Don't get mad at me when I mention this, but Rosh Hashanah is not that far away. I hadn't noticed this in prior year readings of the parshiot, but there's a liturgical connection to the High Holiday season in this week's parsha. In Mattot, there's a lot of pasukim spent on vows and oaths - how important it is to fulfill them and who can annual this declaration. Making a vow or an oath is serious business. As King Solomon says in Ecclesiastes "When you make a vow to God, do not delay in fulfilling it. He has no pleasure in fools; fulfill your vow. It is better not to vow than to make a vow and not fulfill it. Do not let your mouth lead you into sin."
Since not fulfilling a vow or oath is really problematic, by the rabbinic period the Rabbis were strongly discouraging people from taking vows or oaths and there were rituals created to annual vows or clarifying that what was said wasn't a vow. We still do some of these rituals. Prior to Rosh
Hashanah, some people have the custom of performing a ritual known as Hatarat Nedarim, which brings the person in front of a beit din to release them from any statements that might be perceived as vows. The most famous ritual about vows is Kol Nidre, the first prayer of the Yom Kippur liturgy, which is actually a declaration of annuling vows. This is done right before the judgement period of Yom Kippur so you won't get "dinged" for not fulfilling a vow you made.
I found this really interesting to consider and wanted to find a food to bring up vows and oaths.
So, using the similar sounds what came to mind is OATS. I know you might be thinking, oats for dinner? And then I found savory oats! It's kind of like a rice bake or kugel, but
with oats instead.
Then for the second dish this week, I went a bit more literal. As the Israelites prepare to enter the land of Israel, the tribes of Gad & Reuven ask to live in the land across the Jordan, outside of Eretz Yisrael. The Torah tells us that they own lots of cattle and the land they wanted was well suited to cattle. So, for family/economic reasons, they are not looking for assigned area in the Promised Land. Importantly, they promise to first help conquer the land, so it's not that they remove themselves from the grand mission of bringing the Israelites to the land God promised. With all this talk of cattle, it kind of has to be a beef dinner. I'm thinking beef kabobs for summer!
Shabbat Shalom & B'Tayavon
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