Shabbat Greetings

I read in an article that Chef Kwame Onwuachi shares that in rural Nigeria if you want a 10-piece chicken wing bucket, you have to raise five chickens.  I read this tidbit in an Epicurious.com blog and it made me think of a colleague whose younger son spent a year in Uganda, working on behalf of American Jewish World Service for an AIDS education initiative for high school students.  He lived in a small house with other volunteers and kept two chickens in the back yard for months, and he named one of the chickens “Nana” after his grandmother.  Unfortunately, his stay in Uganda was cut short because of violence associated with national elections and on the day before he was to leave, his housekeeper made him a big pot of chicken soup, ostensibly to mark the occasion.   Yikes – Ben ate Nana!

Eating and ethical behavior are two values connected to the Torah in this week’s portion, Eikev (Deuteronomy 7:12-11:25) which is, in fact, all about Moses warning the Israelites to obey God’s commandments if they wish to glean the rewards of rain in its season and fertile earth in the Promised Land.  This conditional theology might not kick in for us, but the real message behind all the warnings has more to do with what happens when we are rewarded, when we prosper, and when life is good – it’s exactly then that we need to avoid a sense of entitlement and haughtiness, and remember the have-nots of this world.  To demonstrate this seemingly self-evident inner awareness, we focus on the three quintessential words of our Torah portion that relate to eating:  v’achalta, v’savata, u’veirachta – you shall eat, you shall be satisfied, and then you shall bless.  Let’s take each of these words on its own merit:

V’achalta.  What goes into eating?  In an older religious school textbook, Legends of Our Living Past, the response focuses on a PB & J sandwich on white bread and its origins.  With prompts, the children eventually guess that the bread is purchased at the market; the market gets their bread from a bakery, which, in turn, procures the flour from a mill, who buys the wheat from a farmer, who harvests the crop because of ample sunshine and rain, that is the result of the conditions of earth, nature, and weather, all of whose origins remain a combo of science and mystery, the latter a nudge toward the Eternal, our Creator, who in this week’s Torah portion, is singularly responsible for all that grows upon the earth to nurture us.

However you understand the elements that come together to provide food for humanity, the imperative is to eat.  We cannot function or move forward without eating.  In the text, we are reminded of the importance of our physical selves and of the need to cultivate our bodies in order to develop a more fulfilled life, and in order to observe the mitzvot (commandments). The text states: A person being does not live on bread alone…” (8:3)  In the context of the Torah text and Moses’ third oration of guidance to the Israelites before he dies, the phrase is meant to convince the people that it is only God who decides to provide bread, or manna, or any food to the people, in the desert and when they arrive to the Promised Land.  In our day, we often interpret this phrase as a caveat that physicality and material goals are not enough and need to be balanced with a spiritual life of study and prayer.

Regarding the second of our tri-fecta, v’savata – eat your fill, that is, until you are sated, I invite you to think about what is enough. The rabbis earnestly argued about what quantity of food was large enough to warrant gratitude for a meal.  The answer is k’zayit (as much as an olive).  This constitutes the minimum of a meal.  We give thanks in our daily practice because everything is a gift – nothing is guaranteed.  Moreover, as we think of people for whom an olive’s worth of food is standard, we are motivated to address hunger and food scarcity wherever and among whomever it exists.  Thus, eating emerges not only as a action for individual survival, but an issue of equity and human rights.  Our obligation to perform mitzvot that helps others in need is reciprocal and holy, and specifically that which God demands of us – we need to reach out to others who may not be able to feed themselves, and the reward here is not conditional but assured – we will assuredly reap benefits from those we support and uplift.

This lead us to u’veirachta – and you shall bless.  It’s easy to offer a blessing before we eat when pangs of hunger draw us to our Divine provider to fill our bellies, but why do we have a very long after meal blessing – to keep us from taking life’s gifts for granted, from getting caught up in a sense of entitlement, from consigning ourselves to routine, and, as a positive, to cultivate gratitude, called hakarat hatov in Hebrew – recognition of the good that has been given to us. The first words we say each morning, Modeh Ani, “I thank you” – mean that we begin each day by giving thanks. Thanksgiving is as important to societies as it is to individuals.  Nations sitting down at a table to heal their divides has the same positive potential as individuals breaking bread together.

Jewish tradition is worried about what happens when we have a lot, more than we need.  I wonder if Nana and the other Ugandan chicken were shared with the housekeeper and her family.  I should like to think so. This is the ultimate ethical message of v’achalta, v’savata, u’veirachta. 

SHABBAT SHALOM