Parshat Ekev - 5779 - "Red Herring Judaism"

Parshat Ekev - 5779

“Red Herring Judaism”

Rabbi Shaanan Gelman and Rabbi Ariel Rackovsky

Rabbi Yaakov Bienenfeld, Rabbi of the Young Israel of Harrison in Westchester, is a legendary Rebbe who taught at the Ramaz Upper School for over two decades. A number of years ago, the students were awaiting a visit from a certain prominent Rebbe or Rosh Yeshiva in an Israeli Torah institution.  As a show of respect, a delegation of students was stationed by the door to greet the esteemed guest. The Rabbi - who was wearing slacks, a blue oxford and a kippah seruga, passed by the students unnoticed and headed immediately up to the office, to prepare for his address to the student body and for the interviews he was about to conduct for his post High School program. Meanwhile, at around the same time, another man showed up, with a long beard, flowing payos and a long frock coat and hat. Instantly, the students ushered him into the assembly and broke out into ecstatic song, אור זרוע לצדיק ולישרי לב שמחה! A group of boys began dancing around him as everyone rose to their feet as he entered the packed room. The man looked rather befuddled, and turned to Rabbi Bienenfeld, asking “Why are they dancing me in like this?” Rabbi Bienenfeld replied, “I don’t know! What brings you here?” The man said, “I’m here to restock the vending machine!”

What sort of assumptions and cultural conditioning lead to this kind of misunderstanding?

Perhaps the most misunderstood religious symbol from our time in the midbar is that miraculous bread which fell from the heavens - the מן.

According to the Torah, the man was not merely a spiritual phenomenon, but one with a very specific goal in mind - to test us:

דברים פרק ח

(ב) וְזָכַרְתָּ֣ אֶת־כָּל־הַדֶּ֗רֶךְ אֲשֶׁ֨ר הוֹלִֽיכֲךָ֜ יְקֹוָ֧ק אֱלֹהֶ֛יךָ זֶ֛ה אַרְבָּעִ֥ים שָׁנָ֖ה בַּמִּדְבָּ֑ר לְמַ֨עַן עַנֹּֽתְךָ֜ לְנַסֹּֽתְךָ֗ לָדַ֜עַת אֶת־אֲשֶׁ֧ר בִּֽלְבָבְךָ֛ הֲתִשְׁמֹ֥ר מצותו מִצְוֹתָ֖יו אִם־לֹֽא:

What kind of test is the man? The Gemara informs us that is was a magical food that tasted like whatever your heart desired, that it fell every day like clockwork and required no effort to obtain.  For this blessed period of forty years the Jewish children were not subject to the curse of בזעת אפך תאכל לחם - by the sweat of your brow shall you consume bread. If so, what is the meaning of לְמַ֨עַן עַנֹּֽתְךָ֜ לְנַסֹּֽתְךָ֗ ?  Where is the inuy, or deprivation, and the nisayon, the test, in that? How can the Torah possibly use the same word to describe the akeidah as it does to describe heavenly food?

The Ramban says that the ענוי was having to live with a new sort of food - one which was unfamiliar to them and their ancestors.

רמב"ן דברים פרק ח פסוק ג

(ג) וטעם אשר לא ידעת ולא ידעון אבתיך - כי לא ידעת במן שתוכלו לחיות בו ימים רבים, ולא הגיע אליכם כן בקבלה מאבותיכם.

The most comforting food a person can eat is food that reminds them of home-the kind of food that tends to feature prominently in eulogies. “Grandma  Muriel- she made the best noodle kugel! In her final moments she froze 12 pieces of kugel for each of her grandchildren to remember her...” However, man was a new food, a new reality, such that the Jewish people had no sense of its ability to sustain them. This was the test - to develop a relationship of Hashem in the absence of nostalgia and the empty symbolism food represented.  He wanted to bring us to a place in which we viewed food as a vehicle for faith, not as a value for life.

This presents us with an ironic challenge - for though everything we do is steeped in tradition and memory, there are moments in which maintaining a religious identity demands that we look past markers of cultural identification.  The very things we thought anchored us to community and the values of the previous generation may be detrimental to true faith.

The chassidishe vendor in our opening story was no doubt a God-fearing man trying to support his family honorably. In my high school, we’d have danced him in knowing that he was about to restock the potato chips! But the Ramaz students associated his appearance with Torah and a life of authentic religious commitment, so they assumed he must be the Rosh Yeshiva, and danced him in. When being “Jewish” is a matter of culture alone, and nothing more than connecting to roots, we run the risk of becoming superficially devout, or judging piety based on outward appearances. Not everything done “in the alta heim” is blessed and glorious.  We mustn't confuse antiquity with authenticity.  Remember the disgruntled tribes of Israel bone of contention with the man was:

ולא הגיע אליכם כן בקבלה מאבותיכם

They dismissed this new item because it didn’t give them that warm and fuzzy feeling.  Our sense of self and religious identity is so wrapped up in the past, that we forget to be עובדי ה in the process.

We are especially vulnerable to this mentality when it comes to food, because we have constructed outsized narratives of heritage through our relationship to it.  It makes us feel authentic and gives us a sense that through the food we eat, we are involved in an act of transcendence. This is why Kosher food instagrammers enjoy near celebrity status, and pages of frum publications feature increasingly elaborate recipes and ever more intricate and expensive table settings.  

Let me state unequivocally that I am the last person to criticize this. There is nothing wrong with delicious kosher food set on a beautiful table; quite the opposite- kosher food should be just as appealing as its treif counterpart, if not moreso.  But remember, that even our food is not merely a cultural feature but rather a religious one. For example, every Jewish ethnic group has some variant of an overnight Shabbos dish. For Ashkenazim it’s Cholent, Sephardim- Hamin, Yemenites have kubaneh and the list goes on. This is not because they ate it in some shtetel, but because of a comment of Rabbeinu Zerachya HaLevi (the Baal HaMeor) on Tractate Shabbos who explained that we are required to distance ourselves from the erroneous belief of the Karaites who felt that it was forbidden to enjoy any hot food on Shabbat. 

תקנת רבותינו היא לענג את השבת בחמין

 וכל מי שאינו אוכל חמין - צריך בדיקה אחריו אם הוא מין…

ולהזמין לבשל להטמין, ולענג את השבת ולהשמין -

הוא המאמין וזוכה לקץ הימין

To paraphrase:

Our Rabbis said Shabbos food must be served hot,

You might be a heretic if, in fact, it is not,

Prepare the food and gain a few pounds- or a lot,

And your eternal reward will be more than you thought

….

The reason cholent is a marker of a Jewish home is that Shabbos observance is a marker of a Jewish home!

A most fascinating example of peddling in tropes of authenticity is a recent delicious culinary craze to sweep the east coast and now available in the midwest - The Rebbe’s Choice Herring. This product line features half a dozen or so varieties of herrings and other appetizers,  each flavor inspired by a different Chassidishe Rebbe.

For example, there is the Herring of Kotzk, a honey mustard sriracha blend designed to evoke the fiery temperament of the Kotzker Rebbe,  or Sweet Black Pepper herring, named after Rav Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev. Not to be outdone, Flaum’s Fish started a similar line called the Herring of Volozhin, using the analytical terminology of Rav Chaim of Brisk:

“A Herring that is Gavra and Cheftza — uniting subject and object...”

This whole premise is laughable- a red herring, if you will.  Many of these Rebbes after whom the herring is named were spit poor, and probably never had herring. If they did, it definitely did not feature sriracha or Jalapeno. It was probably plain herring, served hastily between pogroms. The flames of conflict between Chassidic and the Lithuanian worlds are once again being fanned- this time in our digestive tracts.

The shame of it is that these glorious traditions and dynasties have so much to teach us that has nothing to do with food. Authenticity is gut-wrenching work, because it entails looking inward and becoming the type of person our symbols project.  Watching Shtisel and other Israeli programming is not a sufficient expression of Zionism, (although I do plan on offering a series in the fall exploring some of the Torah themes in this amazing show).

If you want to be inspired by R’ Zusha, it is not smokey Zaatar- it is praying with fervor and passion, without the distraction of a cell phone.  If you want a taste of Volozhin, look in a bookcase, not a refrigerator, and open a Nefesh HaChaim or the commentary of the Netziv. If you want to be inspired by Kotzk, work on uncompromising honesty with oneself and with others. If you wish to be inspired by R Levi Yitzchak, give every Jew the benefit of the doubt, no matter how they vote, where they daven, whether they wear a bekeshe or a blue oxford, and dance them into the room.