The month Nisan begins tonight and with it, so many associations. Last year, I wrote about the practice of refraining from eating Matzah from Rosh Hodesh Nisan (i.e. tonight) until Passover. Most people make, if any, the association of dreaded Pesach cleaning and preparation. I’ll be writing some about that in a few days or next week, God willing, but for now, let’s stick to things connected specifically to Rosh Hodesh Nisan.
One association fewer people make is that Birkat haIlanot, the blessing over blooming trees, is typically said in the month of Nisan:
This week’s Torah portion, Tetzaveh, opens with the commandment that the Israelites should bring ‘pure oil of beaten olives’ to the Sanctuary, so that Aaron and his sons can kindle a ner tamid, or a lamp which will be kept always burning.
The ner tamid is rich in symbolism, but for today, let’s focus on its fuel. The commandment is to bring pure – we would call it, ‘extra-virgin’ – olive oil. In the ancient world light was created from any number of substances. In some forms of the Shabbat evening service we read a passage called Be-Meh Madlikin, from the Mishnah (Shabbat 2:1-7) which proves that pitch, wax, cottonseed oil, fat from sheeps’ tails or tallow, sesame oil, nut oil, radish oil, fish oil, gourd oil, tar or naptha were all possible sources of fuel. But there Rabbi Tarfon rules that only olive oil may be used for Shabbat candles.
Torah To Go – Va’era
At the beginning of this portion, we have a piece of Torah that gives rise to one of the most ancient traditions we possess:
6 So say to the people of Israel, I am God, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will save you from their slavery, and I will redeem you with a outstretched arm, and with great judgments; 7 And I will take you to me for a people, and I will be to you a God; and you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who brings you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. (Exodus 6:6-8)
Author’s note: The following is a drash I gave at my shul two days ago. My shul, Havurah Shalom in Portland, Oregon, is a participatory congregation.
We are in the final days of Sukkot, one of Judaism’s three harvest festivals, and one of my favorite times of year. The traditional observance of Sukkot: building a booth, decorating it with greens and seasonal fruits and veggies, eating and sleeping under its roof through which we must be able to see the stars, all highlight and make holy things we do every day: living in our homes, eating meals together, even sleeping. Perhaps this is why I look forward to Sukkot so much, or perhaps that it often coincides with my birthday (I’m still young enough to enjoy rather than dread it), or perhaps simply that it happens during the autumn, my favorite season of the year.
Judaism is particularly connected to food, and Sukkot especially to the bounty of our fall harvest. Now is the time for the first apples of the season, in all their amazing varieties, for winter squashes, for root vegetables, and for the last of summer’s abundance: the tomatoes, the zucchini, the pesto made from homemade basil. It is a time to celebrate the simple pleasure of growing and cooking and eating.
This blog is not the right place for it, but still, Roger Cohen has really gotten on my nerves over the last year or so. His ranting about how wonderful Iran is and how great it is for the Jews there made me question my devotion to the New York Times. His piece “Advantage France,” in Sunday’s paper, about some of the differences between the French diet and the American diet, may have me beginning to change my mind. I’ve only spent a few days in France, and only in Paris, but I’m guessing he’s exaggerating somewhat. Nevertheless, the idea of Americans adopting any diet (or lifestyle, really) that required not only combining the ingredients and cooking them, but processing them to begin with (filleting the fish, making the pasta, etc) does sound beautiful and absurd. The idea of connecting to food on a “gut” level and a geographic one far predates the terroir of which Cohen writes, at least in Jewish tradition.
This past shabbat I visited Tikvat Israel, the synagogue whose Tuv Ha’aretz CSA we joined at the beginning of the summer. In honor of Shabbat Hazon, the shabbat before the fast of Tisha B’Av, and to celebrate the success of the Hazon CSA, Tikvat Israel served a vegetarian shabbat lunch for its congregants and CSA members. The lunch was chock-full of delicious organic and locally grown vegetables. Farmer Pam’s produce was used in such dishes as cucumber salad, savory zucchini bread and vegetarian chili. In addition to being delicious, the lunch served as a wonderful way to connect congregants and members of the CSA.
Yesterday was the first day (finally!) of my local farmers’ market here in NJ, and I’ll admit I went a bit fruit happy, coming home loaded with local blueberries, strawberries, and cherries. It took some detective work to figure out what things were not local–the farmer may be Pennsylvania Dutch but those sure aren’t local peaches, not yet. I’m much stricter about eating fruit locally and seasonally than I am vegetables. I can go months without fresh berries or stone fruit, hoping that it counts towards my balanced diet if I eat many servings of fruit in the summer and far fewer in the winter. Sure, there are days towards late February when I am sick of citrus fruit, grapes, and bananas, and look longingly towards the plums flown in from California. But in my heart, I know they will disappoint me.
On Shavuot, when we celebrate receiving the Torah, we also celebrate the offering of the first fruits in the Temple, the bikurim.
The offering was a supremely humble gesture: the fruits which form first on a tree are often smaller, less perfect, only hinting at the abundance to follow. In ancient Israel, these offerings were gussied up, surrounded by the more beautiful fruit which grew later, brought sometimes in gold baskets, accompanied by flutes, processions. All the trappings of art and wealth were used to beautify the offering. Yet without the small, perhaps wrinkled fruit of the bikurim, there could be no offering.
It was at this moment of offering that the Torah teaches us to recite the story of redemption, the same one we now read in our Passover haggadah. The story was also a garland, as it were, for the bikurim offering, connecting our history to the very physical redemption of another spring and another growing season.
AJWS is accepting applications to the Dvar Tzedek Lisa Goldberg Memorial Writers’ Fellowship for 5770 / 2009-2010. The deadline is June 1.
AJWS Dvar Tzedek Fellows receive a modest stipend and write weekly Torah commentaries relating to the Jewish imperative for social justice. We invite you to apply for the fellowship and to circulate information about the fellowship to anyone you think would be interested.
To download the application for the fellowship, please click here. For more information, please contact Lisa Exler at lexler@ajws.org.
AJWS is pleased to announce that we are accepting applications for the Dvar Tzedek Lisa Goldberg Memorial Writers’ Fellowship for 5770 / 2009-2010. AJWS Dvar Tzedek Fellows receive a modest stipend and write weekly Torah commentaries relating to the Jewish imperative for social justice. The Dvar Tzedek currently reaches over 4,000 people a week over e-mail.
To see examples of the work of this year’s Dvar Tzedek Fellows, and to download the application for the fellowship, please click here.
We invite you to apply for the fellowship and to circulate information about the fellowship to anyone else you think would be interested. For more information, please contact Lisa Exler at lexler@ajws.org
Judith came in from the fields where it appeared as though the whole community was out harvesting the new grain crop. The rains had ceased and the ground had dried enough to enable them to walk through the plants and collect the ripened sheaves. The stone house still felt damp from the winter and she helped her mother empty the storage urns of the remainder of the previous year’s grains.
Pesach is known biblically as “The festival of Matzo,” so let’s face it, matzo is intrinsically connected with the festival, love it or hate it. Much debate exists among rabbinic scholars as to whether the obligation to partake in matzo is unique to the sedarim or to the entire festival. There a number of positions on this idea throughout the lay community as well, some of us eating matzo for the whole time, others eating it while they partake in other forms of hametz, and others who rid themselves of matzo following the seder altogether.
For the past couple of days I’ve heard and been wished an interesting little quip in relation to Pesach, “Have a great holiday, don’t eat too much matzo!” Each time I hear this I cannot help but to get into a ten-minute debate with myself over the “ok-ness” of the idea of “not eating too much matzo.” Can one really eat too much matzo on a holiday that revolves around it? Can we have Hannukah without a menorah? Yom Kippor without fasting? The simple answer, of course, is no. And when thinking about how valuable and important this strange unleavened bread has been to the Jewish people for millennia, that “no” has an even greater resonance.
Blessings, D'var Torah, Fruit, Holiday Posts, Holidays, Jewish Learning, Judaism, New York, On The Web, Pesach/Passover, Prayer, Rosh Hodesh, Seasonality, Spirituality
