People of the Cookbook

I’m dedicating this piece to the memories of Baruch ben Baruch, Harry Shaich, Ursula Batz, and Mary Lou Johnson

It is spring. The Northern Hemisphere is lurching away from the cold and wet of winter towards the warmth and fecundity of summer. Here in Western Sonoma County the last rainy gasps are sputtering out, giving the earth its last soft moist days, even as the toasty dry season rises. A few small fires have been reported, and we hope to elude another year of firestorms and destruction.

I planted my first vegetable garden in 1975, in the inhospitable, brackish soil of the Venice Canals. I had no idea what I was doing, just that the pull to stick my hands in the soil and work together to bring forth food from the earth was overwhelming. Perhaps I was a little influenced by the back-to-the-land gestalt of the day, John Denver’s folksy anthem, “Thank God I’m a Country Boy”, or any number of highly romanticised ideas about health and youth and wholesomeness and ecology and a return to a simpler way of life. But if those currents were the first to catch me, something deeper has carried me, because here it is, a half century yon, and growing, cooking, and eating food I’ve grown is still an insatiable passion. 

Eating is core to Jewish spirituality, religion, philosophy, and culture. The Quran says that Jews are the “People of the Book”, but I say Jews are the People of the Cookbook. Consider the birth of human consciousness according to Torah’s mythology. At the behest of the Nachash/trixter serpent, our foremother Chava considers the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (Genesis 3:1-6). The Nachash doesn’t guide her to the local Yeshiva to study, discuss, and argue about these opposing forces represented by this fruit. Nor does it slither-lead her down to the nearest shul to pray, supplicate, and praise the Oneness of Good and Evil. She isn’t commanded to take up arms, or sojourn far away from the fruit, or to build a wall around the tree. All the Nachash does is tell her the simple truth: “You surely won’t die if you eat this, but you will have a lot on your mind because all of a sudden you will be aware of the myriad ANDS that surround you, not the least of which is how you will perceive and experience goodness and evil… which can be a bit exhausting, believe me.” And without a moment’s hesitation, she becomes one with the delightful, delectable, delicious fruit. She opens her lips, bares her teeth, and eats, thus catalyzing Judaism’s food focused psycho-spiritual tradition. 

Food is the medium that connects humanity to the Divine. Apparently our God likes to eat too because Humanity’s first siblings, Cain and Abel, compete for God’s attention by making the first offerings from their respective food production efforts. And like a disastrous episode of Top Chef, when the winner is announced jealousy erupts, sin crouches at the kitchen door, and the first cooking competition ends in the world’s first murder (Genesis 4:3-8). Food is carefully planned and packed onto the ark that will carry Noach and his family through the first cataclysmic climate event. Food is offered on altars from the most simple pile of stones to the most elaborate, architectural, and formal affairs. The Temple in Jerusalem was a sacred barbecue with all the fixin’s, and God devoured every part of it: the smoke, the bones, the bread, the spices. Humanity connected to The Source with an elaborate mise en place ritual, then cooking, plating, and setting the table. And once the food was served, Creator and Creation sat down to eat together. 

There are virtually no instances of studying in the Torah, but there are literally hundreds of mentions of food and eating. Long before we were poring over words, we were discovering ways to turn the gifts of the earth into our bodies. Long after the Temple’s sacred barbeque’s fires were cold and done the Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah reminds us:

אִם אֵין קֶמַח, אֵין תּוֹרָה.

If there is no bread, there is no Torah….

And then deftly adds with rabbinic slight of hand:

אִם אֵין תּוֹרָה, אֵין קֶמַח.

If there is no Torah, there is no bread. (Pirke Avot 3:17)

While with this idea the Rabbis interject Torah as an integral part of Jewish life, they dedicate a significant portion of their Talmudic conversations to the question of food: What may we eat? What should we eat? With whom? When? What is forbidden and under what circumstances? How should Jewish food be grown, raised, prepared, blessed, and shared? And so much more. They come up with novel ways to imagine food as a liturgical device, a somatic tool to remember moments of bitterness, sadness, sweetness, and toil. They weave themselves into the lips, palates, nostrils, and tongues of their ancestors.

Most of the time, Humans are feeding HaShem through sacrifices. But there is one extended period in which God sacrifices to us, by providing us with food that requires no toil: manna.      

Ex. 16:31

וַיִּקְרְאוּ בֵית־יִשְׂרָאֵל אֶת־שְׁמוֹ מָן וְהוּא כְּזֶרַע גַּד לָבָן וְטַעְמוֹ כְּצַפִּיחִת בִּדְבָשׁ׃

The house of Israel named it “mahn”; it was like the seed of coriander, white, and it tasted like wafers in honey.

Mahn/manna was basically a biblical powerbar, requiring no effort or time on our part for either production or preparation. It had all of the nutrients needed for human sustenance. You just scooped up what you wanted, ate it, and that was that. Apparently, you could tweak it a bit, if you wanted, but overall, it was the first super, mega, convenience food. And in short order, people hated it….

Num. 11:4-8

וְהָאסַפְסֻף אֲשֶׁר בְּקִרְבּוֹ הִתְאַוּוּ תַּאֲוָה וַיָּשֻׁבוּ וַיִּבְכּוּ גַּם בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וַיֹּאמְרוּ מִי יַאֲכִלֵנוּ בָּשָׂר׃

The riffraff in their midst felt a gluttonous craving; and then the Israelites wept and said, “If only we had meat to eat!

זָכַרְנוּ אֶת־הַדָּגָה אֲשֶׁר־נֹאכַל בְּמִצְרַיִם חִנָּם אֵת הַקִּשֻּׁאִים וְאֵת הָאֲבַטִּחִים וְאֶת־הֶחָצִיר וְאֶת־הַבְּצָלִים וְאֶת־הַשּׁוּמִים׃

We remember the fish that we used to eat free in Egypt, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic.

וְעַתָּה נַפְשֵׁנוּ יְבֵשָׁה אֵין כֹּל בִּלְתִּי אֶל־הַמָּן עֵינֵינוּ׃

Now our gullets are shriveled. There is nothing at all! Nothing but this manna to look to!”

וְהַמָּן כִּזְרַע־גַּד הוּא וְעֵינוֹ כְּעֵין הַבְּדֹלַח׃

Now the manna was like coriander seed, and in color it was like bdellium.

שָׁטוּ הָעָם וְלָקְטוּ וְטָחֲנוּ בָרֵחַיִם אוֹ דָכוּ בַּמְּדֹכָה וּבִשְּׁלוּ בַּפָּרוּר וְעָשׂוּ אֹתוֹ עֻגוֹת וְהָיָה טַעְמוֹ כְּטַעַם לְשַׁד הַשָּׁמֶן׃

The people would go about and gather it, grind it between millstones or pound it in a mortar, boil it in a pot, and make it into cakes. It tasted like rich cream.

The Rabbis make sense of this disharmony by revealing their understanding that eating isn’t just about survival, calories, or hunger. It is also an arena of intense and evocative sensuality:

Yoma 75a

״אֵת הַקִּשּׁוּאִים וְאֵת הָאֲבַטִּיחִים״, רַבִּי אַמֵּי וְרַבִּי אַסִּי, חַד אָמַר: טַעַם כּל הַמִּינִין טָעֲמוּ בַּמָּן, טַעַם חֲמֵשֶׁת הַמִּינִין הַלָּלוּ לֹא טָעֲמוּ בּוֹ, וְחַד אָמַר: טַעַם כָּל הַמִּינִין טָעֲמוּ טַעְמָן וּמַמָּשָׁן, וְהַלָּלוּ טַעְמָן וְלֹא מַמָּשָׁן.

“We remember…the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic” (Numbers 11:5). Rabbi Ami and Rabbi Asi debate the verse: One said: They tasted the flavor of all types of food in the manna, but they could not taste the tastes of these five foods. And one said: They tasted the flavor of all types of food, and their textures, except for cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic, of those they tasted their flavor but not their texture.

This discussion erupts as the Rabbis are in the midst of establishing the practice of fasting on Yom Kippur. Like many rules, and especially those related to eating, the minute the rule is in place myriad conditions that would challenge it arise. Do we risk a pregnancy for the fast? What if a person is sick, should they be expected to fast? And what about a small child, or an elder, or someone with an eating disorder, or someone who needs to take medicine? The conversations take multiple hairpin turns, and along the way they take a diversion into not only the sensuous aspects of eating but also gastronomic aesthetics and energies. 

״וְהָיָה טַעְמוֹ כְּטַעַם לְשַׁד הַשָּׁמֶן״. אָמַר רַבִּי אֲבָהוּ: מָה שַׁד זֶה תִּינוֹק טוֹעֵם בָּהּ כַּמָּה טְעָמִים, אַף הַמָּן, כּל זְמַן שֶׁיִּשְׂרָאֵל אוֹכְלִין אוֹתוֹ מוֹצְאִין בּוֹ כַּמָּה טְעָמִים. אִיכָּא דְּאָמְרִי: לְשֵׁד מַמָּשׁ. מָה שֵׁד זֶה מִתְהַפֵּךְ לְכַמָּה גְּווֹנִין — אַף הַמָּן מִתְהַפֵּךְ לְכַמָּה טְעָמִים.

Regarding manna: “And its taste was as the taste of a cake [shad] baked with oil [hashamen]” (Numbers 11:8). Rabbi Abbahu said: Shad means breast. Just as a baby tastes different flavors from the breast, since the taste of the milk changes somewhat depending on what foods his mother eats, so too with the manna, every time that the Jewish people ate the manna, they found in it many flavors, based on their preferences. There are those who say that the word is written as shed and means literally a demon. How so? Just as a demon changes into different forms, so too, the manna changed into different flavors.

All to say, I think it is safe to say that food, eating, meal preparation, and service play an outsized role in Jewish culture. 

I spent about 30 years as a Jewish congregational leader, and in that time I heard many of my congregants say something to the effect of “I’m not a good Jew.” I would ask them what they meant by that, and very often they would answer apologetically “Well, ya know…. I’m a ‘Bagel Jew’” – meaning they expressed their Jewish identity through certain archetypical foods which they somehow felt was an inferior modality.  

For a long time, this nagged at me, but I didn’t have time to really focus on what troubled me about it until these past few years, as I’ve been building the biggest garden I’ve had in decades. I’ve spent countless hours digging, revitalizing soil, and making planting choices. I’ve pored over the incredibly sexy seed catalogs that flood the market these days (special shout-out to the Southern Seed Exchange) and I’ve spent every penny I can afford (and a few I couldn’t) on garden stuff: tools, raised beds, trellises and the like, and a lot of help moving literally tons of glorified cow poop. 

I spend less and less time in shul, and more and more time in the meditative and healing practice of waiting for small green sprouts to break through dark, rich soil. I feel the sanctity in how slowly everything I plant moves, changes, and eventually dies. I enjoy the machloket/puzzle of dissuading the birds, slugs, and caterpillars from eating what I’m sure they think of as manna. “Caw, caw!! Look at these sprouts! That bald guy has put perfect food out here just for us!” And what surfaces for me over and over is Judaism’s intuitive embrace of food as the bridge between this earthen world and the celestial Oneness of which we are a part. And with fecund dirt under my fingernails, I realize with some delight: These days, I am a Garden Jew. 

I am grateful for this tradition’s many ways to engage, but at this time in my life I’m especially grateful to Chava, our foremother, for starting the whole thing off by eating from a tree dripping with beautiful fruit. She ensured that there would always be a place for the Bagel Jews, the Garden Jews, the Deli Jews, and the Sacred Barbequers–even amongst the sages. I’m grateful to the Rabbis for elevating and respecting our most primal pleasure practice.  

The rain has stopped for the day, and I need to go tend to my garden. Stepping away from my computer, I am aware of my aging back, hips, and shoulders. Nevertheless, it’s time to fill our wheelbarrow with compost, dig it into the waiting bed, transplant the basil, and remember that this, too, is Torah. And as I sift out the twigs, pits, and rocks I utter: Blessed are you, the Sower of Sacred Seeds, who brings forth life from the depths, and who has commanded us to reap, prepare, and share what we have sown.