Parashat Yitro

A Taste of Torah

With Matan Torah, the Divine revelation at Har Sinai, taking center stage this week, I turn to an old, trusted friend to help me with my Shabbat menu. Babaganewz.com includes a great recipe for making a Mount Sinai shaped cake, which will be our dessert this shabbat. Baked in an oven-safe round bowl (such as Pyrex), the dome shaped cake is a perfect canvas for the greenery and flowers traditionally associated with Mount Sinai (http://www.babaganewz.com/sites/default/files/posts/downloads/mtSinaiCake.pdf). I'm sure that my kids will have a blast getting their hands dirty with green frosting and candy flowers. Friday afternoon, I plan to ask our 7-year-old to draw some table decorations to represent the visible thunder (what DOES that look like?), lightning, and clouds that shrouded Sinai during this supernatural and miraculous event. For the discussion on Shabbat, we have two table topics. First, the big ten! Why do we think those were the ten chosen as the Biggies? What might we have added as a fundamental commandment if we could choose an eleventh? Second, while this Shabbat reminds us of when the Jewish People received the Torah, we should think about the people who continue to teach us Torah and make it relevant to us everyday. We will brainstorm a list of those people and think about how we can express Hakarat Hatov (gratitude) to them for rekindling the Sinai experience in us on a regular basis. Next year I will try to build a menu around each of the ten commandments. I am open for suggestions!
Have a Shabbat Shalom,

Tammie Rapps