Jews and Food: Can We Make it Better?
Yom Kippur Morning 2010 / 5771
Temple Emanu-El, Edison, NJ
If I were to ask of you this morning: what is the glue that keeps Jews together, what might you answer? Those trying to please the rabbi might say Torah is, more than anything else, the essence of the Jewish people. Others might say it is family, or friends. Some will respond to the question by citing our history, and the important lessons we have learned from the many tragedies we have survived. Still others will share that tikkun olam, acts of repairing the world, is really what keeps the Jewish people modern in our ever-changing world.
Now, if I ask you this morning to think of your most meaningful Jewish experiences, describe them in great detail, what would you include? I’m guessing we would hear about the beautiful wedding you celebrated with your b’shert, or the day your child became a Bar or Bat Mitzvah, or the day we as a community officially welcomed your child into the covenant. I might also hear responses including the 50-person seder your grandmother would host each year, from one end of the house to the other. Or the incredible Rosh Hashanah celebration with all parts of your family that rotated down from one generation to another. And there will be those who cite their most meaningful Jewish experiences as the meal of condolence you had after the death of the matriarch of the family, a meal in which the food was insignificant but the company was never to be forgotten.
And finally, if I were to ask you this morning to describe your favorite Jewish rituals, what might you share? I suspect some of you would describe the ritual of making home made gefilte fish before Rosh Hashanah every year, stinking up the house with the smells of those fish. In my family, you would hear of our Friday challah making ritual, and the smell of challah that still permeates the house when we return from services on Friday nights. Or the mandel bread your bubby used to make. Or the borsht your grandfather always loved. Or just the way your great- grandmother would roll the butter cake for break-fast ever year.
There is no question that we Jews spend a lot of time with food, for food is, in many ways, the glue that keeps the Jewish people together, the center of our most meaningful Jewish experiences, and a part of our favorite Jewish rituals. Food is not just something that is culturally and stereotypically connected to the Jewish people, but it is a part of every Jewish ritual and life cycle event, every holiday celebration and home ritual, and with good reason. Food is sustenance, and we Jews have always looked for ways to sustain ourselves.
For those of us performing the mitzvah of fasting today, on our greatest fast day, you may think it is somewhat cruel that I am discussing food this morning. However, I think part of the idea behind fasting is to push ourselves, while adhering to the ritual of fasting, to think about food in a new way. Why do we fast today? At a rather simplistic level, we fast as a part of our process of atonement. For one full day, we set aside our physical cravings for sustenance in order to find a different level of nourishment.
What is Torah trying to teach us by decreeing this day as a day of fasting? One colleague of mine considers fasting to be the Bible’s spiritual diet, and he claims fasting to provide some basic lessons for each of us:
1. Fasting teaches compassion. It is easy to talk about the world’s hunger problem. We can feel sorry that millions of people go to bed hungry each day, but it isn’t until one can really feel it in one’s own body that the impact is truly felt.
2. Fasting is an exercise in will power. Most people think they can’t fast because it’s so hard. In a society full of self-indulgence, we lack self- discipline. Fasting goes in direct opposition to our increasing “softness” in life.
3. Fasting serves as penance. Self-inflicted pain alleviates guilt, although... it is much better to reduce one’s guilt with offsetting acts of righteousness to others.
4. Fasting is a denial of dependencies. We live in a consumer society, constantly bombarded by others telling us what we must have to be healthy, happy, popular or wise. By fasting we assert that we do not need to be dependent on external things, even such an essential thing as food.
5. Fasting can improve our physical health. Of course not simply a 24- hour fast, but the Yom Kippur fast can awaken us to the importance of how much, and how often, we eat.
6. Fasting is simply good for the soul. It is an aid for spiritual experiences. For most people, the hunger pains are a distraction. However, it can be the beginning of a new awakening, a different level of spirituality, as I discussed last night.
7. Fasting is, simply put, a mitzvah, and by fasting, we are performing a mitzvah, not just a good deed as we so often define it, but a commandment. We do not do mitzvot in order to benefit ourselves. We do mitzvot because our duty as Jews requires that we do them. And fasting is a very personal mitzvah. Fasting on Yom Kippur is a personal offering to the God of Israel from each member of the family of Israel.
8. And finally, fasting should be combined with the study of Torah, for the more one studies, the less one has need of fasting.
For the rest of this sermon, please download below.
Temple Emanu-El, Edison, NJ
If I were to ask of you this morning: what is the glue that keeps Jews together, what might you answer? Those trying to please the rabbi might say Torah is, more than anything else, the essence of the Jewish people. Others might say it is family, or friends. Some will respond to the question by citing our history, and the important lessons we have learned from the many tragedies we have survived. Still others will share that tikkun olam, acts of repairing the world, is really what keeps the Jewish people modern in our ever-changing world.
Now, if I ask you this morning to think of your most meaningful Jewish experiences, describe them in great detail, what would you include? I’m guessing we would hear about the beautiful wedding you celebrated with your b’shert, or the day your child became a Bar or Bat Mitzvah, or the day we as a community officially welcomed your child into the covenant. I might also hear responses including the 50-person seder your grandmother would host each year, from one end of the house to the other. Or the incredible Rosh Hashanah celebration with all parts of your family that rotated down from one generation to another. And there will be those who cite their most meaningful Jewish experiences as the meal of condolence you had after the death of the matriarch of the family, a meal in which the food was insignificant but the company was never to be forgotten.
And finally, if I were to ask you this morning to describe your favorite Jewish rituals, what might you share? I suspect some of you would describe the ritual of making home made gefilte fish before Rosh Hashanah every year, stinking up the house with the smells of those fish. In my family, you would hear of our Friday challah making ritual, and the smell of challah that still permeates the house when we return from services on Friday nights. Or the mandel bread your bubby used to make. Or the borsht your grandfather always loved. Or just the way your great- grandmother would roll the butter cake for break-fast ever year.
There is no question that we Jews spend a lot of time with food, for food is, in many ways, the glue that keeps the Jewish people together, the center of our most meaningful Jewish experiences, and a part of our favorite Jewish rituals. Food is not just something that is culturally and stereotypically connected to the Jewish people, but it is a part of every Jewish ritual and life cycle event, every holiday celebration and home ritual, and with good reason. Food is sustenance, and we Jews have always looked for ways to sustain ourselves.
For those of us performing the mitzvah of fasting today, on our greatest fast day, you may think it is somewhat cruel that I am discussing food this morning. However, I think part of the idea behind fasting is to push ourselves, while adhering to the ritual of fasting, to think about food in a new way. Why do we fast today? At a rather simplistic level, we fast as a part of our process of atonement. For one full day, we set aside our physical cravings for sustenance in order to find a different level of nourishment.
What is Torah trying to teach us by decreeing this day as a day of fasting? One colleague of mine considers fasting to be the Bible’s spiritual diet, and he claims fasting to provide some basic lessons for each of us:
1. Fasting teaches compassion. It is easy to talk about the world’s hunger problem. We can feel sorry that millions of people go to bed hungry each day, but it isn’t until one can really feel it in one’s own body that the impact is truly felt.
2. Fasting is an exercise in will power. Most people think they can’t fast because it’s so hard. In a society full of self-indulgence, we lack self- discipline. Fasting goes in direct opposition to our increasing “softness” in life.
3. Fasting serves as penance. Self-inflicted pain alleviates guilt, although... it is much better to reduce one’s guilt with offsetting acts of righteousness to others.
4. Fasting is a denial of dependencies. We live in a consumer society, constantly bombarded by others telling us what we must have to be healthy, happy, popular or wise. By fasting we assert that we do not need to be dependent on external things, even such an essential thing as food.
5. Fasting can improve our physical health. Of course not simply a 24- hour fast, but the Yom Kippur fast can awaken us to the importance of how much, and how often, we eat.
6. Fasting is simply good for the soul. It is an aid for spiritual experiences. For most people, the hunger pains are a distraction. However, it can be the beginning of a new awakening, a different level of spirituality, as I discussed last night.
7. Fasting is, simply put, a mitzvah, and by fasting, we are performing a mitzvah, not just a good deed as we so often define it, but a commandment. We do not do mitzvot in order to benefit ourselves. We do mitzvot because our duty as Jews requires that we do them. And fasting is a very personal mitzvah. Fasting on Yom Kippur is a personal offering to the God of Israel from each member of the family of Israel.
8. And finally, fasting should be combined with the study of Torah, for the more one studies, the less one has need of fasting.
For the rest of this sermon, please download below.
| jews_and_food.pdf |
