored)
Nori
Rice Pasta (containing only rice flour and water)
Wasabi Powder

There are certainly some things on Rav Eidlitz's site that are debatable, but for basic information on kosher products, it's a great placed to start. (While you're there, you should read the Kosher Alerts, although they are sometimes upsetting.)

Oh, and stay tuned: Jabbett is planning to post a more comprehensive list at Kosherblog.

UPDATE: DH says that he has known about this site for "a long time." Thanks for telling me! (J/K)

The Fast of the Fourth

2006-07-12T21:15:00.000-05:00

Today is the Seventeenth of Tammuz, a fast day commemorating the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians in the sixth century B.C.E. The Seventeenth of Tammuz is intimately linked to the Ninth of Av, which occurs three weeks later and commemorates the destruction of the temple.

The book of Zechariah, which takes place in the years following the Jews' return from exile in the fifth century B.C.E., relates that a number of prominent individuals asked the prophet whether they should continue to mourn the destruction of the temple in the month of Av now that the Jews had been restored to their land and the temple was being rebuilt (Zech. 7:3). In classic Jewish fashion, Zechariah answered a question with a question:

When you fasted and lamented in the fifth and seventh months all these seventy years, did you fast for my [God's] benefit? And when you eat and drink, who but you does the eating, and who but you does the drinking (7:5-6)?

The prophecy proceeds to relate the story of the preceding exile and restoration in theological terms. Before the exile, God sent prophets to tell the Israelites to "execute true justice; deal loyally and compassionately with one another" (7:10). Because they did not heed the prophetic message, the people were exiled. Now, however, they have been restored.

For thus said the Lord of Hosts: Just as I planned to afflict you when your fathers provoked Me to anger and did not relent ... so, at this time, I have turned and planned to do good to Jerusalem and to the House of Judah. Have no fear! These are the things you are to do: Speak the truth to one another, judge honestly, and render judgements of peace in your gates (8:14-17).

Though admittedly ambiguous, Zechariah's response seems to suggest that his questioners are missing the point. Fasting and mourning are merely human responses to tragedy. The divine imperative is to act justly and thereby avoid the conditions that led to tragedy in the first place. The prophet seems optimistic that the new Jewish commonwealth will be blessed with truth and justice, peace and prosperity, and the admiration of surrounding peoples. Thus, he declares:

The fast of the fourth month, the fast of the fifth month, the fast of the seventh month, and the fast of the tenth month shall become occasions for joy and gladness, happy festivals for the House of Judah; but you must love truth and peace (8:19).

The four fasts mentioned by Zechariah are traditionally taken to refer to the four fasts commemorating the downfall of the first commonwealth: the Seventeenth of Tammuz (the "fast of the fourth month"), the Ninth of Av (the "fast of the fifth month"), the Fast of Gedaliah (the "fast of the seventh month"), and the Tenth of Tevet (the "fast of the tenth month").

The rabbis of the Talmud, turning to this text for halakhic guidance, were understandably perplexed. Focusing on the wording of Zech. 8:19, they ask (b. Rosh Hashanah 18b), "They are called 'fasts' and they are called 'occasions for joy and gladness'" -- which is it? The Gemara answers that these days are to be observed as happy occasions in times of peace and as fasts in times when there is no peace. Rav Papa adds that when the situation is ambiguous, "if they wish, they shall fast; if they wish, they need not fast."

Rabbi Yehonatan Chipman notes that, while the fasts were observed by nearly all Jewish communities after the destruction of the second temple, some prominent rabbis considered changing the custom following the unification of Jerusalem in 1967. All agreed that the Ninth of Av should continue to be observed as a fast day, since the temple had not been rebuilt. The other fast days, however, commemorated the loss of Jerusalem, and Jerusalem had been regained. On the first Seventeenth of Tammuz following the Six-Day war, many Jews in Israel and abroad made festive meals. The abolition of the fast, however, did not ultimately take hold in observant communities. And so here I am today, observing the fast.

Is this as it should be? From a halakhic perspective, Chipman notes, there are arguments to be made on either side. Rashi interprets the Gemara's "times of peace" as a reference to Jewish sovereignty, which would suggest that all the fasts (including the Ninth of Av) should be observed as feasts today. Maimonides and Rabbeinu Hannanel, on the other hand, suggest that these days should all be observed as fasts as long as the temple lies in ruins. In a less traditional vein, I would suggest that the fasts should continue to be observeded because the society that Zechariah envisioned -- one of truth and justice, international recognition, and above all, peace -- has not become reality. At times, it may seem that that the fulfillmentnt of that vision is within reach, and that may justify a relaxation of the traditional mourning rites. This week, sadly, is not one of those times.

With seven Israeli soldiers killed, two kidnapped, and the beginning of what Yossi Klein Halevi calls "Israel's next war," there is a great deal to pray for. Avraham Hein offers a psalm as well as the official prayer for IDF soldiers, which can be added to the traditional fast day prayers or recited at any time.

May the One Who Releases the Bound return the captured soldiers to their families. May the One Who Comforts Mourners console the bereaved among the other mourners of Zion and Jerusalem. And may the One Who Makes Peace in the Heavens bring peace to Israel, now, speedily, and soon.

Bread of Affliction?

2006-07-11T18:40:00.000-05:00

Have you ever been tempted to buy Ezekiel 4:9 Bread just because of its name? I haven't.

When God tells Ezekiel to make bread from wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet, and spelt, He's describing the type of food that the Jews would be forced to eat in exile. Normal bread would have been made from wheat flour alone, as it is today. This bread, in contrast, is made from all kinds of garbage. It's supposed to taste like crap. Ezekiel even cooks it over crap (though in those days, that was considered normal). The bread is actually supposed to be cooked over human crap, but the prophet manages to wriggle out of that one and upgrade to bovine crap.

At any rate, it isn't supposed to be good.

The producers of Ezekiel 4:9 bread explain why we should be expected to eat this stuff:

We discovered when these six grains and legumes are sprouted and combined, an amazing thing happens. A complete protein is created that closely parallels the protein found in milk and eggs.

Of course, they could have created the same whole protein from any combination of grains and legumes. But never mind; they decided to follow God's recipe, and the result is, in fact, quite nutritious, with a full 4 grams of protein per slice in addition to three grams of dietary fiber. So when a friend left town and gave me her leftover Ezekiel 4:9 bread, I was willing to try it.

Truth be told, it doesn't taste like crap. It tastes pretty much like bread. There's a mild sourdough-like flavor in the background and a hint of sprouts that I think I might even develop a taste for over time. Or not. But I'll certainly finish the package.

This experience has led me to reconsider Ezekiel's so-called ordeal. He got to lie around for a year and a half and eat reasonably decent, high-protein bread that he didn't have to cook over human dung after all. Compared to marrying a cheating prostitute (Hosea) or walking around wearing yoke-bars (Jeremiah), that really doesn't seem so bad.

Cross-posted to Kosherblog.

Camping Pics

2006-07-06T22:38:00.000-05:00

DH has great pics from our camping trip. FYI, that brook is our shower. How cool is that?! (Okay, DH didn't think it was very cool either.) Swimming in Laurel Pond is definitely cool, though. I love that pond. And the froggies. Not the mosquitoes, though. (I'm still itchy.)

Progressive Faith Blog Con

2006-07-06T09:49:00.000-05:00

I often neglect to check the e-mail account that I use for this blog, so I just found out about the Progressive Faith Blog Conference, which will be held at the Montclair State University conference center on the weekend of July 14th. I won't be able to make it personally, and, truth be told, that's a bit of a relief. Although I do sometimes embrace a genuinely progressive theology, most of the time my religious side is not very progressive and my progressive side is not very liberal. Being around real religious liberals tends to make me more aware of the inconsistencies of my position and send me hurtling to the right, which I'm not really up for right now.

However, the con looks like it will be a lot of fun for those who are less schizophrenic than me. It also seems to be pretty well organized. This is the website, and this is the blog (of course there's a blog!). If, like me, you won't be attending in person, stay tuned: there may be a live chat during the con, and there will undoubtedly be updates from the participants.

Beginnings

2006-06-26T20:35:00.000-05:00

A friend loaned me a copy of Chaim Potok's In the Beginning. I read it before she left town, and now I wish that I'd copied a few bits of dialogue before returning it. The novel is flawed in some ways, but it touched me, and there are parts that I wish I remembered in greater detail.

Since the book was published over thirty years ago, I don't think it's giving too much away to say that it's about an Orthodox Jewish boy who grows up to be a Bible scholar. Certain parts of David Lurie's intellectual development were achingly familiar to me: the first stirrings of doubt in a deeply religious soul; the joy of discovering a new way of reading the Bible; the fear of where it might lead. When David first begins to be convinced of the validity of the Documentary Hypothesis, he abandons his biblical studies and enrolls in a rabbinical program, hoping to find intellectual satisfaction in the study of Talmud. I remember a time in my life when I, too, was looking for something other than Bible to study -- something equally compelling, but less dangerous. In the end, I had to concede that nothing less dangerous could be so compelling. The study of the Bible appealed to me, and still does, because it touches on the origin of Who I Am and Where I Come From in ways that I still can't fully articulate. When David is asked why he insists on a career that will alienate him from friends and family, he struggles to explain his decision, but the reader, who has followed his story from the very beginning, understands. David has always loved studying the Bible, and he doesn't love it any less now that he has come to understand it differently. He has to go wherever it takes him.

Like many of Potok's characters, David is a genius. I am somewhat ashamed to say that at this point in my life I find geniuses exceedingly annoying, and only slightly less so when they are fictional. As much as I relate to David, I feel more of a kinship with his younger brother, Alex, who, as a child, slams shut a copy of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, declaring "I hate it!" because it is above his reading level. All beginnings are hard, but they are harder when you aren't as bright as you would like to be. Some beginnings can seem to drag on forever.

These days I spend a great deal of time accomplishing very little, and I often worry that going into academia was a big mistake. Usually I worry that I'm not smart enough or talented enough to be successful, but in other, more sinister moments, I worry that I don't have passion I used to have. Then, once in a while, I read something that reminds me why I wanted to be a Bible scholar in the first place. Usually, it's a work of scholarship; sometimes it's a biblical text. Much more rarely, it's a work of fiction.

Memorial Days

2006-05-29T16:35:00.000-05:00

In Israel, Memorial Day is a time for grieving and somber reflection. Everyone knows someone who has been lost in battle, and when the siren wails, many people cry.

Here in the United States, Memorial Day is an occasion for sales, barbecues, and trips to the beach. I've never been sure whether to be grateful for or ashamed of the degree of complacency that this aspect of our culture reflects.

It's hard to tell, but after three years of war, things seem to be a little bit different. Memorial Day is still, first and foremost, a long weekend, the beginning of summer. But in the media, at least, it has also become a time for talking about the costs of war and remembering the fallen.

It is strange to be a citizen of a country at war in a time without a draft. In some sense, the soldiers who have died have done so in our stead. The least that we can do is have them in our thoughts one day a year.

Fiddleheads!

2006-05-22T21:01:00.000-05:00

Last week, DH and I had a chance to sample what is perhaps the only kosher New England delicacy: fiddleheads! (No, it's not always spelled with an exclamation point.) Fiddleheads are edible ferns with an extremely short growing season. They get their name from their shape, which looks like the handle of a fiddle:

Fiddleheads

Handle of Fiddle

In flavor, fiddleheads most closely resemble the dark outer leaves of an artichoke, though there is also some resemblence to asparagus. To prepare fiddleheads, first rinse them under running water, rubbing off the papery outer layer, if it is still attached. Cut off the ends, then plunge the fiddleheads into rapidly boiling water for about five minutes and drain. After that, you can marinate them, saute them with garlic, or do what we did: eat a bunch plain and put the rest in a salad.
Yum :)

(Cross-posted to Kosherblog.)

Strawberries & Rhubarb

2006-05-16T09:07:00.000-05:00

Rhubarb has a fairly short growing season in New England, and it happens to be now. This is also a great time to get fresh strawberries, which may be one reason why the strawberry-rhubarb combination is such a classic. It's also quite delicious.

My parents like to end meals with a chilled strawberry-rhubarb compote, which is very refreshing. Their formula: Combine strawberries, rhubarb, water, and sugar in a saucepan, simmer, and continue adjusting ingredients until it tastes good. (If you prefer a bit more precision, start with this recipe and adjust to taste.) Rhubarb is quite tart, so you will need a fairly high proportion of sugar, but bear in mind that cooked berries become significantly sweeter as they cool.

When I have guests, I like to show off a bit with a strawberry rhubarb crisp, served warm and topped with vanilla ice cream or a parve substitute. I use a modified version of a recipe in the New Moosewood Cookbook:

Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp
2 pounds rhubarb, cut into bite-size pieces
2 pints strawberries, sliced
1/3-1/2 cup granulated sugar*
1 1/2 cups (1 1/2 sticks) butter or margarine
1/3 cup dark brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
a dash each allspice and nutmeg (optional)
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup whole wheat flour mixed with 3/4 cup all-purpose flour (or 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour)
2 cups rolled oats
real or parve vanilla ice cream (not optional!)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees Farenheit.

Combine rhubarb, strawberries, and sugar in an 11 x 13 inch baking pan.

Place the butter or margarine in a large, microwave safe bowl and microwave 1 minute or until melted. (Alternatively, melt in a saucepan over low heat, then transfer to a large bowl.)

Add brown sugar and spices to the warm butter and mix until well blended. Gradually mix in flour, then oats. (Toward the end, it will be easiest to use your hands.)

Distribute oat mixture evenly over fruit. Bits of fruit will peek out from under the topping.

Bake uncovered for 35-40 minutes or until fruit has begun to bubble. Allow to cool slightly. Serve in bowls, topped with ice cream.

*Made with 1/3 cup sugar, the crisp is quite tart.

(Cross-posted to Kosherblog)

Liturgy for Yom Ha-Atzmaut

2006-05-03T11:08:00.000-05:00

Since the establishment of the state of Israel, religious Jews of Zionist persuasion have struggled to create a liturgy for Yom Ha-Atzmaut (Israeli Independence Day). The most widely observed religious custom for Yom Ha-Atzmaut is the recitation of Hallel, based on the Talmudic injunction that Hallel be recited when the Jewish people is delivered from distress (Pesahim 116a). To add anything more, however, entails finding a traditional paradigm suitable for a modern holiday, and there is little agreement as to the appropriate paradigm.

One early model, suggested by Yom Tov Lewinski, was for Yom Ha-Atzmaut to be observed in a manner similar to that of the festivals mandated by the Torah (Passover, Shavuot, and Sukkot), with the lighting of candles, cessation from labor, recitation of kiddush, and the insertion of ya'aleh veyavo into the amidah prayer and the blessing after meals.* It was not to be, however; Orthodox Jews were reluctant to give a modern holiday the status of the ones in the Torah, and the national celebrations that eventually developed in Israel were incompatable with the traditional festival restrictions. Another model is based specifically on Passover, and includes readings from a haggadah retelling the story of the modern-day redemption. A number of haggadot have been composed for Yom Ha-Atzmaut, but none has gained widespread acceptance, perhaps in part because the atmosphere on Yom Ha-Atzmaut in Israel is so incompatible with a family seder.

Some of the liturgies currently used for Yom Ha-Atzmaut are not based on any particular paradigm, but these can seem a bit random and therefore lacking in force. The Israeli rabbinate, for example, authorized the recitation of certain psalms and the reading of a selection from the Prophets, but not from the Torah. A service that I heard in college consisted of an odd hodgepodge of texts taken from sources as diverse as kabbalat shabbat (the Friday evening service) and Naomi Shemer (a modern Israeli songwriter). The Reform movement has its own service for Yom Ha-Atzmaut, comprised mainly of original compositions -- fine for people who like that sort of thing, but again, I think it lacks force.

It seems to me** that the most reasonable liturgical paradigm for Yom Ha-Atzmaut is that of Chanukkah and Purim. Since these holidays comemorate events that occurred after the composition of the Torah,*** they don't have the status of the major festivals (which means fewer religious restrictions), but they do have their own liturgies including readings from the Torah and Prophets, and they are accomanied by a generally festive mood. The main liturgical innovation for Chanukkah and Purim was the al ha-nissim prayer, which thanks God for delivering our ancestors from their enemies. Versions of al ha-nissim for Yom Ha-Atzmaut have been composed for the religious kibbutz movement, the Conservative movement, the Masorti movement, and the Israeli Reform movement. (Yehonatan Chipman has a number of the texts with insightful comments. Avraham Hein adds the version from the Conservative Siddur Sim Shalom.) Communities that recite al ha-nissim generally also have a Torah reading (Deuteronomy 7:12-8:18 or 30:1-10) and a Haftarah (Isaiah 10:32-12:6).

Certain problems inevitably arise when a preexisting paradigm is applied to a new situation. The various versions of al ha-nissim, for example, all use the language of the al ha-nissim for Chanukkah, which describes a battle in which the "wicked" are delivered into the hands of the "righteous." (The Reform version substitutes "members of your covenant" for "righteous," which is a bit better. The Sim Shalom version uses "guilty" and "innocent" in its "translation," but the Hebrew is the same as in the others.) Now, there is no doubt in my mind that the Israeli War of Independence was a just war, but that doesn't necessarily mean that all the aggressors were "wicked," and it certainly doesn't mean that all the victors were "righteous." The Torah readings open with the same implication of Jewish righteousness, and one of them (Deut. 7:12-8:18) becomes more problematic as it proceeds: "You shall destroy the peoples that the Adonai your God delivers to you, showing them no mercy . . . You shall cast the images of their gods into the fire" (Deut. 7:16, 25). The choice of Haftarah, meanwhile, seems to have been motivated by the view that the establishment of the state was the beginning of the messianic era, which I find troubling on a number of levels. (Admittedly, the Haftarah doesn't have to be read in that sense in this context, but it would not have been my first choice.)

In spite of all this, I am not inclined to diverge from the existing liturgies. Chanukkah and Purim were controversial in their times precisely because they were new, but they eventually gained the acceptance of the Jewish community as a whole. I don't know what it would take to achieve the same degree of acceptance for Yom Ha-Atzmaut as a religious holiday, but some semblance of a standard liturgy couldn't hurt.

*Rabbi Irving Greenberg, Living the Holidays (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1988), p. 388. Greenberg references Lewinski's Sefer Hamoadim, vol. 8, Y'mai Moed V'Zikaron (Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1956), p. 486.
**Yehonatan Chipman agrees.
***Whether Purim actually comemorates an "event that occurred" is not really relevant here; clearly, those who composed the Purim liturgy believed that it did.

For Every Purpose

2006-04-26T21:16:00.000-05:00

I'm a bit ashamed of that last post. It's so egocentric. But then, most of are. I think.

In any case, it appears that I won't have to take those exams just yet. Which is well and good, since this has been a pretty crazy few weeks.

My grandfather and another individual close to my heart are currently recovering from sudden, serious medical conditions that could have taken their lives. Today, a good friend's father, who was relatively young and in fine health, died of a stroke. I had been thinking that contemporary Judaism, with all its rituals and prayers for supplication and mourning, doesn't provide sufficient means for giving thanks for a loved one's recovery. Now I am thinking that what it really doesn't provide -- and perhaps nothing can -- is a means of coping with the strange combinations of joy and grief that life sends our way.

I have a tendency to react strongly to minor events and respond with relatively little emotion to more serious matters. When tragedy strikes, I tend to ignore it for as long as I can. Right now, for example, I am going to watch the Daily Show. Tomorrow, I'll go to the funeral.

Barukh Dayyan Ha-Emet.

No King But You

2006-04-17T01:17:00.000-05:00

Like many Jewish women, I have a love/hate relationship with Passover. True, it isn't like the olden days; I have a husband who is willing to do at least as much cooking and cleaning as I am. But the knife cuts both ways: I have obligations outside the home, and the cost of neglecting them can be high.

I know that I bring some of this on myself. From a strictly halakhic perspective, it probably isn't necessary to clean as thoroughly as we do. But you know how it is -- you move a piece of furniture, discover enough dust bunnies to fill a petting zoo, and decide that you'd better check behind the next piece of furniture as well. Then the next thing you know it's four in the morning and you're picking crumbs out of your bridge chairs with a Q-tip, and you'll be damned if you show up for that morning meeting.

There are other things that don't have to be done. I could stay home from shul and study -- no prohibition there, as long as I don't take notes. But as often as I say that I'll spend the holiday studying, I never pull it off. It just isn't yuntif if I work, and, say what you will, studying is work.

Passover is often called the festival of freedom, but this isn't quite accurate. In the biblical story, when the Israelites leave the service of Pharaoh, they do so in order to serve their God. There is no total freedom in this life; the closest we come is having the freedom to choose our masters. I may have some major exams coming up, but when push comes to shove, I'd rather be a slave in the kitchen for a few weeks in honor of the festival than a slave to my exams. And when the festival arrives, I would rather enjoy the freedom of restriction from labor than take advantage of the opportunity to increase my odds of passing by a miniscule margin.

I remember sitting down next to my mother at the seder table several years ago and seeing her smile and say, "this is my favorite holiday." At the moment, I was feeling resentful of the work time I'd lost, and hearing this from someone who had worked twice as hard as I had preparing for the holiday was nothing short of shocking. But then, as the seder began, I remembered that it was my favorite holiday, too. No amount of lost work time could change that.

Two days of yuntif have passed, and there are two more to go. The time in between is just long enough to work for a few hours, then shop and prepare for the next set of meals. Or it would be if I hadn't stayed up all night worrying about those silly exams.

I'm over it now. There are more important things in life.

Passover Kugels

2006-04-06T09:14:00.000-05:00

Perhaps they were influenced by the Rosh Hashanah edition of the New York Times. At any rate, this year's Passover edition of the Boston Globe Food section has an emphasis on kugel. There is a relatively uniformative but innocuous article on Passover kugels, along with recipes for potato kugel, mushroom, onion, and farfel kugel, and festive fruit kugel. (The paper also includes some Passover desserts: coconut and almond macaroons with chocolate coating and flourless mocha cake.)

Inspired, I've decided to share my own favorite Passover kugel recipes. The first is a savory farfel kugel that's so simple and easy to make, you'd think it couldn't possibly be good, but it really is delicious. The second is a vegetable kugel that's as beautiful as it is tasty. The farfel kugel recipe is from my mother. I found the vegetable kugel recipe on the internet and have subsequently seen it in a number of kosher recipe archives. DH and I make it all year, but it is appreciated most on Passover.

Farfel Kugel
2 cups diced onion
1/2 cup oil
1-pound box matzah farfel
4 eggs
5 cups chicken broth or parve substitute (onion broth works, too)
chopped fresh parsley (optional)
black pepper to taste (optional)

Pour all ingredients into a 9 x 13 pan and mix well. Sprinkle with paprika. Bake at 350 degrees Farenheit for 1 hr, or until light brown and firm.

Confetti Vegetable Kugel
3 medium zucchini, unpeeled (1 lb.)
3 carrots, peeled
2 sweet potatoes or 3 large potatoes, peeled (about 1 lb.)
2 medium onions
2 cloves garlic
1/2 cup parsley leaves
3 to 4 tbsp. chopped fresh basil (or 1 tsp. dried)
4 eggs plus 4 egg whites (or 6 eggs)
1/2 cup potato starch or matzo meal (or all-purpose flour if it isn't Passover)
1 1/4 tsp. salt (to taste)
1/2 tsp. pepper (to taste)
2 tsp. olive oil

Preheat oven to 375 degrees Farenheit. Grate zucchini, carrots and sweet potatoes. (Can be done in the food processor.) Finely mince onions, garlic, parsley and basil. Combine all ingredients in a large mixing bowl and mix well. Spray a 3 quart rectangular or oval casserole with non-stick spray. Add vegetable mixture and spread evenly. Bake at 375 degrees Farenheit for 1 hour and 10 minutes, or until golden brown and firm.

(Cross-posted to Kosherblog)

As if There Weren't Enough Confusion This Time of Year

2006-04-05T22:59:00.000-05:00

Today's New York Times Dining & Wine Section has an article by Joan Nathan on new leniencies introduced by rabbis who are trying to "simplify" Passover observance for their constituents.

At least, that's the way it's presented.

In reality, none of these so-called leniencies are actually new. Jews who think that baking soda isn't kosher for Passover because it is "leavening" are simply mistaken. Only the "five grains" -- oats, wheat, barley, rye, and spelt -- can meet the halakhic definition of "leaven," or chametz. Baking powder typically contains corn starch, which is problematic for those who adhere to Ashkenazi custom, but the corn starch can be replaced with potato starch to make kosher for Passover baking powder. There is nothing wrong with the leavening per se.

Another supposedly new leniency is allowing legumes as well as grains such as rice and corn. According to the article, "Jews in medieval Europe began to keep beans and lentils, as well as grains, from the Passover table because until modern times they were often ground into flour." This is not precisely true. Legumes were considered problematic because they were grown alongside wheat and rye so that the grains could benefit from their nitrogen-fixing properties. Corn and rice were later restricted because they could be ground into flour. Sephardic Jews never observed these restrictions. Instead, they carefully separated the legumes from their grain before Passover.

Today, legumes are no longer grown alongside grains, so the issue should be moot. (See my rant here.) The only reason to refrain from eating legumes, or kitniyot, is the force of communal custom. In Israel Sephardim comprise a larger proportion of the Jewish population than in the U.S. and tend to dictate religious practice for less observant Jews, so consumption of kitniyot is typical. When the Masorti movement ruled that kitniyot could be eaten by Ashkenazim in Israel, they were merely codifying existing practice.

The Passover recipes accompanying the article include a Morrocan dish of Shad With Fava Beans, presumably to celebrate this "freer interpretation of the Passover pantry." Of course, since most New York Jews adhere to the stricter Ashkenazi practice, they won't be able to enjoy this dish during the upcoming holiday. For New York's Sephardim, on the other hand, eating fava beans on Passover is no novelty.

The other recipes are for cakes and cookies, two of which prominently feature "kosher for Passover" leavening. The Double Chocolate Mocha Drop Cookies and Sesame Vanilla Passover Cookies call for kosher for Passover baking powder and confectioner's sugar, respectively. Ironically, the only reason that either of these products require a special "kosher for Passover" version is that the standard formulas include corn starch, which can be eaten by anyone who will eat the fava bean dish. The Sesame-Vanilla cookie recipe is cautious enough to specifically call for "kosher for Passover baking soda." (Baking soda arguably does not require a hekhsher for Passover; at any rate, the most widely available brand, Arm & Hammer, has an OU-P.) Meanwhile, both recipes call for vanilla extract without any reference to the fact that it is typically made with grain alcohol -- that is, real chametz. Real vanilla extract is available with a Passover hekhsher, but it isn't easy to find.

Perhaps I'm being too picky. But it seems to me that American Jews have a tendency to make a big fuss over relatively unimporant matters while ignoring issues that are much more central to halakhah. This problem is exacerbated on Passover when many Jews assume a level of stringency to which they are not normally accustomed. Now, the New York Times and Joan Nathan are adding more confusion to the mix. Joan Nathan, at least, should really know better.

(Cross-Posted to Kosherblog)

Pshat, Drash, and the Conservative Movement

2006-04-05T11:50:00.000-05:00

DH has started a discussion about Tamar Rossman-Benjamin's article on the Conservative Etz Hayim chumash. The article is lucid, intelligent, and generally well-informed* -- worthwhile reading for anyone interested in Orthodox and Conservative approaches to biblical exegesis and Jewish law. Rossman-Benjamin calls attention to some serious hurdles faced by Conservative exegetes and theologians, which deserve to be addressed in an open forum.

For my own part, I generally like the Etz Hayim, despite its many shortcomings. One must bear in mind that it is not meant to be a mission statement for the Conservative movement, a theological treatise, or a guidebook for living a halakhic life. As a synagogue chumash, its purpose to help laypeople understand the biblical text and to introduce them to modern biblical scholarship, traditional Jewish exegesis, and some of the connections between the Torah and modern Jewish life. On those terms, I think that the commentary is largely successful.

Rossman-Benjamin's major criticism of the Etz Hayim -- and, by extension, the Conservative movement -- is that it presents the Torah as a human, rather than divine, creation while still insisting that Jews accept its authority. Her criticism is reasonable insofar as simultaneous acceptance of historical criticism and rabbinic halakhah leads to practical and theoretical problems that have yet to be satisfactorily resolved by the movement's leading thinkers. However, the strict dichotomy between "human" and "divine" is false. In my opinion, failing to acknowledge the possibility of a middle ground between these two perspectives on the Torah's origin presents a greater threat to the future of Judasim than openness to the conclusions of modern scholarship.

This article by Rabbi Gordan Tucker puts it nicely:

[I]magine that you are picking up a new book, one, say, with no title on the cover, so that you begin to learn about the book only upon opening it. You first read a preface. It says the following: "The volume before you is the result of relentless investigative reporting, and though its claims may at times seem incredible, they are all thoroughly documented." So you read on, and are fascinated, perhaps even shocked, to learn facts that you never knew. It changes your life and the way in which you look at things, and you eagerly pass it on to others so that they may know these facts as well. Then one day you discover that the book that so profoundly moved you was actually quite shoddy and was based on very fallible sources. Some of it was even just made up. How do you feel? You feel betrayed. The author has made a fool of you. He claimed that the work was factual, you let it affect you accordingly, and you were duped.

Now on another occasion, you might open a book and find a preface that says, "What follows is a parable.” Or better, "This is a work of fiction, although it is based on fact." You now have a different orientation to what you are about to read. You read it, and you find it to be one of the most moving and true books you have ever read. It also changes the way in which you look at the world, yourself, and your place in it. You live somewhat differently because of it. Now someone comes up to you and says, "You know, what [the author] said in that book didn't really happen, certainly not the way in which he describes." How do you feel now? Would you not say to this person, "I never assumed that it was all perfect fact. And the book's power to change my life had nothing to do with a perfect historical fit."

[...]

Consider this:The first two chapters of Genesis tell different tales of creation. If we accept that we have an edited compilation of different narratives, does that mean we must believe that the world had no Creator? Or does it not rather mean that what we have in the Torah are different versions of the same belief that we are God's creatures, but told in different ways, with different emphases, including very different understandings of the role of women in the world, produced by believers in different places and different times?

[...]

Some Jews take God as the sole and final religious authority. Some Jews take the thinking autonomous self as the sole and final religious authority. It is the particular characteristic of Conservative Judaism to insist that religious authority is a partnership, that it comes from the reality of a revealing God and the equally inescapable reality of a seeking, evolving community through which God's words get expressed over time.

*There are a few inaccuracies, which I noted in a comment on DH's post.

It's All About the Umami

2006-03-17T15:38:00.000-05:00

Perhaps you've had this experience:

You have a recipe that relies heavily on chicken or beef broth for flavor. In order to "parvise" the recipe (or make it vegetarian), you replace the meat broth with immitation chicken or beef broth from a mix. The recipe works beautifully, but you're not happy about your reliance on phony meat, so one day you nobly prepare a homemade vegetable stock and use that instead. To your surprise, the flavor is one-dimensional and unappealing. You were better off with the mix.

A Boston Globe article that I read recently got me thinking about this phenomenon in a new light. The article is about the fifth and least familiar taste, umami. The word umami, which roughly translates as "delicious" in Japanese, was first used to describe a specific taste by the Japanese chemist Kikunae Ikeda, who isolated monosodium glutamate, or MSG. Contrary to popular belief, there is no evidence that MSG is unhealthy unless you're allergic to it; unfortunately, however, many people are.

Scientists attribute umami to certain amino acids and nucleotides including, but not restricted to, glutamate. It seems that the flavor develops in meat as it cooks and the proteins are broken down into amino acids. (Braising meat is the best way to bring out the umami.) Vegetables develop umami as they ripen. Fermentation brings out the umami in wine, beer, and Asian foods like miso and fish sauce.

Clear vegetable broth isn't nearly as umami-rich as chicken broth or soup mix with MSG, presumably because you need a higher concentration of specific vegetables in order to get deep umami flavor. A rich mushroom, squash, or tomato broth is fine, but only if you're making mushroom, squash, or tomato soup.

The authors of The Fifth Taste: Cooking With Umami claim that you don't need MSG to make umami-rich food, and they seem to have plenty of vegetarian recipes to offer. Still, it seems to me that takes a bit more to pack umami into a vegetarian dish than a fleischig one. Here are a few tricks that I've found bring out the flavor I now know as umami in parve soups:

1. Make soups hearty, not thin and clear.
2. Use crushed tomatoes or tomato puree if the flavor is compatible with the type of soup you're making.
3. Add chunks of sweet potato or winter squash to vegetable, split pea, and lentil soups.
4. Add a splash of dry wine (preferably red, if you're using tomatoes).
5. Let soup simmer for a good 3-5 hours, if not longer.

As for parve hot and sour soup, vegetarian grape leaves, and matsa farfel kugel, I'm sticking with the MSG.

(Cross-posted to Kosherblog.)

Post-Purim Fun

2006-03-15T21:27:00.000-05:00

I hate to have too many posts that merely provide links to other blogs, but Jabbet's K-blog Purim post really tickled me. The headlines:

ORTHODOX UNION ANNOUNCES NEW “OU-T” HEKSHER
(The "T" is for "treyfe," of course.)

RABBINICAL ASSEMBLY’S COMMITTEE ON LAW AND STANDARDS ADOPTS 5-SECOND RULE

KOSHER DEFENSE LEAGUE’S “TREYFE SQUAD” BEHIND NEW TEL AVIV MCDONALDS SIGNAGE

Enjoy!

More Charedi Book Banning

2006-03-13T22:00:00.000-05:00

The following letter is apparently being circulated in charedi communities:

It has come to our attention that a book has been published which goes
against Torah values.

In the first volume of this book, it claims that Avrohom Ovinu engaged
in military action. Chas Ve'Sholom!

Furthermore, it claims that Yaakov Ovinu kissed his wife before marrying
her. Woe to the eye that reads this!

In addition, it claims, r"l, that many of our holy ancestors worked
for a living! This is absolute apikorsus as everyone knows that it is a
chiyuv to be in kollel forever, and it is impossible that our ancestors,
compared to whom we are but donkeys, to have done any differently.

A later volume even has the audacity to suggest that the greatest
Odom Godol in history, Moshe Rabbeinu, once acted inappropriately!
Choliloh to say such things!

Furthermore, the second and fourth volumes include lengthy quotations
from goyishe ovdei avodah zarah, whose words we have no need to hear.

To make matter even worse, this book goes into lengthy descriptions about
the maalos of Eretz Yisroel and various mitzvos bein odom lechavero,
while barely mentioning the importance of limud Torah liShmoh.

This set of five volumes is also very popular amongst the goyim, which
itself is proof that this book is treife.

Needless to say, this book contains no haskamos whatsoever.

Anyone who is a yiras Shomayim will purge this kefirah from their botei
midrashim immediately.

Signed for the honor of Torah,

By those who write in the names of the Gedolim.

Chag Purim Sameach!
To steal a line from my husband: If you can read this, it's not sameach enough!

International Agunah Day

2006-03-13T13:09:00.000-05:00

Today is the 13th of the month of Adar, the Fast of Esther. As I mentioned last year, the Fast of Esther has been designated International Agunah Day by Yad L'Isha. An agunah is a woman who is unable to obtain a get (Jewish divorce). In modern times, such situations are typically the result of a husband's refusal to grant his wife a get, either out of spite or in order to extort money or gain custody of children. Although certain aspects of the halakhot pertaining to marriage and divorce developed in order to protect women, they are set within a patriarchal framework in which the decision to marry or divorce ultimately resides with men. Women who cannot obtain a ghet are left in an untenable situation, unable to remarry lest their children become mamzerim.

Such situations do not arise in the Reform movement, which often relies on civil divorce, or in the Reconstructionist movement, which grants unilateral divorces in cases of recalcitrance. Rachel Adler, a Reform activist and theologian, has advocated replacing the traditional marriage ceremony, kiddushin, with an egalitarian shutafut ("partnership") ceremony, in part to avoid the creation of mamzerim and thus promote harmony with other movements.

Orthodox and Conservative rabbis in the diaspora have devised various methods for preventing women from becoming agunot, including the use of conditional marriage formulas, special clauses within the ketubah (marriage contract), and prenuptial agreements that make civil divorce contingent on the granting of a get. You can read about Conservative approaches to the problem here; the prenuptial agreement sanctioned by the Orthodox Rabbinical Council of America can be found here. Responsible rabbis do not officiate at weddings unless the agunah issue has been addressed. Those of us who marry in a halakhic context also have a duty to avail ourselves of one of these methods of agunah prevention, even if we expect to be married forever (as most of us do). It is only once these precautions become de rigueur that the problem will have been resolved.

When precautions have not been taken and a woman finds herself unable to obtain a get, rabbinical courts will often attempt to annul the marriage by means of various legal loopholes. Some courts (notably the Conservative and Masorti courts and the Morgenstern/Rackman bet din) grant annulments more readily than others. In Israel, where rabbinical courts are an arm of the state, legal sanctions are often imposed on recalcitrant husbands. However, such sanctions are not always effective, and the courts are not always willing to impose them. Rabbi David Malka, an Israeli rabbinical judge, recently admitted to the Jerusalem Post that he often encourages women to submit to the financial demands of recalcitrant husbands:

"Listen, this is money that she never earned," explained Malka. "Only in theory does it belong to her.
"For instance, according to the law the wife is entitled to half of a man's pension rights even though she never worked a day in her life. I do not think she should remain an aguna because she is stubborn about receiving her half."

The ugliness of such a statement coming from a leader of a community that encourages women to be stay-at-home mothers boggles the mind.

The organization Yad L'Isha (mentioned above) has made important strides toward helping Israeli agunot, including the creation of the institution of to`anot bet din, women who advocate for other women in divorce cases. Although they have no halakhic standing in rabbinical courts because of their gender, the to`anot, who are experts in the laws of marriage and divorce, have managed to work with rabbinical judges to free many potential agunot.

Right now, however, Israeli women are in a precarious situation. Annoyed by the public pressure imposed on them by institutions such as Yad L'Isha, the Israeli Council of Rabbinical Judges has decided to sever all ties with organizations that advocate for agunot. We can only hope that there is enough negative publicity to change their minds.

Please help spread the word about this problem, and take a moment today to recite the prayer for agunot.

You can read more about the connection between agunot and the Fast of Esther here.

(Hat tip to Miriam Shaviv and OOSJ, may his blog rest in peace, for linking to the JPost article.)

Some Pre-Purim Fun

2006-03-12T10:10:00.000-05:00

If you are a J-blog reader and haven't visited the Muqata recently, be sure to stop by. Jameel and a slew of guest bloggers have been parodying popular J-blogs and even producing elaborate mirror sites. The posts are funniest if you read the blogs being parodied, but I was amused by several parodies of blogs that I don't read as well. This Lipman post takes the hamentaschen, but this parody of Ask Shifra made me laugh, too. And of course, if you are a mean-spirited liberal like myself, you will enjoy this Cross-Currents spoof, especially the parody of Toby Katz ("Brokeback Balabusta"), which is disturbing similar to the original. (Since I know there are some Mar Gavriel readers here, a special link to his spoof, too. Very funny, if you read the real thing.)

More giggles here for the JTS/ Boston-area crowd.

New Purim Kiddush!

2006-03-12T01:51:00.000-05:00

At DH's blog. Chag sameach!

Kosher Cooking Carnival

2006-03-12T00:10:00.000-05:00

I only follow J-Blogs semi-regularly, so I didn't find out about the Kosher Cooking Carnival until tonight. It's a monthly event showcasing Jewish recipes, started by me-ander and hosted by a different blog each month. The latest (third) edition is at SarandEz. Previous carnivals are at me-ander, here and here. Apparently, you can submit your own recipes if you show up early enough.

(Cross-posted to Kosherblog.)

Heart Problems

2006-03-06T20:49:00.000-05:00

I received Nancy Baggett's The All-American Cookie Book as a bridal shower gift, and it quickly became a favorite. The book is full of tempting recipes, entertaining cookie lore, and mouth-watering color photos. The first chapter, "How to Make Great Cookies Every Single Time," has proven invaluable, and the first recipe I tried (called "Best-Ever Snickerdoodles") made what are quite possibly the most delicious cookies I've ever tasted.

Sadly, I've come to realize that even big-money cookbooks like Baggett's are not without flaws, some of them major. DH has never stopped ridiculing me for trying what was supposedly the first brownie recipe in America. The resulting brownies (called "Lowney's Brownies" in the book) were so bad that after tasting them we actually threw the entire batch away. (Call me crazy, but I think that if you're going to publish a lousy recipe for purely historical reasons, you should include some kind of warning.)

I came across another blooper last Thursday, when I tried to prepare "Chocolate Hearts" for an oneg shabbat at a friend's house. The recipe is unusual: it makes use of confectioner's sugar in place of granulated sugar and flour and uses egg whites instead of whole eggs for something of a cross between meringues and rolled cookies. An interesting idea in principle, but when I combined the ingredients, the resulting "dough" was roughly the consistency of slightly running frosting. After several stubborn attempts to roll it (resulting in a pile of chocolatey wax paper and a minor tantrum), I dumped in the rest of the bag of confectioner's sugar and managed to turn what remained of my batter into a small batch of brittle, overly sweet brown hearts covered with white powder. I read the recipe over and over, trying to figure out what I'd done wrong, to no avail. I'd followed the directions to the letter.

The next morning, I awoke with a new sense of clarity. Yet again, I had been led astray by my persistant belief in the infallibility of cookbooks. Once I acknowledged that the recipe was wrong, the solution to my troubles became instantly clear: corn starch! I didn't have any corn starch, though, so I used potato starch left over from last Pesach. To avoid the messy appearance of white on brown, I rolled the dough in cocoa powder and dipped the cookie cutter in cocoa between uses. For the product of so many compromises, my little cookies were astonishingly good, if I do say so myself. When you first bite into them, they're soft, rich and chocolatey, like a brownie (not Lowney's), but then they melt in your mouth like cotton candy. I've decided to call my cookies "sweet nothings" because of this etherial quality, and because I made them with a one-inch heart-shaped cookie cutter, so they came out very small:

(They're not so blurry in real life -- I'm still learning how to use our new digital camera.)

Another great thing about these cookies is that they can be kosher for Passover if they are made with Passover confectioner's sugar or potato starch. They would also make nice additions to mishloach manot packages.

Here is the recipe. Feel free to modify it -- I'm not infallible.

Sweet Nothings

Yield: About 50 1-inch cookies

3 1/2 ounces unsweetened chocolate, broken up or coarsely chopped
2 2/3 cups powdered sugar
2 tablespoons unsweetened American-style cocoa powder, plus more for rolling.
1/3 cup corn or potato starch (plus more, if needed)
1/3 cup egg whites (about 3 large eggs) at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Grease several baking sheets.*

In a small, microwave-safe bowl, microwave the chocolate for 1 minute. Stir well. Microwave for an additional 30 seconds, stir, and repeat until the chocolate is mostly melted, then let the residual heat finish the job. (Alternatively, in a small, heavy saucepan, melt the chocolate over low heat, stirring frequently; be very careful not to burn. Immediately remove from heat.) Let cool to warm.

In a large bowl, with an electric mixer on low speed, beat together the chocolate, about one-third of the powdered sugar, the cocoa powder, and the starch until well blended. Gradually add about one-third of the egg whites and beat until evenly incorporated. Add another one-third of the powdered sugar, then another one-third of the egg whites, and beat until smooth. Repeat the process, adding the remaining one-third of the powdered sugar, then the remaining one-third of the egg whites, and the vanilla. Increase the speed to high and beat for 2 minutes more, or until very smooth and well blended. Let the dough stand for 5 minutes to allow the egg whites to become more fully absorbed. At this point, if the dough seems too sticky, beat in a bit more corn or potato starch. If it seems too crumbly, beat in a little bit of water.

Set aside several tablespoons of cocoa powder on a plate or paper towel. Dust hands lightly with the cocoa. Roll about one third of the dough in the cocoa powder, then roll it between hands so that it forms a ball. Place between two sheets of wax paper and roll to about 1/4 inch thick. Peel off the top sheet of wax paper. Using a one inch heart-shaped cookie cutter,** cut out the cookies, dipping the cutter into cocoa powder between uses. Using a metal spatula or paring knife, carefully transfer the cookies to the baking sheets. Reroll any dough scraps. Continue cutting out the cookies until all the dough is used.

Bake the cookies, one sheet at a time, in the middle of the oven for 10-15 minutes, or until dry on the surface but soft in the centers when lightly pressed. Slide the cookies onto a wire rack. Let stand until completely cooled.

Store in an airtight container for up to 2 days or freeze for up to 1 month.

*I used parchment paper in accordance with Baggett's instructions, but some of the cookies stuck. Greasing the sheets might work better.
** Baggett calls for a 2 or 2 1/4 inch heart-shaped cutter. You can use any shape, of course, but I don't recommend using anything larger than two or three inches, since the dough is very delicate and large cookies have a greater chance of breaking while being removed from cookie sheet.

(Cross-posted to Kosherblog.)

Standing on One Foot

2006-02-26T11:22:00.000-05:00

The modern world can be bewildringly complex, so there is a tendency among religiously affiliated individuals to want their religions to come in neat little packages. People want to be able to turn to a religious leader, or a book, for clear answers to fundamental questions: What do we believe? How do we behave? And, above all: What makes us different from everyone else?

For Jews living in a predominantly Christian society, the question "what makes us different?" is sometimes answered by charicaturing Christianity and reducing Judaism to a series of platitudes. Even Jewish pluralists who are willing to concede an infinite number of legitimate "Judaisms" tend draw the line at "Jewish Christians," or "messianic Jews," as though the only certain thing about Judaism were that it isn't Christianity. I'm no fan of "messianic Judaism," but using it as a whipping boy belittles both Judaism and Christianity. Both religions have long and complex histories, and if we are honest, we will be forced to admit that our paths have often crossed and overlapped in complicated ways.

I am raising this subject now because of a conversation that has been going on at several blogs, including Go West, Young Jew, On the Fringe, and Cute Little Blog regarding the differences between Judaism and Christianity. I posted this commnet on On the Fringe (please read the original post first):

Together, you've identified many significant general differences between Judaism and Christianity, but I don't think that any of them could be called essential differences. The boundaries between religions can be very blurry. Personally, I don't see any use in deciding what ultimately qualifies as "Judaism" and what does not. I know that I do not believe that salvation is attained through faith in Christ, and I know that I do not believe that the future will bring the restoration of a Jewish theocratic monarchy along with temple sacrifice. From a practical standpoint, what difference should it make to me which of these beliefs is "Jewish" and which is "Christian"?

I tend to agree with Mordecai Kaplan's assertion that the primary differences between religions reside in their symbol systems rather than their dogma. In terms of beliefs, a Unitarian Christian shares more with a Reconstructionist Jew than with an evangelical Protestant, but the Unitarian worships on Sunday and invokes Jesus in prayer, while the Reconstructionist worships on Saturday and invokes the biblical ancestors. Of course, even with respect to symbol systems there are fuzzy boundaries (Seventh Day Adventists worship on Saturday, for example). "Messianic Jews" are a particularly interesting case, since their beliefs derive mainly from Christian tradition, but their symbol system draws heavily on Judaism as well as Christianity. On the whole, I would say that "Messianic Jews" are more Christian than Jewish, but I don't think that one can draw a rigid line.

A few comments on some of your specific points:

I believe that Judaism tends to emphasize *this* world, whereas Christianity tends to emphasize the next

I've heard this many times, but I suspect that it's more a product of modern apologetics than historical truth. We moderns tend to be skeptics; even if we belive in that which cannot be verified by scientific observation, we'd rather not make it the focus of our existence. However, rabbinic and medieval Judaism placed a very strong emphasis on the next world, and, notwithstanding a few rabbinic texts that suggest that life in this world is "better," the general thrust of premodern Judaism has been the opposite.

I believe that Judaism tends to emphasize the group—notice that our central prayer, the Amidah, is written entirely in the plural—whereas Christianity tends to emphasize the individual.

Kiwi has suggested that this aspect of Christianity is mainly a product of modern America, and I suspect that she is correct. I would also argue that the collective orientation of Judaism is a product of the premodern world rather than any essential feature of Judaism. This is why the Reform movement, which has always sought to be in keeping with modernity, tends to emphasize individual autonomy.

I believe that Judaism tends to emphasize deeds, whereas Christianity tends to emphasize faith or thought.

There is definitely some validity to this, but it is often overemphasized (mainly by Jews). Nearly all streams of Christianity throughout history have emphasized right behavior, even when that would seem to conflict with their dogma.

I believe that Judaism tends to emphasize individual responsibility, whereas the the belief in vicarious atonement is at the very heart of Christian dogma. ...according to Christian dogma, no amount of personal atonement could earn a person entry into heaven if Jesus had not died for the sins of humankind.

Again, yes and no. Psalm 130 states, "If you keep account of sins, O Lord, Lord, who will survive? Yours is the power to forgive so that you may be held in awe." These verses imply that repentence alone is insufficient for humans to attain salvation; we also need God's superhuman mercy. This is an important tenet of rabbinic Judaism and is functionally very similar to the Christian idea of atonement through Jesus.

Judaism and Christianity had totally different responses to pagan human sacrifice. Judaism replaced it with animal sacrifice, and, later, with prayer. Christianity replaced it with a one-time “human” sacrifice, followed by the symbolic “human” sacrifice of the sacrament/holy communion (hope I’m using the correct terminology)."

This is more a matter of "symbol systems" than beliefs. As it stands, I don't think that this statement is true. (I admit that in this regard I've been heavily influenced by Levenon's Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son.) It probably isn't accurate to say that animal sacrifice "replaced" human sacrifice in Judaism, since those who practiced human sacrifice among Israel's neighbors also practiced animal sacrifice, and even maintained the practice (adopted by Jews) of substituting an animal for a human. Those verses in the Bible that condemn human sacrifice never state that animal sacrifice is to take its place, since animal sacrifice is a given whether human sacrifice is practiced or not. Similarly, the crucifixion can't be regarded as a replacement for human sacrifice, since there was no human sacrifice in second temple Judea. Jesus was a one-time, anomolous human sacrifice, yes. But a replacement? No.

Also (just to play Devil's advocate), one can't necessarily differentiate between Judaism and Christianity by saying that we have different ideas about what took the place of sacrifice. Rabbinic Judaism includes both the idea that prayer took the place of sacrifice and the idea that righteous deeds (gemilut chasadim) took the place of sacrifice. Some Jewish texts even imply that the death of martyrs has taken the place of animal sacrifice -- a notion that seems uncomfortably "Christian" to modern Jews. If a "Messianic Jew" were to add the crucifixion to the roster of "things that have taken the place of sacrifice" in Judaism, it wouldn't necessarily conflict with the others.

Mind you, symbolic sacrifice is a vast improvement over the real thing.

I share this belief, but I must concede that the thrust of rabbinic Judaism is quite the opposite. AFAIK, Maimonedes was the only premodern Jewish thinker to even suggest that prayer might be superior to sacrifice, and even he stated that animal sacrifice would be restored in messianic times.

Anyway, thanks for carrying on this thought-provoking discussion.

I hope that my readers don't all come to the conclusion that I am a complete relativist. I think that it is important for individuals to try to figure out what we do and don't believe, and those of us who affiliate religiously should try to figured out how those beliefs fit into the religious tradition to which we are heirs. I simply don't think that it is worthwhile, or even possible, to come up with bottom-line defnitions of those traditions, or to refashion Jewish or Christian history in our own image.

Holocaust Cartoons

2006-02-08T09:02:00.000-05:00

The Associated Press reports:

A prominent Iranian newspaper says it is going to hold a competition for cartoons on the Holocaust to test whether the West will apply the principle of freedom of expression to the Nazi genocide against Jews as it did to the caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed.

I think someone's missing the point. The Iranian press can't test the limits of freedom of expression because Iran does not have a free press. Yet more evidence that a large segment of the Muslim population isn't simply opposed to freedom of expression -- they actually don't understand the concept.

Fortunately, this isn't true of all Muslims. What a tragedy, though. Eleven dead over a few cartoons.

Plug

2006-01-31T09:41:00.000-05:00

Marc Brettler was on NPR yesterday promoting his new book, How to Read the Bible. You can listen to the interview here, but my main reason for linking to the page is to direct you to the excerpt from the book's introduction. (You'll have to scroll down a bit.)

How to Read the Bible is a thoughtful, easy-to-read book designed to present the historical-critical method to Jewish laypeople. It is not only for Jews or laypeople, however. I am currently in the middle of the book, and I'm finding it very engaging. It has also helped me come up with ideas for effective ways to present biblical criticism to my (mostly Christian) students.

Schepping Naches

2006-01-16T01:07:00.000-05:00

Jack Abramoff is a Brandeis alumnus and former chariman of the Brandeis College Republicans, according to an article in Sunday's Globe.

Selected the lead student organizer for Reagan in Massachusetts, Abramoff hung ''Reagan '80" banners off bridges over Route 128, helped register 3,000 students to vote, schmoozed men in South Boston social clubs, and accompanied Maureen Reagan, the candidate's daughter, on a trip to Brookline to persuade the Bostoner Rebbe, a national Hasidic leader, to endorse Reagan, a nod that was believed to be worth thousands of Orthodox Jewish votes.. . .

[In a tidbit submitted to the alumni notes last year], Abramoff mentions he is married with five children, helped start two schools in Washington, is lobbying Congress, and has fond memories of his years at Brandeis.
''It was a great experience and I learned a lot!" he wrote.

Confessions of a Cookbook Addict

2006-01-15T23:47:00.000-05:00

It isn't rational. I have more soup recipes than I would ever use in a winter, more cookie recipes than I could reasonably use in a year, and more pot roast recipes than I will probably use in a lifetime. And there are so many other recipe sources, from the internet to my mother. But then, I have an irrational love of books and an equally irrational love of food. Perhaps it shouldn't be surprising that I drool over the cookbook aisle in every bookstore I visit, and that, cheapskate though I am, I often can't bring myself to leave without making a purchase.

Still, when I returned from the SBL/AAR conference with Great Vegetarian Dishes by Kurma dasa, "one of the Hare Krishna movement's most celebrated chefs,"* I began to think that I might have a problem.

Then I read this article:

Sally LaRhette, 75, has over 3,000, and she's not letting up anytime soon. In fact, one of the reasons she moved to her Natick home was for extra room to house her collection. Daniela Coleman, 38, of Jamaica Plain has 250 books in her kitchen and another 100 or so boxed up in her mother's attic. Jane Kelly, 49, of Wayland, owns around 850. The 75 she uses most often are in the kitchen, hundreds fill a large bookcase in her office, and the remaining ones are stored in the basement.
While some may wonder how anyone could possibly need, want, or use this many volumes, food lovers admit to pangs of desire when roaming the cookbook section of a well-stocked bookstore.

As it turns out, I have a long way to go. Since I don't have a "problem," I guess it wouldn't hurt to place an order at Amazon.com. I think I'll get Classic Indian Vegetarian and Grain Cooking, by Julia Sahni. And The New Best Recipe -- Jabbet seemed to like that. And Myra Kornfield's The Voluptuous Vegan (I'm enjoying The Healthy Hedonist). And maybe. . .

. . .maybe I should sleep on this. I am a cheapskate, after all.

(Cross-posted to Kosherblog)

*The book includes "over 240 recipes from around the world," including a lokshen kugel recipe attributed to the author's mother. Draw your own conclusions.