shoftim
parashat shoftim, deuteronomy chapters 16—21
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Shoftim
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It’s all about Justice.
Our Parasha talks about justice in the courts and justice in war. We read, a man who has built (or bought) a house and hasn’t yet settled into it, a man who has started a vineyard (or a business) and hasn’t yet begun to reap the rewards, and a man who is engaged but not yet married should not go to war.
Rashi explains that the point is, not only should we concern ourselves with victory, we should also concern ourselves with living. Those three young men could descend into despair, to be torn away from their lives at such a pivotal point. Worried about losing their business or their home or their fiancé, their hearts may not be entirely in the fight. Further, the families they leave behind are likely to become despondent. Day to day living is more important than the battle. After all, if living isn’t the ultimate goal of war, what’s the point?
The “Velveteen Rabbi” (Rabbi Rachel Berenblat) takes a novel approach to this passage, and it resonates with me—the me who marched in anti-war demonstrations, who believed in “Make Love, Not War,” and saw too many friends and cousins return from Viet Nam, forever changed.
Old men make decisions and young men are forced to disrupt—and sacrifice—their lives for those decisions, at a time when they should be building a home and a career and finding a life partner—when they should be starting their lives, not having them cut short.
Rabbi Berenblat asks, “But how different might our world be if, in today's world as in the world of Torah, we followed the teachings of parashat Shoftim and exempted from service those whose lives are not yet ripe? Would our military policies be different if the young stayed home to establish households and vineyards and marriages, and only those who had already lived full lives placed themselves on the front lines? How would an army of those who have known the joys and sorrows of household life differ from the armies we know now? Would such soldiers be more measured, more careful, more inclined to value the simple human lives on both sides of whatever conflict called them forth onto the battlefield?
Makes me stroke my proverbial beard and say, “Hmmmmmmmmm.”
Justice is an overarching theme of my consciousness and of this website—a quest for universal truth. Here’s what I’ve previously posted on the matter of Justice.
We all want to see justice done—we want life to be fair. But as humans, we often think we’re seeking justice when what we’re actually striving for is self-validation, masquerading as justice.
Let’s unpack what that means.
Opinions are like belly buttons—everyone’s got one—but facts are facts, and something is either true or not true. We may disagree on whether or not we’re having good weather, but we can’t argue about the color of the sky.
There can be no justice without truth. We need the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, or our verdict will most likely be flawed.
And to complicate things further, truth is not always obvious. Sometimes it unfolds slowly.
It’s very human to pursue comfort, to seek to bend and reshape facts in order make them fit with, and reaffirm, our preconceived beliefs and opinions. But, that’s like setting out on a journey via treadmill.
Comfort is … well … comforting. We’re wired to seek comfort—it’s a survival instinct. To challenge the things that we think we know is uncomfortable; to challenge our deep-seated beliefs can be downright terrifying. But we enter a danger zone when we pursue comfort as our primary goal. When self-gratification is our primary objective, we’re living an egocentric life that leads us to make choices that are not always just, choices that often bring us satisfaction but that come at the expense of someone else.
As for belief…It’s humbling to remember that we can’t spell belief without l-i-e. We can all be passionate about the teachings of our individual religions (including the religion of atheism), but often those teachings are in direct conflict with each other. So like it or not, we have to accept that belief, no matter how much it feels like absolute truth, is belief, not truth.
And so, I don’t want to believe; I want to know. It’s good to be comfortable, but I’m not questing for validation or justification; I want information, comprehension, realization, elevation, and emancipation from illusion, even when it’s scary, even when it threatens everything I think I know.
At least that’s what I aspire to … I’m also human …
And Torah doesn’t tell us to pursue comfort. Torah tells us, “Justice, justice you will pursue.”
So … keeping in mind that the nature of truth, or at least our understanding of it, is dependent upon available information, we have to realize that the pursuit of truth and justice is a never-ending battle, even for Superman.
But, we’re human and we’re imperfect. Going back to the analogy of the color of the sky, what if I were colorblind? If I’d been born with tritanopia, I’d look up and see those fluffy white clouds decorating a lovely green sky. That would be my honest truth. So, we have to accept that there’s subjective truth—human truth, and absolute truth—God truth. With our limited scope, the only way we can be completely honest is to always remain open to receiving more information and to always be ready to refine what we know as truth.
And yet, all this makes me wonder—is the pursuit of truth and justice enough? Can truth and justice alone heal our troubled world? I think the answer is, no. As noble a quest as this is, I think healing comes from a place that’s beyond what’s “fair.” Truth and justice are intellectual concepts. And we are more than our minds; we are body, mind, heart, and soul. We can’t climb a ladder that doesn’t stand on four balanced legs.
Therefore … before truth makes an enthusiastic, swords-clashing beeline to Justice, it needs to take a pause and slip on the rose-colored glasses of Love and Compassion.
Without Love and Compassion, we risk truth and justice becoming self-righteousness and zealotry. Love and Compassion are the parents of Mercy. Without Mercy, our Justice becomes a cold and evil thing.
We need justice—it’s what gives structure to the universe, it is its skeleton, as it were—but love is the glue that holds the universe together. Love is its ligaments and tendons, those things that make movement possible, without which those rigid bones would lose their integrity and fall into a pointless heap.
Truth is paramount and Justice must be pursued, but it’s not enough to be fair. We need to see the Beauty. We need to see the seed of Love, the “Hand of the Creator” that lies within every being and every thing.
The world needs Kindness.
Ultimately, the pursuit of Truth and Justice should lead to Joy. If it doesn’t, we’ve missed the signs and taken a wrong turn.
Life is so fragile, so often fraught. We’re all in it together, so let’s agree to be gentle with one another, to boost each other up, and to help each other along the way.
So what shall we eat?
I’ve got redeeming that vineyard stuck in my mind.
I know! Let’s have wine! Oh, right. We do that. But there are more things we can do with grapes.
Check out my “bunch of grapes” challah. Does it look difficult, complicated? It’s actually much easier than braiding. First, I rolled out a bit of dough, made from my Golden Shabbat Challah recipe, and used a cookie cutter to cut out a few leaves. Then I made some thin “snakes” of dough and twisted them to look like grape vine stems. Last, I sat and rolled little balls of dough. Lots and lots of little balls of dough.
I lined a baking sheet with a silpat (you can use parchment paper) and arranged the little dough balls into a cluster of grapes.
Then I added the stems and the leaves. Don’t worry about the individual pieces sticking together. As long as they’re touching each other on the pan, they’ll do it themselves. You can leave it as is, or color it. One way is to pre-color the dough, working a little food coloring into portions of dough. That’s what I did here. The other way is to paint the finished bread with colored icing (confectioner’s sugar + water + food color). The second way will make it kind of sweet…which isn’t necessarily a bad thing… Check the photo at the bottom of the page.
And for the kids of all ages … we’ll finish the meal with caramel apple-style grapes. These are kind of like a one-bite caramel apple. As we get further into fall, I’ll be posting my recipe for caramel apples, with homemade caramel that’s to die for. But for these, I’m just skewering red and green seedless grapes with toothpicks, dipping them in melted caramels, and rolling them in chopped nuts, coconut, or sprinkles. A combination of all of the above looks very festive on a platter. (And that, by the way, is the recipe.)
Now…what comes between the challah and the sweets?
Here in Central Florida, the kids have gone back to school…but summer is still in full swing.
But…
We’ve now entered the month of Elul. That means, before you know it, autumn (and the High Holy Days) will be upon us.
Fall—when the weather turns cool and the leaves turn into a kaleidoscope of colors—is just about my favorite time of year…except maybe for the first winter wonderland snowfall, or the daffodils blooming in early spring, or the smell of the ocean on a hot summer day. So! In protest of another day in which the weather is pretty much like it is every day, I’m going to make a wonderful pot of butternut squash soup. It may be jumping the gun on the calendar, but I don’t know a single person who doesn’t like it.
I’ve recently been craving something Thai. Perhaps a green coconut curry. You can make it with your favorite protein—try sliced chicken breasts or thighs, thinly sliced steak, cubes of firm fleshed fish, or tofu, and just for fun, halved green grapes to offset the heat. (You can make the curry as mild or as spicy as you’d like.) A quick mixed vegetable stir fry and some fluffy jasmine rice, and voila.
I know my thinking isn’t linear here. Now I’m considering a first course.
Have you ever noticed how the same dishes, with a little twist, show up in multiple cultures? For example: Take a blintz, put a little tomato sauce on top, and what do you have? Manicotti.
I’m a big fan of mee krob, that mountain of thin, crisply fried sweet and sour rice noodles that’s found on the list of appetizers in many Thai restaurants. I’m also a big fan of Jerusalem kugel—a Shabbat classic made, especially in Israel. If you aren’t familiar with it, his is a savory sweet kugel made with thin noodles, deeply caramelized sugar, and lots of black pepper. I previously posted a recipe for Jerusalem Kugel with a Twist. It’s a riff on the original, influenced by the Persian rice dish, Seven Jewels Pilau. This is a Southeast Asian riff on that riff. See how recipes develop?! Follow the link to the recipe and see the variation at the bottom.
I want to do something a little more substantial for dessert; something to augment the little caramel-dipped grapes. I decided to make a simple baked custard and add this pandan flavoring, a Southeast Asian culinary leaf that adds a wonderful aroma and taste. Plus, the bright green color is kind of fun. It has been pointed out that the flavor in the one I’ve linked to is artificial and that it contains no actual pandan. But, as someone who always reaches for all-natural ingredients … I have to admit that I love this stuff. If you can get the real thing, go for it!