From Honolulu to New York to Jersualem

This has been my first blog entry in almost 5 months. Do not greet this entry with much anticipation. I will not be writing about pareve deserts. But, for the record I have since made 2 pareve desserts (muddy buddies and peanut butter balls), and pareve mashed potatoes with soy milk. I will try to make non-dairy cinnamon rolls for Joshua's birthday this weekend. I was recently navigating the Chabad website for reasons that will be clear in a few months. And stumbled across the biography for Rachel Factor. A Hawaii girl, that converted to Orthodox Judaism and now living in Jerusalem. This is not the first time I have heard of Rachel Factor. I went out for kosher Indian food with some friends from Derekh Torah a couple of months ago. My friend Avner brought a recent article from the Jewish Exponent with an article on the "Rachel Factor" story. It is amazing to me that a girl from Hawaii would make such a radical transformation, tznuit and all. Needless to say, she will be my next best friend.

Check her out!-http://www.chabad.org/theJewishWoman/article_cdo/aid/571325/jewish/Rachel-Factor.htm

MATZO CRAZY

Due to the slight Jew-bashing my blog has taken as of late, this blog will be light hearted and extremely Jew-friendly. Joshua recently returned from the jungles of Colombia. After a battle with a tropical mosquito-transmitted disease and a trip to the emergency room, I decided to take on the role of the Jewish mother and attempt to make matzo ball soup. After hearing numerous "matzo" disaster stories, I was (for lack of a better word) nervous about attempting to create the infamous Jewish penicillin. Honestly, I think I am just weary about anything involving yeast, ie. my fear that the challah I made would take over the entire space of my apartment. In truth, Matzo ball soup is as easy as pie. Also, I guess making matzo ball soup from the box is like making pie with ready made crust and filling. Next culinary adventure: parve desserts.

Black is the new black

Lets talk hats. Thanks to the stealth capability of my camera phone, I captured this photo near Union Square on a rainy New York afernoon. Chabad conducts its "outreach" initiatives all over the city, this includes passing around lulavs during Sukkot, catechizing secular jewish men to wrap tefillin on Shabbat, etc. Each hat tells a story. The trained eye can tell a lot about an individual based on the cut of their hat, including their branch within the Hasidic movement and what part of Europe their ancestors hailed from. To me they all look the same. 

I once read that one shtreimel (not pictured) can take up to 400 tails of various breeds of questionably-kosher animals including minks, sables and foxes. It is literally the scrap of the fur industry.  A shtreimel can range anywhere from $2000 to $4500. Yikes, I hope you can get shtreimel hat insurance! Imagine having a 400+ assortment of these guys on your head: 

Alright so I added an otter for dramatic effect, sue me.  

What's the beef with spam?

Spam- not the idiom for unsolicited junk mail unworthy of our glorious inbox.

If a gentile, were to theoretically walk into L&L (Hawaiian BBQ spot- coincidentally two blocks from my office in the financial district) and orders two spam musubis (my personal favorite), he/she is simply ordering lunch. But if a Jew (or rather, a prospective convert) were to do the same thing, he/she is making a theological statement by blantantly disobeying kashrut. The act of eating is more than a mere act of sustenance. It brings awareness to our ability to be the "superior species" and eat only those which are deemed appropriate. I argue this, couldn't spam (or pork in general) be eaten in order to recreate that same level of awareness? For me, and many other Hawaii residents / transplants to the mainland, the act of ordering and consuming spam musubis transcends time and space. Spam reminds me of my mother. My mom usually lets my dad take care of the food department. Regardless, my mom still makes the best spam musubis. She would make it for special occasions, ie field trips to the beach. For me, spam musubis remind me of simpler times. When I didn't care how much sand was mixed into my musubi. What I cared about was knowing that my mother had sacrificed precious hours of sleep in order to loving make me something special.

Bottom line: If I can see and acknowledge the creator's hand in foods (and also humble memories of my Hawaii childhood) deemed not kosher, then I don't see a problem with eating treif. Furthermore, in an anatomy and physiology class in high school, I dissected a baby pig. I know baby pigs look like puppies. Yet I still choose to eat pork. I realize the inherent hypocrisy, but at least I have made a conscious decision. Why should I have to reconcile the tension between eating spam (or the more difficult, bacon!) and living a meaningful Jewish life? This argument goes beyond the issue of kashrut, but addresses the degree to which people subscribe to religious ideology and how it conflicts with previously held beliefs. If Judaism prides itself on being a religious, social and cultural movement that evolves in accordance with time, and with the needs of its people, this should include those with different dietary concerns. Maybe I am just being radical, but at least I have some friends out there in cyber space who understand!

A Jewish holiday for every pathology

The Alcoholic - Purim (debatable) 

The Pyromanic- Lag B'Omer and Hannukkah 

The Agroaphobiac - Sukkot 

The Anorexic- All the fast holidays 

The Glutton- Pilgrimage and Harvest Holidays (namely Passover) 

The Obsessive Complusive- Judaism 

More to come! 

The Red Tent

The Red Tent by Anita Diamant is the story of Dinah, a tragic (and relatively obscure) character in the bible. Through Diamant's writing, the story of Dinah is made accessible and strangely familiar to a modern audience. The Red Tent is more than a resting place for menstruating women. The Red Tent is about renewal of the body and spirit. It is a celebration of womanhood. Biblically, a woman's cycle is attributed to the lunar calendar. We are indeed creatures of the moon. We wax and wane. Some days we feel uplifted, others we feel deflated. It accounts for the spectrum of emotions that defines what it is to be female. It is interesting that in a religion very much grounded on the actions and words of men, lineage is traced through the women. Diamant refers to the coy actions of women in the Bible (particularly Sarah and Rebecca's influence in determining which son should receive the blessing of his father,) as markers that significantly shaped the Jewish story. They say that behind every strong man, there is an even stronger woman. I think those words still hold both merit and truth in our reality. 

I will end with how Diamant beautifully closed the book (major spoiler alert):

"In Egypt, I loved the perfume of the lotus. A flower would bloom in the pool at dawn, filling the entire garden with a blue musk so powerful it seemed that even the fish and ducks would swoon. By night, the flower might wither but the perfume lasted. Fainter and fainter, but never quite gone. Even many days later, the lotus remained in the garden. Months would pass and a bee would alight near the spot where the lotus had blossomed. Egypt loved the lotus because it never dies. It is the same for people who are loved. Thus can something as insignificant as a name-two syllables, one high, one sweet- summon up the innumerable smiles and tears, sighs and dreams of a human life.

If you sit on the bank of a river, you see only a small part of its surface. And yet, the water before your eyes is proof of the unknowable depths. My heart brims with thanks for the kindness you have showed me by sitting on the bank of the river, by visiting the echoes of my name. Blessings on your eyes and on your children. Blessings on the ground beneath you. Whereever you walk, I go with you. Selah."

I've recommended this book to everyone in my life. I will be giving it to my mother for that convenient Hallmark holiday that is two weeks away. And I promise my next blog will not be so feminist in prose.

Holla for Challah

(Trust me, I am working on originality.)

This friday I attempted to make challah for the first time. In the Jewish mind, challah-making for girls is equivalent to wrapping tefillin for boys (see image.) It is a rite of passage, an ancient tradition that is transferred from one generation to the next. Also, both rituals (challah-making and wrapping tefillin) are sometimes used as a "recruiting" mechanisms for jews on the fringes. This phenomenon can be explained in one word: Chabad (the Starbucks of Orthodox Judaism- a topic to be discussed in an upcoming blog.)

The internet served as the surrogate jewish-mother-i-never-had (let it be known, that my mother is an absolutely wonderful and fabulous woman.) I used a recipe online and consulted youtube when it was time to braid the challah. I feel as though I am channeling some Julie & Julia vibes, and for that I am sorry. I am strictly a from-the-box-or-can girl (cereal, golden curry and pasta is my domain.) It was the first time I attempted to conjure an edible item from scratch. The challah making process began Thursday afternoon when embarked on a search for yeast. I have never bought yeast before, so can someone out there in cyber space please tell me the difference between rapid rise and active dry yeast? Aren't those terms synonymous? I mistakenly used self-rising flour instead of all-purpose flour (whoops.) For this reason, I was nervous to let the dough sit for an hour and a half, fearing that it would rise beyond the confines of the bowl, make its way onto the table, and eventually engulf my entire apartment. I would return to an apartment full of dough (which is one of my secret dreams, which I have now made public.) I think I've seen patch adams one too many times. All in all, challah making was relatively problem free. I'm looking forward to baking more challah. Next time I will experiment with craisins and herbs/spices.


These are my loaves after they came out of the oven. On the left is the three braided loaf, and on the right is the six-braided loaf. Each time I make challah, I am going to braid them in the next multiple of three i.e. next time 9, 12, 15, 18, 21 ... until finally it takes over the world.




And for all those who ask why the spheres of prayer and domestic obligation are separated according to gender, I give you this. Look out conservative movement for Rosie the Tefillin Wearer, coming to a synagogue near you!