Parsha-Inspired Menus - Terumah

This week I was inspired by the very beginning of the parsha.

דַּבֵּר֙ אֶל־בְּנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל וְיִקְחוּ־לִ֖י תְּרוּמָ֑ה מֵאֵ֤ת כּל־אִישׁ֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר יִדְּבֶ֣נּוּ לִבּ֔וֹ תִּקְח֖וּ אֶת־תְּרוּמָתִֽי׃

Tell the Israelite people to bring Me gifts; you shall accept gifts for Me from every person whose heart is so moved.

This idea of gifts being given to God from the Israelites. After all God has done for them, it makes sense that they may want to give something in thanks. I believe that's why it says "whose heart is so moved." It's voluntary and it's based on their desire to show appreciation in a physical way, in addition to adherence to God's word. Rashi comments that these gifts are from their own possessions, something they are giving directly from themselves. God then goes on to describe the items that would be welcome: gold, silver, and copper; blue, purple, and crimson yarns, fine linen, goats’ hair; tanned ram skins, dolphin skins, and acacia wood; oil for lighting, spices for the anointing oil and for the aromatic incense; lapis lazuli and other stones for setting, for the ephod and for the breastpiece.

Now, one might think that if God is welcoming gifts from the heart that it wouldn't be "polite" to tell the people what you want. However, as a devotee of Wish Lists ever since the brilliance of a wedding registry (and then baby registries, chanukah and birthday wish lists), I would say that giving the gift giver some ideas of things that you would appreciate and welcome is actually a very good idea. The giver can still choose which item speaks to them, but they get the satisfaction of knowing it's something that's wanted. Of course, I can't make a dish for our meal of a wish list, so I had to keep looking.

I'm particularly excited to share that one of our Shabbat guests this week has been following along with this parsha-inspired menus adventure and when she accepted the invitation to dinner she then said "I checked parsha, it's teruma so how about I make a salad with the colors of the ephod, blue, gold, crimson, and purple. I was thinking red leaf lettuce, blueberries, some kind of goldish chips on top and either grapes or purple tomatoes." This makes me sooooo happy. So, we will have an Ephod salad as parsha-inspired menu item #1!

I decided it would be easy and delicious to work in the gold and silver in dessert, so I'll be making a chocolate sheet cake with mocha icing, decorating it like a gift box with icing and candy and using lots of gold and silver sprinkles.

For the last item on the menu, I need to go back to that list of items God requests because there are several interesting gifts, but one stood out to me - dolphin skins. In hebrew this word is תְּחָשִׁ֖ים (Tachshim) and "dolphin skins" is just one translation of it. Rashi says the Tachash was a kind of wild beast that only existed at the time of the Tabernacle, Ibn Ezra says it means seal skins. The Targum translate it into Aramaic as sasgona, which the Talmud says is related to the animal delighting in its many colors. The midrash says it was a large wild kosher animal that had a single horn, perhaps a unicorn. And when I shared all of these with my husband, he immediately said "single horn and seal skin...a narwhal!" Whatever translation or commentary is correct, it's interesting to think that this was something the Israelites just happened to have as one of their possessions as they fled Egypt and traveled in the desert.

This leads to the idea that sometimes you have things that may have been intended for one purpose, or you don't even know what purpose that might be and it turns out that it ultimately has a really important use. This is certainly the philosophy of my father's workshop (oh, we need rolling casters for this project, don't worry I saved them from an old piece of furniture a few years ago!) And finally, that leads me to the last dish. I am making Date Cous Cous Salad. I love this dish both because the dish itself is so versatile (can be a side or a vegetarian main, can be eaten room temp or warm, is easy to travel with for a potluck, is pretty quick to put together, and more) and how I came to make it. In 2001-2002 we were living in Israel and were invited to a Shabbat dinner. I decided to try a date cake (from the one cookbook I had with me.) It was meh...a little dry and not very exciting. But I had all of these leftover dates and as evidenced by my father's workshop we were a family that did not waste items if they could be made useful. So, I searched on the internet for another recipe to use dates and stumbled across this one. I loved it so much that it became one of our staples in Israel. I still use the hand-written recipe, on Israeli style lined paper (different size and with the guiding line on the other side), with drips and drops of food stuff on it. So, this recipe itself represents making unexpected good use of an item.