Parsha Inspired Menus - Nitzavim-Vayeilech

Our people is both ancient and current. We have adapted and changed in various ways over the centuries and part of that ability to change is based on a section of this week’s parsha. Moshe tells the people:

Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. It is not up in heaven, so that you have to ask, “Who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?” Nor is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, “Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?” No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it.

I love the concept that our access to Torah is close, in our mouth and heart. It feels particularly appropriate to think of that as we head towards the high holiday season. How do I make sure that I note and feel the closeness that God‘s instructions can be to my mouth and heart? Can I use that feeling as I faced decisions and priorities during the year?

Also, the idea that the instructions are not in the heaven or beyond reach comes into play in a pretty famous story from the Talmud. For details, check it out in Baba Metzia, but the TLDR version is that the Rabbi were having a disagreement and the majority voted one way, another Rabbi called upon God and the heavens to do miracles to prove that he was right, but ultimately the Rabbi decided to go with the majority opinion. They quote our verse “it is not in the heavens” and it’s a lesson that Judaism is in the hands of the practitioners. Through them, it can adapt and change. This special pasuk and concept, make something that looks like it’s climbing to the heavens - Sky High Lemon Meringue Pie.

This last book of the Torah has a lot of warnings. God and Moshe both seem concerned that the people will enter the land and be tempted to stop following God‘s laws. In one warning in our parsha, Moshe explains what will happen to the land if one particular group stops following God.

[As for such a clan or tribe,] GOD will single it out from all the tribes of Israel for misfortune, in accordance with all the sanctions of the covenant recorded in this book of Teaching.

And later generations will ask—the children who succeed you, and foreigners who come from distant lands and see the plagues and diseases that GOD has inflicted upon that land, all its soil devastated by sulfur and salt, beyond sowing and producing, no grass growing in it, just like the upheaval of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which GOD overthrew in fierce anger…

While I appreciate that it’s no longer a blanket punishment to every one of the Israelites, it’s still a pretty devastating punishment for the land. And it seems to last beyond the offenders since it says “and later generations will ask…” I think these dire warnings are issued in the hopes that they will be a deterrent. Human nature sometimes works that way although the “carrot” is just as, or more, effective as the “stick.” It will be an interesting Shabbat dinner conversation to talk about these different forms of trying to affect behavior. To get us on the topic, the word sulfur caught my attention, and that made me think of hard-boiled eggs. So I suggest an appetizer of deviled eggs. These are our special treats some of us Make at our summer camp because we have access to all the needed ingredients to make something “fancy” - hard boiled eggs, mayonnaise, some of us had mustard or little hot sauce. We’re just missing the paprika to make it look pretty.

Shabbat Shalom & B’Tayavon!