The Knowing is in the Eating

It is a religion of food, this chewing over of our history at the Seder. If religion is a blend of faith, belief and knowing, then food plays a teasingly sporadic starring role, emerging here and there with a responsibility seemingly beyond its humble countenance.
We ask a lot of the food we eat. We rarely expect of it something as simple as fill the belly and fuel the body. No, we expect our food to entertain and to delight, to comfort and to soothe. On Seder night we ask our food to teach. We take the parsley dipped in salt water and invite it to remind us of the tears of the downtrodden. With bitter herbs in hand we dip into the sweet charoset and say, tell me how the slavery was bittersweet. And as we bite into the matzo we wait to taste the rushed reality of the dramatic escape from slavery.

Food as teacher is not quite the new or novel thought. Think back to the earliest of time, of Eden, of Paradise. God places two extraordinary trees in the garden; one a tree of life and the other a tree of knowledge, good and bad. God warns Adam not to eat of them. But Eve looks at the tree of knowledge and understands that it is not just a delight for the eyes but indeed a source of wisdom. She takes hold of the fruit, offers it to Adam and the eyes of the two of them are opened, and they see. They notice their own nakedness and realize their profound vulnerability; such is the knowledge of good and evil. I always wonder about this episode. Why is the fruit of the tree the conduit for knowledge, the vessel of wisdom? What is it about food that opens the eye?

There is a story we teachers tell about bread. Lecture a class about wheat, about its growth and harvest, about its milling and grinding. Tell them about the yeast and the kneading, the rising and the baking. Tell them everything, but until you slice that loaf fresh from the oven they will not know bread. The knowing is in the eating. There is something deep and primal about the taking into one’s mouth, tasting, chewing and ingesting that informs like nothing else. Food teaches in a distinctive manner.

Deep in the desert wilderness but one month out of Egypt and the people Israel are hungry, desperately hungry. They remember the foods of Egypt with a fond but distorted, embellished memory stinging with the immediacy of pain and empty bellies. They demand food. God rains down manna from heaven, which will not only nourish the body, but will also, teach the soul. The people will see the glory of God. They will know that God hears them and learn that humans do not live by bread alone, but rather by the word of the Lord. Such is the teaching power of food. It informs our very belief in God. The Israelites will fill themselves with nourishment, delivered with regularity to their doorsteps, and know that there is a Divine Provider.

There is a segue that occurs from the food we consume to the people we become. Food has the power to affect and to change us physically, emotionally, intellectually and spiritually. Our tradition has definite prescriptions about what we eat and how it is prepared. We have long dismissed notions of health as satisfying explanations for Kashrut. Reasons of discipline, separation and holiness resonate more powerfully. Maimonidies writes that those who are careful about what they eat and follow the laws of Kashrut will bring additional holiness and purity to their soul, cleansing their soul for the sake of Heaven fulfilling the command, And you shall be holy because I am holy.
This is an interesting marriage, the mundane nature of food and the lofty ideas of holiness. Food takes us by the hand and brings us closer to the sublime.

Not only do the foods that grace our tables lift us up, but we also take an additional step and imagine the very food of God. For if God feeds us and if we are to walk in the way of God and verily imitate his ways, is there a possible reciprocal human feeding of God? Far out and terrifying is this thought, but real nonetheless. Real in the metaphorical sense that is, the sacrifices of old are known as food pleasing with aroma to satisfy God, as the Torah tells us, “My food for My fires My satisfying aroma.” The mystical work the Zohar explains that “the offering brought to the Holy One was for the purpose of feeding the world and providing sustenance both for the upper and the lower worlds in as much as the as the upper world moves in response to the lower world.” Our actions change the world. The foods we eat, the offerings we give have the sway to change our small worlds of self as well as the large worlds way beyond.

Where are the offerings of today? Where are the altars of now? Our tradition tells us that gifts to the poor replace the offerings in the temple and so we begin our Seder with the proclamation, “Let all who are hungry come and eat.” The food we set before the poor, the provisions placed before the needy, have an affect on our own food. It is no longer simply food that graces our tables but rather our food may become the stuff of noble sacrifices fit for God’s altar. Giving to the needy before the holiday and inviting those in need of a Seder to sit together with us changes what we serve and us, as well. Food can teache us that we are not the only ones who are hungry.

The lessons we learn on Pesach are not limited to usual ones taught in classrooms and with books. They are the lessons told by parent to child with foods laid out and eaten with intent. The instruction is slowly digested. Foods prepared with love and deliberateness, grace a table surrounded by family, friends and guests catapult us back in time. But that is certainly not all. The eating of these foods creates a moment of presentness that alerts us to value freedoms. The Hagaddah tells us that each one of us must see ourselves us if we have come out from Egypt. We are slaves that have been freed. We can feel it because we can taste it. We are told to leave the Seder table with the taste of Afikomen in our mouths. Perhaps it will lead us this year to dream of peace and freedom for all who are enslaved.