The lettering on the parchment of a Torah is often beautiful, sometimes can be hard to read, and sometimes adds an extra layer of meaning. In this week's parsha, there's a special letter.
In Vayikra 11:42, the letter Vav of the word 'Gachon' is the middle letter of the Torah. The B'raita in Sofrim (9:2) states that for this reason the Vav of 'Gachon' is written larger than normal size -- to highlight its special position. You might expect that this word itself would be especially meaningful. Actually, it's the word for belly, as in
Every creeping creature which crawls on the ground is repulsive, it may not be eaten.
Whatever crawls on its belly and whatever goes on four [legs] or whatever has many feet; regarding all creeping creatures that crawl on the ground; you may not eat them, for they are repulsive.
The Etz Hayim chumash had an interesting commentary on this big vav that says it is a person's ability to stand up straight that differentiates it from the things that crawl on the ground and "there is something repugnant about a person who crawls instead of standing up for what he or she believes, foregoing the unique upright posture of a home being which is symbolized by the enlarged letter vav." Standing up for what you believe can be challenging, but it's worth it.
So, I want to make a food that stands up. I decided on these sweet potato stacks. They are made dairy with butter and parmesan, but you can sub margarine and skip the parmesan. This week I have decided to have a fully dairy dinner though (it's a necessity for the dessert planned,) so I will do the recipe as is.
Fire is a big theme in the parsha, as it's both the way the mizbeach (altar) is dedicated and there is a "strange fire" brought by Nadav and Avihu (Aaron's sons) and then "A fire came forth from before Adonoy and consumed them, and they died in the presence of Adonoy." There's so much to talk about the "why's" of this story of Aaron's sons and the juxtaposition of the holy use of the fire and the destructive death caused by it. To highlight fire, I initially thought to make something red
and then did a little research and remembered that some asian cultures think of all foods in fire categories, one of which is fire. Some fire element ingredients are spices like Ginger, Cloves, Cinnamon, And Cumin. So, I combined the two ideas - red and "fire spices" and found this Tomato Carrot Ginger Soup.
Finally, this parsha has an extensive set of rules regarding kashrut - what you can eat and can't eat. Of course, our whole dinner is kosher so I could have left it at that, but I always find it interesting that there are some things listed as kosher that we just don't eat. For example - grasshoppers. "As the Talmud tells us, there are 800 non-kosher species of grasshoppers and locusts, and there are only eight that are kosher. Since, for the most part, we are no longer able to ascertain which species of locusts are kosher, we refrain from eating any locusts." For more on why we don't eat grasshoppers, check out this article. But this week my family will eat grasshopper...well, Grasshopper Pie!
Shabbat Shalom & B'Tayavon!
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