MegilLA: The Cheesy Shavuot Issue
May 16, 2021
Folks,
Rockets are again flying over Israel, bombs are landing in Gaza. Things are exploding, people are dying, and it’s Shavuot: a time when we pause to celebrate Matan Torah, the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai. (As illustrated in the above 1960s poster published by Jewish National Fund.) Israel, on the edge of war, has our attention now. Can a holiday about receiving wisdom and justice move beyond our set ideologies to alter our feelings about the events of the day? In the Amidah, we are reminded that peace is a gift. On this holiday, are we even prepared to give it? Or, receive it? When missile trails and explosions fill our eyes, ears and thoughts it is hard to hear the prophet Isaiah’s words “nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore,” but these idealistic words are Torah too. Study may be a path to peace. This Shavuot, amidst the rising rhetoric, and detonations, after the cheesecake and during the study sessions, we can open our books, heads and hearts to these sweet words of Psalm 34: “Seek peace, and pursue it.”
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Chag Sameach.
Edmon J. Rodman
GUIDE FOR THE JEWPLEXED
Will annoying guest leave at the coming of Shavuot?
By Edmon J. Rodman
Think carefully before inviting a prophet into your home. Elijah has been at my house since Pesach and I can't get him to leave. Do I mean that the maker of miracles, the prophet of consolation and peace we invite into our homes every Passover is a lousy houseguest?
My head is moving up and down like a bobblehead doll.
It all began at the end of the seder. The cup was filled. Benzi, one of my sons opened the front door. Everyone rose. As a custom, it is a family prank for someone to bump a table leg, jiggle Elijah’s cup, and excite the children. But tonight, the joke is on us, we get totally punked.
For after the front door is opened and everyone rises--in strolls Elijah with a burlap bag slung over his shoulder and a single word printed on his mask: "HaNaVee," “The Prophet.” OMG, he’s here, the man from the song in the back of the hagaddah—“Hatishbee,” the Tishbite from Gilead--the taker of a million sweetened seder sips.
Ha. Ha. Ha. #Annoyingguest. What a close to our seder. Everyone laughs and leaves. My family and friends think this is really funny--a Hollywood la-la-land set-up. "What a joker, Ed," says my cousin Aaron, as he leaves. “Next year in Jerusalem…and, ahh, stop abusing out of work actors.”
The seder is over but Elijah stays. He has arrived with no advance warning; though technically speaking, we did invite him in. He carries no luggage—all that seder wine in strange households and not even a toothbrush.
So how do I know he's the real thing? Is it his wings? Nah. This is L.A. — the City of Angels, wings are everywhere. But, here’s the giveaway— during the Counting of the Omer, no one but a prophet would travel with his own sack of barley, you know, omer?
"Plan on doing your own cooking?" I ask.
He nods.
“Maybe he’s an old friend?” asks my wife, who though exhausted seems intrigued. “Maybe he’s one of your old UCLA Jewish Radical pals?”
He yawns, puts down his sack, and crashes on the sofa. Before we even have a chance to clean the matzah crumbs off the pillow, he’s asleep.
Though the Torah tells us to welcome the stranger, it gives no advice about welcoming the strange. What were we to do?
Anyway, that was two Covid-19 vaccine shots at the CVS, and six long weeks ago. Now we’re approaching erev Shavuot, and he's still here—like the final contestant in some reality show—Prophet in the House.
His days are spent in all manner of prophetic business: frying barley for breakfast (not bad, by the way, with a little salsa), leafleting my neighbors, using chalk to scribble words in Aramaic on my neighborhood’s sidewalks, tightening the knots on my tallis, and crashing every bris in town (he claims he was invited).
Right now, as I write this, he's in the kitchen marking up our wall calendar, pushing us into a life of activism; filling the dates with rally’s, speeches and campaigns. Such a Maven University graduate, this prophet. But just ask him something useful, like a prediction on the teams in this year’s World Series, and mums the word.
To be done with him, just before Lag B'Omer, I called the board of rabbis, thinking, maybe they could find him a job. “What congregations has he worked for?" I was asked.
The Jewish Vocational Service had another idea--retraining the prophet as a Wall Street prognosticator, except he wanted every Jewish holiday off.
What should I make of this visitation? If the days between Pesach and Shavuot are about introspection, can’t I “introspect” on my own? Elijah, dude, we connect several times a year with candles and wine, isn’t that enough? I really don’t need the help. This Jewish “Cat in the Hat” act has got to end. And stop shaking my spice box!
If this is a reality show, it has become too real. Who is the contestant? Him or me? Please, how do I get him to leave? Wait till next Pesach? Maybe I can get him a gig at one of the Florida Passover resorts.
Does someone else need a guide? Is there a category on Craig’s List? "Maven and Barley Chef. " Or, “Spiritual Teacher." Travels light, and has own transportation. (Legend has it that with four flaps of his wings he can traverse the world.)
Why has he been parked on my couch for almost seven weeks? Was it something I said? Did? Didn’t do? Or just something I ate? I promise, I will never daydream through another haftarah.
My only hope is that as the sun sets into Shavuot, he's down to his last omer. And as I said at the beginning, think carefully before inviting a prophet into your home; unless you are truly ready to have him stay.
SAY CHEESE....
A return to Eden can help Israel
At a moment when many MegilLA readers are wondering what they can do to support Israel, the holiday of Shavuot and its emphasis on dairy foods presents an opportunity. Since February, the Sprouts supermarket chain has been selling a brand of Feta cheese made in Israel.
Called “Pastures of Eden,” the cheese had been available in Trader Joe's until 2019.
The product is a Balkan style Feta cheese made from 100 percent sheep’s milk, produced by the Israel Sheep & Goats Breeders Association, an umbrella organization for 200 sheep and goat farms located throughout Israel.
According to the Israel Dairy School, “Sheep farming in Israel is some of the most productive in the world, with carefully developed breeds of Asaf sheep that produce high quantities of milk.”
Described by its makers as “better than French and Greek Feta in both taste and texture,” Pastures of Eden Feta, has a creamy texture, and is less salty than French Feta. it works well in a Greek salad.
Available in seven-ounce packages, the Feta is also certified as kosher by the Orthodox Union.
There are many reasons for why dairy products are eaten on Shavuot. Deriving the custom from the Torah, some hold that we eat dairy to symbolize a promised “land flowing with milk and honey.” Others look to the verse from Song of Songs: “Milk and honey are under your tongue.”
Pastures of Eden, available at many Sprouts LA locations, can also be purchased HERE.
...AND CRACKERS
If you lived in Los Angeles in the early 1900s, a box of soda crackers (to serve with some cheese, see above) would have been a staple in your cupboard. Bellcrescent Sodas were produced in LA by Kahn-Beck, a company started by John Kahn, a Jewish businessman.
Kahn, born in New York in 1861, moved here from Oakland around 1889. Along with his partner Jakob Beck, Kahn also produced macaroni, cookies, candy, and in 1908, both one-and five-pound packages of matzos for Passover.
Kahn, well-known in the Jewish community for his philanthropy, served as president of the Jewish Orphans’ Home of Southern California. After his death in 1919, The John Kahn Free Educational Institute, an adult educational school under Jewish auspices, was created in his memory in 1926.
Seen On the Way: Exposition Park
After being cooped up for more than a year, a stroll through the Exposition Park Rose Garden, as I found the week before Shavuot, can be a true source of inspiration.
Shavuot has long had an association with flowers, especially roses. Originally celebrated as more of an agricultural holiday than today’s emphasis on Matan Torah, the giving of the Torah, Shavuot was observed as the harvest of the first fruits. Synagogues would decorate with baskets of fruit, and even green branches from trees as well as grasses and flowers.
In Eastern Europe in the 18th century, perhaps as a result of the Vilna Gaon’s objection to these customs due to their similarity to non-Jewish rituals, paper window hangings with cutouts called raizelach, literally little roses (from the Yiddish raizel, rose) developed as a replacement for flowers.
Yet, in the Rose Garden, the two aspects of the holiday can merge. Walking through the garden, harvesting with my nose and eyes the different scents and colors, was for a moment like standing at Sinai: a place of beauty where I could receive a moment of awe.
Your wonderful writing has once again made me laugh! Thank you so much for your wit, knowledge, great way of expressing your thoughts, and just being you.