Category: Torah

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Ethics Rabbis Reform Judaism Torah

Parashat Sh’mini, Mindfulness, and Food

In Vermont, where I spent the last year living (and where I still spend my time off), there’s a beautiful culture of paying attention to where food comes from. In part this is because of the agricultural heritage of the state, and lucky for me, it’s meant that I’ve made a number of friends who are farmers. As a result, over the past year I’ve farm-sat when friends have gone on vacation (to Israel, no less – our local Jewish educator is also a farmer), helped friends tap their maple trees to make homegrown maple syrup and cared for chickens and lambs. I have harvested the summer’s abundance, too: dried garlic, blanched kale, made raspberry jam from local berries picked by my own two hands, and turned pounds (literally, pounds) of basil into many frozen containers of pesto – enough for the (very) long Vermont winter! I’ve even learned to make my own sourdough bread and created my own sourdough starter.

For a Rabbi’s kid who grew up in Chicago this has been a wonderful, unexpected and delicious adventure. I feel truly blessed. I have learned, intimately, where my food comes from, and the incredible labor that it takes to feed the state of Vermont. I have also become a regular at the local farmer’s market, friendly with the guy who sells me my kale, have found a farm where I pick up eggs and bread year-round, and have, overall become much, much healthier. I have also, for the first time ever, begun to understand the place of dietary laws in the Biblical imagination and what it must have felt like to live according to an agricultural rhythm where you always worried what the new harvest might (or might not) yield. Food, I have learned, is never merely a product. It’s also a process. 

This week’s parshah, Sh’mini, is known for its dietary laws, the laws of kashrut.  And though I could write at length about kashrut and Reform Judaism, I’m more interested in asking us to consider how halachic structures around eating can help us sacralize and become mindful of how we eat, elevate it from noshing to something worthy of blessing. Because serious engagement with the tradition and with the parsha calls for not just a historical critical interrogation of where the laws come from but also an acknowledgment that the laws present us with an opportunity to think deeply, and seriously about how we consume (and if we are doing so ethically). And though we ultimately may not choose to give up cheeseburgers or non-kosher meat, we might at least feel compelled to engage in a centuries old conversation about what it means to sanctify this simplest of acts.  

Jordie2For me, this has meant making an effort to know where my food comes from, and a commitment to only buying food that is organic, free-range, hormone free, or sustainably raised  (this means I eat much less meat, as it’s far more expensive this way). For others, it may mean becoming a vegetarian or vegan; but no matter what, it will mean consuming consciously, thoughtfully, in a manner that reflects our understanding of the earth – and all its inhabitants – as holy and precious in their own right. This, though not traditionally halachically observant, is halachically responsible, in keeping with the spirit of a law which asks us to bring a disciplined heart and head to what – and how – we consume.

This, in part, is what it means to eat Jewishly.

st-cover_with_seal_2B’tayavon.

Rabbi Jordie Gerson serves Temple Emanu-el Beth Sholom in Montreal. 

For more on Judaism and food, check out The Sacred Table: Creating a Jewish Food Ethic, edited by Rabbi Mary Zamore

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Ethics News Rabbis Reform Judaism Torah

Vayikra: The Blessing of a Blank Slate

I’m a perfectionist. If I could spend weeks writing (and suffering) over each and every sermon, rather than just a few hours (or sometimes, much less time) I would. If I could meet with every wedding couple 8 times, I’d do that too. If I could spend my days mulling over every shiur and Torah study, and assembling the perfect teaching texts, I’d do it. And if I could make every congregant happy all the time, I’d try to find a way. But that’s not the nature of the job, especially in the congregational Rabbinate. And so I regularly have to let go of my aspirations, to forgive myself for doing the best I can in the time allotted.*

This week’s parshah, Vayikra, gives itself over to various sacrifices. But the sacrifice that’s always intrigued me most is the chatat – or ‘sin offering’, which, conventionally, has been understood in a negative light – a way of absolving ourselves of wrongs we have committed. But I believe we might also understand chatat psychologically, as a way of externalizing the letting go of grudges we may be holding against ourselves for mistakes we have made, or ways we have fallen short. Because, often, it turns out that the people who we have the hardest time forgiving when wrongs have been done are ourselves (and this is especially true of Rabbis, who, though they are constantly being judged by their communities, are often, ultimately, their own harshest critics). The sacrifice of a bull in Vayikra, therefore, may be better understood as the sacrifice of an idea or judgment of ourselves as flawed, as failures, as people who make hurtful mistakes. Gunther Plaut put it best: “Ceremonial atonement for unwitting violations of the law was a psychologically sound procedure. People are often deeply disturbed if they cause harm by accident, ignorance or oversight [and] sacrifice relieved a troubled conscience.”

My mom, a surgeon, used to tell my father, a congregational Rabbi, that if he needed to make everyone happy all the time, and be universally loved, he’d chosen the wrong career.  Everyone makes mistakes, and no one can make everyone happy all the time. Not even Moses. (Not even God!) This is true. But what’s also true is that most Rabbis are born people pleasers. We go into this work because we love people, and want to serve them, and help them make meaning of their lives. When we fail – even in minor ways – in this holy work, there is no one harder on us than ourselves. When we miss a hospital visit, or forget a name, or give a less than stellar sermon or have to answer a question about Biblical history with “I don’t know.” It can sting, not just our egos, but our hearts.

And so how do we let go now that we don’t have sacrifices (or bulls, unless we live in Texas)? Might there be other ritual ways that we can – outside of Yom Kippur – forgive ourselves, let go of our mistakes, and bless ourselves with a blank slate? There are.

Here are a few ideas: what if, on a weekly or daily basis, at Shabbat services each week, or before we go to bed each night, we make a commitment to take 2 minutes to let ourselves – one last time –  go over the mistakes we’ve made, and then let them go.  Such that we make a habit each week of giving ourselves permission to just start over again. Such that we free ourselves from whatever burdens we have been carrying – whether it’s a disagreement with a loved one, or anger at ourselves for something as small as procrastination or as big as truly hurting someone (or ourselves) by acting negligently or thoughtlessly.

I believe this is one of the most powerful lessons of Vayikra: not just the obligation to sacrifice, to let go, but the blessing of it – and how, by letting one idea of ourselves go, we open ourselves up to becoming so much more. This is my blessing for all of you, my colleagues, this week. May you let something go, so that something new, and more beautiful, can take it’s place.

*(My daily insight meditation practice helps enormously with this – it teaches me over and over again, to let go.)

Rabbi Jordie Gerson serves Temple Emanu-el Beth Sholom in Montreal.