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New Deli - Avoiding the coldest cut

by Eric Schulmiller · May 12th, 2007
D'var Torah, Meat, NYTimes, On The Web

“Do not wrong one another, and you shall fear your God; for I, The Eternal, am your God.” (Leviticus 25:17)

[This verse] forbids wronging others with words…And if you say: “Who knows if I had evil intentions?” For that reason the verse continues: “You shall fear your God”…[Regarding] anything which is a matter of conscience, known only to the person involved, [The Torah adds]: “You shall fear your G-d.” (Rashi on Lev. 25:17)

“Death and life are in the power of the tongue.” (Proverbs 28:21)

While researching for a d’var torah for this week’s parasha, I came across the following midrash, courtesy of a Union for Reform Judaism TableTalk by Barbara Binder Kadden:

Rabbi Simeon ben Gamaliel once told his servant Tabbai to go and buy good food in the marketplace. Tabbai went and bought tongue. Rabbi Simeon then told Tabbai to buy him bad food in the marketplace. So Tabbai went and bought tongue, again. The Rabbi then asked, “When I told you to get good food you brought me tongue and when I told you to get bad food you brought me tongue.” Tabbai replied “Good comes from it and bad comes from it. When the tongue is good there is nothing better, and when it is bad there is nothing worse.” Rabbi Simeon then made a feast for his disciples and placed before them tender tongues and hard tongues. They began selecting the tender ones, leaving the hard ones alone. Rabbi Simeon said to them: “Note what you are doing! As you select the tender and leave the hard, so let your tongues be tender to one another!” So, Moses admonishes Israel, “You shall not wrong one another.” (Midrash Rabbah, Leviticus 23:1)

It’s kinda fun to discover that the love of a good piece of tongue (yuck!!) doesn’t just stretch back to my grandparents in Brooklyn, but to our ancestors in Babylonia. I think it also speaks volumes about our people (and their deep connection to food, natch) that our talmudic forebears spoke in parables that revolved around heaping plates of deli meat. One only has to look to the seder to see how we not only love to eat food, but to teach it as well.

Bonus link: A recent NY Times article describes a deli in Michigan that is not only world-renowned, but socially-conscious.

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3 Responses to “New Deli - Avoiding the coldest cut”

  1. David Sax Says:
    May 14th, 2007 at 2:20 pm

    A shonda you should say yuck to tongue!

    While a poorly cooked cold tongue is but a sliced diaphraghm, the quality stuff (from the fattier back of the tongue), sliced thin and steamed properly will blow away any corned beef on any day of the Jewish or Goyish week.

    One has to question the cultural ethics of Mr. Schulmiller, who so readily tosses aside the foods of his heritage because they are, like, ewwww, like, gross.

    More tongue, more pe’tcha, more kishke. Eat! Eat!

  2. Eric Schulmiller Says:
    May 14th, 2007 at 3:10 pm

    What a (tongue in?) cheeky response to my post. I’m not sure what constitutes “cultural ethics,” but something tells me it doesn’t involve Oscar Meyer or even Katz’s (where I ate yesterday).

  3. David Sax Says:
    May 15th, 2007 at 11:10 am

    A bissel of kibbitz in there boychick, but my main point is that you diss tongue in your article. One step closer to the death of deli and one more in the way of kosher sushi for all. Tongue is one of the finest deli meats out there, and I challenge you to give it another try. Katz’s is the place for pastrami, but if you want great tongue I suggest either Gottleib’s in Williamsburg or Liebman’s in the Bronx. I wish there was a better place in Manhattan, but so it goes bubuleh.

    ess gezunt!

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