Noah is one of those parshas where you really feel like you know the story. I mean, we've heard children's songs ("God said to Noah, there's gonna be a floody, floody" and The Wiggles' classic
"...Uncle Noah built himself an Ark, (Now that's a boat folks)"), read children's stories, had multiple pieces of artwork gifted to us for the children's room, and so on, and so on. Of course, that doesn't stop me from finding fun ways to bring the parsha to life with Parsha Inspired Menus.
The first dish is actually a repeat, but I liked it so much I want to do it again. It's easy, good for you, visually appealing and doesn't take much in the way of explanation. It's Deconstructed Rainbow Salad. All you do is line up a veggie or two of each color on a tray so it looks like rainbow. Guests then make their own salad by taking a bit of each color and mixing it up on their own plate.
The second dish is another vegetable for the meal. I was thinking about the Tower of Babel and the concept of building a really tall tower and why they did it. The text tells us "Come, let us build us a city, and a tower with its top in the sky, to make a name for ourselves; else we shall be scattered all over the world.” Was it an exaggeration that they wanted to build up to the sky? Was it to be able to commune closer with God? Could it be self-promotion? Or, as Chizkuni suggest, is it protection? "פן נפוץ, “lest we scatter.” They were afraid that war might break out among them, assuming there were competing nations or human beings in distant areas unknown to them. At any rate, they realised that strength lay in numbers and in visibility over vast distances, such as the top of a tower that can be seen from afar." While stacking cups or other objects could make a fun tower, I thought the best thing might be asparagus...a tall this tower like shape with a short of turret structure on top. My suggestion is for a simple asparagus, such as roasted with garlic, salt, pepper, oil and lemon juice (Roast at 425 for about 10 mins.)
Finally, I did find one new question that caught my eye. So, continuing the lyrics from the first song I mentioned "The animals, the animals, They came in by twosie, twosies..." But here's the thing, after that first command from God - "From all that lives, of all flesh, two of each you shall bring into the ark..." there's ANOTHER command and this one is a bit different..."Of every pure
animal you shall take seven pairs, males and their mates, and of every animal that is not pure, two, a male and its mate;" 7 of each! Now, here's where it gets interesting when I read it this year. HOW DID NOAH KNOW WHICH WERE CLEAN AND UNCLEAN?!?!?! The laws of kashrut come much later in the Torah? This can be answered by the the concept "Ein mukdam u'me'uchar baTorah/there is no earlier or later in the Torah," but that's kind of unsatisfying. Other commentators say that God must have instructed Noah about which was which is a converation that happened "off-stage," i.e. not in the text. You can also see that there was some information shared about which animals could be sacrified to God because Abel sacrificed to God in Parshat Bereshit. But it's interesting and I can't wait to hear other ideas from my Shabbat guests. So, to bring this up I wanted something with 7 and decided to do 7 different types of appetizers. I'm taking the easy road with 4 of them by buying an appetizer party pack (mini potato knish, cocktail hot dogs, beef/onion/mushroom turnover, and spinach turnover), then adding in home-made deviled eggs, tuscan bean dip with tortilla chips, and matbucha.
Shabbat Shalom & B'Tayavon!
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