Parashat Miketz

Corn for Carnivores

This week's entry is "katzar v'lainyan," short and to the point. I apologize for the brevity: Somehow it is harder to do my parashah study and planning when my kids are home... Go figure! Bli neder, I will be back on track with richer stuff for next week.

By the way, if you are coming to our house for a shabbat meal, please stop reading here!

Parashat Miketz retells the story of Yosef's successful interpretation of Pharaoh's dreams, his consequent ascension to power in Egyptian court, and his initial reconnection to his brothers who journey to Egypt in search of rations during a famine.

Yosef rises to power when he successfully explains God's plans for Egypt as envisioned by Pharaoh in two dreams of fat and skinny cows and plump and withered corn. These dreams are the centerpieces of our menu for Shabbat dinner. We are going to feed our guests as if we were living during the seven fat and plentiful years: lots of corn and lots of meat! (wild rice and corn chowder, corn fritters/latkes, roasted squash and corn, popcorn cauliflower, beef roast, and a cornmeal cake for dessert)

After dinner, we will present each guest with a goody bag/Chanukah gift. In one bad, we will hide a small cup... and thereby launch a parashat hashavua discussion.

If I had the guts, I would serve a leaner meal for lunch (maybe even milchigs) and then have "skinny cow" brand ice cream sandwiches for dessert, but we are having company who like their meat, so I am still thinking about lunch. I would love to do something that ties in with Yosef's accusation of his brothers as spies and Yosef's hiding his tears from his siblings. I guess I have a few hours until morning to keep thinking!

On a side note, if you click below and then scroll down to the bottom of the page you will find:
a short d'var Torah that explains the connection between the Yosef story and the Chanukah story .

Have a very happy rest of Chanukah and a Shabbat Shalom!

© Tammie Rapps 2008

Parashat Vayeshev

Colorful Coats and Dreams

There is tremendous pressure on me this week of Parashat Vayeshev. This is the parashah that my fourth grader has been learning in school this year with her rebbe. She knows all of perek 37 by heart and has a good chunk of perek 39 committed to memory. (Understandably, the rebbe glossed over perek 38, the Tamar and Yehudah story, with the vaguest of summaries.) The class has been delving into the peshat (literal) and rabbinic interpretations of the text of the Yosef story, so I have a real expert on my hands! She is so excited about this week!

For starters, the image that will dominate the décor of the table will be the special coat that Yaakov gave to his son Yosef. We have a beautiful, bright striped tablecloth that will make a striking setting for the table. Of course, there are discussion among the commentaries as to the nature and appearance of this coat, but we’ll stick with the most literal at this point. (Nonetheless, I do wonder if the striped woolen garment that Rashi describes as the coat is an allusion to tzitzit/a tallit... Hmmmm.) The kids (and grown-ups) will also be wearing the most colorful striped clothing they have. During dinner, we will definitely talk about the coat and consider why Yaakov gave it to Yosef, even though Yosef’s brothers might (and had) become very jealous. For a more popular culture twist, I am working in fitting some of the zemirot we sing to tunes from “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,” a score our family knows quite well.

Dreams will play the greatest role in our menu. Each place setting will be set with a goblet of grape juice and an individual roll. The grape juice goblets will have a plastic fly in each and the rolls will have a raisin—I don’t think a rock will do—stuck inside each one. These items, reminiscent of the sar hamashkim (sommelier) and sar haofim’s (baker) dreams, will hopefully set the stage for a discussion of Yosef as one who understands God’s messages sent through dreams. I would like our kids to think about how Yosef inherited his understanding of how to analyze dreams from the experiences of his father. While Yosef’s brothers might have thought initially that his dreams were delusions of grandeur, they and Yaakov Avinu come to realize that the dreams are actually expressions of nevuah (prophecy), as evident in the fact that the motifs of the dreams are repeated/doubled.

To further the dream representation on the table, I am going to repurpose one of my ideas from last week and create sheaves of wheat out of carrots stick bunches tied with scallion. For Yosef’s bundle, I will use string beans tied similarly, but that bundle will be grander and larger, and positioned differently on the serving dish. For Yosef’s second dream that he reports to his siblings, I will once again pull out my star shaped baking pan for eleven star shaped muffins to accompany a squash sunshine and mashed potato moon (see Parashat Bereishit).

We will also highlight the darker parts of the parashah—Yosef’s time in the pit and his brother’s elaborate scheme to make Yaakov think that Yosef had met his demise at the mouth of a wild beast. To remind us of the pit, we will make a dish that is a pun on the Hebrew text describing the pit. (My fourth grader and I thought of this several weeks ago when she had to read the verse and the accompanying Rashi over and over for homework one night.) The Torah says that the pit was empty; it contained no water, “Ve’ha’bor rek, ain bo mayim.”) If you say “bor rek” (the pit was empty) many times in a row, it begins to sound like borek or borekas, so we have to have those at Shabbat dinner (and there will be no mayim in our borekas!) For the main course, I will serve several bowls of dipping sauces and have strips of food (meat, chicken, vegetables, etc.) that can be drenched in the red sauces.

And that will be this year’s rendering of Parashat Vayeshev!

Shabbat Shalom!

© Tammie Rapps 2008

Parashat Vayishlach

This week's post will be much shorter than usual. I don't know if I am facing creative difficulties for this week because we will not be home for our shabbat meals so I am not as motivated to think, or because the subject matter in this parashah is pretty intense and complex: Yaakov and Esav's tense reunion, Yaakov's nocturnal battle with the angel and his subsequent name change, the violation of Dina and the subsequent massacre in Shechem, Rachel's death, and Reuven's questionable actions in Bilhah's tent. None of these topics make for really light, fun, colorful, or even age-appropriate additions to the shabbat table.

But, because I have made a commitment to myself to try to do the ENTIRE year of parashah, here's a lame (o.k., maybe that's the tie-in!) attempt, that I hope will gain strength next year:

When Yaakov realizes that he is about to encounter Esav whom he had not seen in decades since angering him upon receiving Yitzchak's blessing, the younger brother prepares for the meeting in three ways. He sends gifts to Esav in an attempt at diplomacy, he prays to Hashem, and he divides his camp as preparation for battle. This three-pronged approach to combating an enemy is the paradigm that the Jewish People has often followed (see Megillat Esther, for example). I think that the first approach, diplomacy, lends itself nicely to the table. I would wrap three large boxes and use them as the centerpiece for the meal. Under one would be small gifts for every guest, under the second would be birchonim, and under the third would be toy soldiers. During the meal we would discuss why using diplomacy should be the first communication between enemies. We would try to bring the conversation down to a micro level and talk about interpersonal relationships in the house and how Yaakov's example could help us in our own interactions at home.

As for other parts of the parashah, the only other section I would highlight would be Yaakov's wrestling with the angel. Angel food cake could cover that (as rump roasts aren't kosher!). We would certainly talk about why the Torah states that the violation for eating the gid hanasheh, the sciatic nerve, is Jewish law even until today (when the Torah does not make similar assertions for other mitzvot).

Once more I will ask for you to send any amazing (or even lame) ideas for this parashah. I clearly need to revisit this one for next year!

One more note: a dear friend who has been working on recipes for each parashah suggested making small packages or bundles (puff pastry? vegetables ties up with scallion?) to represent the "pachim ketanim," little bundles that Yaakov forgot on the banks of the river; it was those baskets that he went alone to retrieve when he met up with the belligerent angel.

Have a shabbat shalom!

© Tammie Rapps 2008

Parashat Vayeitzei

Stones, Sons, and Speckles

Because we are all a bit under the weather, this Shabbat will be low key for us—no company and no invitations out. Therefore, in this blog-entry, I will recount what I am doing this Shabbat just for us, and what I could envision doing had we opted for company this week.

Parashat Vayeitzei overflows with amazing images and possibilities for the Shabbat table. For Friday night, we will focus on the first episode in the parashah: Yaakov’s amazing dream of a ladder filled with ascending and descending angels. For no good reason, other than to make the ladders, we are having an Asian meal this evening. Let me explain: I’ve taken chopsticks and tied ribbon rings/rungs around them to create a ladder and then I slipped a cut-out of an angel (although probably not an image of “our” angels—an excellent point of discussion, by the way: How do we understand and envision the angels in Yaakov’s dream, the angels who escort us home on Friday nights from shul, and any other instance of angels from Jewish tradition?) as the place card. These ladder place-settings will appear at every seat. For dinner, I have steamed asparagus and carrot sticks that I will form into a ladder on a tray and I will drape it with angel-hair pasta. As another reference to the story, we will eat steamed dumplings, which could certainly remind us of the stones that Yaakov put under his head. For dessert, the kids can make their own ladders out of licorice and pretzel rods. During the course of the meal, we plan to talk about angels (as mentioned above), tefillah (because this is when Yaakov davened tefillat aravit and instituted the evening prayer service), and images of ladders (why did Yaakov dream of a ladder reaching to the heavens? What does the ladder symbolize, etc.?).

Shabbat lunch will be a celebration of the 12 children born to Yaakov this parashah. The table will be set with baby bottles, 11 “it’s a boy” and 1 “it’s a girl” signs, pretend pacifiers, and the like. The meal itself won’t really reflect the parashah. Rather the décor and activities/discussions will. I’ve created a simple matching game in which players turn cards over to match the right child with the correct mother. Next year, I hope to add the traditional images associated with each of the shevatim to the cards so each match will have three cards! If we were to have company, I would like to put hidden namecards under each plate and have each person at the table assume the identity of one of Yaakov's children. Everyone at the table would have to guess the identity of everyone. I would also attempt to think of different foods to represent the different children, although that would take a long time to think up, let alone prepare. I could also incorporate something jasmine flavored (jasmine tea--or even Jasmine rice), becasue some think that the "dudaim" that Rachel wants (presumably for their therapeutic fertility qualities) are jasmine.

As a second topic of discussion, I think it would be meaningful for our kids to learn about how the shevatim were named and how we follow the example set forth by Leah and Rachel in giving our children names with powerful meanings. We would like to explain to our children the meanings of their names (in addition to telling them about the people for whom they are named), so they can understand the significance that their names carry on a literal, literary, and symbolic level.

Dessert for lunch will guide us in one other parashah direction. I've unearthed an old lamb-shaped cake pan that had belonged to my Savta (zichronah livrachah). I am baking a chocolate chip cake in it to represent the speckled and spotted sheep that Yaakov miraculously amassed as compensation for his work for Lavan. I love this part of the parashah because it allows us to see how Hashem rewarded Yaakov Avinu for his toils, how Yaakov uses cleverness to collect his due, and because there is an awesome allusion to it in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice when Antonio tries to describe the interest that Shylock exacts from his debtors.

One aside: Musician Yoshie Fruchter on his CD Beyond the Book explores the emotional state of Biblical personalities through musical soliloquies. His song about Leah is haunting and sad, and lends a fascinating insight into her mindset. It is well worth a listen!

Have a Shabbat shalom!

© Tammie Rapps 2008