& Amsalem PDF Cookbook – Recipes for Hope
Last week, I put together a cookbook called Amsalem – Recipes for Hope PDF cookbook, together with the uber-talented Blake Ezra, Emily Theodore, and Zahava Kahen. It is a collection of 28 Israeli recipes (28 in Hebrew is the numerical value of the word ‘koach,’ meaning strength), mainly inspired by my Savta (grandmother) Zahava. All the proceeds from the sale of this PDF cookbook go to Leket Israel, an organization that Daniel and I have been connected to since its inception. Leket has consistently been feeding Israel’s hungry, and with the onset of the war and the dislocation of families from the South of Israel, Leket finds itself having to feed hundreds of thousands more people every day. The funds we raise will go towards supporting this effort.
Shema:
In the introduction to Rabbi Sacks’ book “To Heal a Fractured World” he writes: “Some, said Shakespeare, are born great; others achieve greatness, while others have greatness thrust upon them. The last seems to me the story of Jewry: an unexceptional people, often stubborn, rebellious, fractious, capricious, not what anyone would instinctively call a community of saints, yet made great by being asked to do great things.”
I have always believed that, as a Jew, I was born into a life of responsibility; towards myself, my family, my friends, my community, and the world. These are the ‘great things’ I believe Rabbi Sacks is referring to. That to be a Jew is to be responsible. End of. The more you give, the more you receive, and our homes are open, and simchah (joy) is only simchah when shared.
How do I pass on these values to my children in a world telling them that being a Jew is wrong, likening my people, my highly responsible, moral people to the worst criminals known to history? How do I right this wrong? How do I prevent them from becoming insular? How do I prevent them from covering up their kippot (skullcaps) and tucking their Stars of David into their shirts? How is it possible that I live in a world where it isn’t just concerning to be a Jew in public, but downright scary?
In Israel, the danger is in the barrage of rockets raining down incessantly and terrorists infiltrating our cities and homes. And outside of Israel, it’s mobs in the bastions of Western culture and academia hunting down Jews based on little knowledge or understanding of the situation. That’s the word I was looking for.
Yet, here is the message to my children. This is the first prayer your father and I taught you just before bed from the first day God gave us care of your precious being, this prayer is the most IMPORTANT one in our tradition, ‘Shema Yisrael.’
‘Hear O Israel, God is our Lord, God is One.’
Why is it this prayer? Why is it so important? Why is this our battle cry?
My friend and fellow Rebbetzin, Lisa Levene, gave a shiur (class) about the Shema years ago. It was so powerful that it has stayed with me for years. My two biggest takeaways from Rebbetzin Lisa’s shiur were these:
One – the Shema punctuates our lives; recited in the morning before the day starts, and at night before yet another night of restless sleep. It is encased in the mezuzah in the entrance to our homes. It affirms and testifies to who we are, and as the last rites for far too many of our brethren who have fallen in that last month, the Shema is the Jews’ everlasting prayer.
The clarion call of the Shema has been with us for generations. We have heard the story of Rabbi Yitzhak Halevi Herzog who in 1946 serving as the Chief Rabbi of Mandatory Palestine went on a tour of the monasteries and orphanages of Europe looking for Jewish children. When he was asked how he would know if the children were Jewish, Rabbi Herzog said not to worry. He asked in each place he visited that all the children be gathered in a room and started reciting the Shema. Automatically children rush at him crying ‘mama’ ‘papa’ and crying, the children were identified as Jews and brought back into the Jewish fold, he found over 500 children in such a way. And recently, while the Israeli army was trying to separate terrorists from Jews, a Jewish soldier called out ‘Shema Yisrael,’ and the one Jew who had been misidentified automatically covered his eyes and finished saying the blessing. *To read full article.
In Kibbutz Nir Oz on the 7th of October in the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, “Yaron Maor, an ordinary civilian, initially hid with his wife and children in his home’s bomb shelter, but then decided to go out and fight. He ambushed terrorists with a handgun, killing at least two of them and wounded or killed two others after they broke into his home. He took cover twice from grenades before retreating to the bomb shelter only after arsonists began to torch his home.
He told an Israeli radio program that the terrorists had already withdrawn when help arrived.
“A Border Police anti-terror unit (Yamas) force [approached and] was sure that I was a terrorist. When I saw all the lasers on me, I shouted ‘Hear Israel, our Lord our God, our Lord is one’, [the Hebrew prayer Shema Yisrael] so that they would know that I was Jewish [and not shoot me].”’ *To read full article.
Two – the Shema articulates its deepest meaning when we attempt to connect to the very last word of the first verse (as Rebbetzin Lisa taught me). The word is ‘Echad’: we testify that ‘God is One.’ What does that ‘One’ mean? This is not just the most comforting thing I know about being Jewish; it is simultaneously the hardest to come to terms with.
It means that everything in the world comes from God; all the good and all the bad. It means that the back of the tapestry of Jewish life may sometimes look like disjointed, blood-stained threads filled with pain and suffering. It’s so unbearable, so painful, that many of us have chosen not to even look too closely at it, and those who have looked have come away traumatized.
While others, like me, have covered their eyes and said Shema Yisrael. Hashem, if you are our Lord and you are ‘One,’ make this stop. Yet it also means that we are commanded to believe that God, who sees the front of the tapestry of being, sees the beauty and meaning of it all. Holding that belief is only possible while our eyes are covered, and we believe in the Oneness and Unity of God.
Routine:
We lived in Israel for nearly 17 years before returning to the UK a decade ago to take on our communal post. While living there, I became used to the response/excuse/justification of ‘Acharei HaChagim’ – meaning ‘after the festivals. This is what you will hear if you try to plan absolutely anything in Israel during the summer months, up until Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year, usually sometime in September). It means that whomever you are speaking to will not deal with whatever you are requesting until after the Jewish holidays of the month of Tishri are over. These include the Jewish New Year, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, and Simchat Torah. And then, once Simchat Torah is over, things pick up, and the routine of the year starts and continues with only minor interruptions until Passover. I am sure we all had things planned this year for ‘Acharei HaChagim.’ Instead, we are facing tragedy and war. For many, this is their new reality. Time has stood still and sped up all at the same time. And yet for others, those projects you had planned, the course of study you were going to invest in, the betterment of yourself and the care of others you had organized to do, were put on hold. It may be the time to look at those goals, projects, and plans again.
Ask yourself: Are they still relevant? Is there a way to make them more relevant and meaningful? And if not, is there something else – a project or a cause – that can benefit from your involvement at this moment?
Once you have identified your goal or project, it’s time to return to a routine. In the last four weeks, my routine has revolved around my phone. I wake up and check my phone, then brush my teeth while checking my phone, make coffee while checking my phone, and pretend to work, but instead, I check my phone. As you can tell, I’m no longer achieving anything, including proper dental hygiene. Can I recommend a routine as a way to reconnect with my ‘regular’ self? Here are the things I plan to include in my routine going forward:
- Prayer – the Shema
- Tzedaka (charity) – for me, this comes in the form of giving my time to others and to myself.
- Learning – this week, I am reading Rabbi Sacks’ ‘To Heal a Fractured World.’ To purchase the book.
By setting these things up as part of my routine – actions that directly address what I am feeling and what is going on in the world – I hope I can get back to doing what I have committed to doing in an orderly manner and check my phone only once an hour instead of constantly.
Control the Controllable:
One last piece of advice that came to me via my dietitian (B7 Diet on Instagram) is to control what you can. It may feel like almost everything is out of our control, but there are a number of things that aren’t really out of our control at all. I have started making a list of the ‘controllables’ in my life and I look at that list daily.
- What I cook
- What I eat
- Inviting company for Shabbat
- Being kind
- Checking in on friends and family
- My phone usage
- What I read
- What content I consume
As you can see, the list is much longer than I initially assumed. It’s one of those ‘one foot in front of the other’ kind of things.
I hope that this newsletter brought you some solace. I know that writing it has made a crack in that impenetrable wall of darkness that many in the world want to envelop us in. With each good deed, each prayer, each act of kindness, as Lenoard Cohen wrote in his 1992 song Anthem: ‘There is a crack, a crack in everything, That’s how the light gets in.’ Do not let their darkness extinguish your light.
Am Yisrael Chai!
A few NEW recipes from the Amsalem – Recipes for Hope PDF cookbook:
