If you're just totally done with cooking after Rosh Hashanah....I hear you. For 2 of the last 3 days, I've spent the vast majority of my waking hours in the kitchen. It was almost to the point that I was going to skip this week's #parshainspiredmenus. But, I just couldn't. So, here are two ideas for parsha inspired foods that are also fully aware of how tired you might be.
When I first read through Ha'Azinu at mincha this past week, the first two lines caught my attention. Right before Moshe launches into this beautiful poem/speen in the penultimate parsha, he sets his intention and hope for the impact of his words.
Give ear, O heavens, let me speak;
Let the earth hear the words I utter!
May my discourse come down as the rain,
My speech distill as the dew,
Like showers on young growth,
Like droplets on the grass.
Probably because I have the High Holidays on my mind, I saw this as comparable to the Hineni prayer that the cantor sings where he or she sets an intention of the prayer, asking for the prayer to be successful in its goals. Moshe is saying, "I really hope that these words hit right and land
right, where they help the people to hear them to flourish." I want a chance to talk about this at the Shabbat table and to make something that's easy, so I focused on the "young growth" of plants and decided on Baby Spinach! I want the baby spinach to be visible, so nothing cooked. Rather a simple baby spinach salad should get the point across and be a nice, fresh addition to whatever leftovers you're having for dinner.
Later in the parsha (in the positive section), there's a description of how God treated the people of Israel when they were behaving properly.
God alone did guide them,
No alien god alongside.
[God] set them atop the highlands,
To feast on the yield of the earth;
Nursing them with honey from the crag,
And oil from the flinty rock,
There's also some not-so-nice descriptions for the opposite behavior, but in the spirit of positivity and in hopes that it's inspiring for our behavior in the next year, let's focus on the good. Obviously, there's been a lot of honey in our meals of late, so the mention that God will nurse the people with "honey from the crag" brought to mind a bunch of food. This idea that God is providing something that should not exist is very powerful. At first glance, it might not feel familiar, but when we think deeper we can see God's hand in what we recieve. There's a delicous honey/apple sauce cake that I highly recommend trying (either for shabbat or the high holidays.) So, check out this Old Fashioned Oatmeal Honey Cake.
Shabbat Shalom & B'Tayavon!
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