va’era

and I appeared

Moshe is stoked. He's encountered God! And God has given him a mission.

A 2007 survey showed that only 7% of Americans can name the first four presidents. We’re talking about people who were born here and went to school here.

The Israelites had been living in the midst of Egyptian culture and its pantheon of gods for several generations. They were slaves. Their lives were brutal, with no time for leisure—it’s conceivable that many of them had no clue about the covenant between their ancestor Abraham and his God. Their day-to-day misery was their reality, not some long-forgotten promise of a god who claimed to be the only God.

Moshe knew this. At first, Moshe was reluctant to accept the charge. He was pretty sure the Israelites wouldn't take him seriously. He knew that the first question they'd ask is, "which god is this?"

But God had pressed him and now he was totally onboard.

And so, Moshe returned to his homeland and to his people. I say, “his people,” but were they, really? They probably wouldn’t have considered him to be one of them. He'd grown up in the palace, in the court of Pharaoh. And, I imagine that, even though his biological family was there, he would have felt like an outsider. Yes, he had plenty of empathy for their plight, but he didn't know their lives from the inside. He'd never lived it, never experienced the despair and the hopelessness that was the foundation of their consciousness. Perhaps that was one of the things that made him uniquely perfect for this job.

And so, here he is—a runaway prince—Aaron's little brother—come back with his foreign wife and a mouthful of pie-in-the-sky about some God Who had come to liberate them from slavery and lead them to a rich and fertile land that was meant to be their inheritance all along.

Yeah, right! Like that was going to happen.

Things went exactly as Moshe had expected them to go.

And God's reaction was to send him to Pharaoh and demand liberation for his people.

Because, of course Pharaoh would release the 600,000 men (and their wives and children) whose free labor had built their cities.

Pharaoh responded exactly as Moshe expected him to do.

So God sent a series of plagues.

Why? And why ten? Why not get right to the heart of the matter and go straight to the death of the firstborn?

Especially considering that surely an omniscient God would know how Pharaoh would respond to each plague.

I'm thinking that the plagues were not for Pharaoh, not for the Egyptian people. The fact that they were punished by the plagues was a secondary boon.

The plagues were for the Israelites. They had to learn who their God is. And that doesn't happen overnight.

On a mystical level, the number ten is highly significant. Think, ten sephirot on the Tree of Life, ten ways through which God relates to human beings. But I doubt there were many mystics among the Hebrews of Goshen.

Each of the plagues is related to a particular Egyptian god. The Hebrews got to witness each Egyptian god be taken down by the One God, one by one, as disasters fell upon their captors while Goshen remained untouched.

By the time God is ready to unleash the tenth plague in next week's reading, the Hebrews are convinced that this God who claims to be their God, is indeed the only God. They're ready to listen to what Moshe, God's spokesperson, tells them to do. By the time Pharaoh calls out for Moses and Aaron in the night, and says, “Get up and get out from among my people, you and the children of Israel, too, and go and serve God as you said! Take both your flocks and your cattle, just as you stipulated, and go! And bless me too!” the children of Israel are ready to go.

So what shall we eat?

This is the parasha in which God brings down the first seven of the ten plagues upon Egypt. After each one, Pharaoh's heart was hardened. So let's create a dinner of hearts. Although these hearts are tender, not hardened.

Syrian cooking is known for its fabulous stuffed vegetables and some of my favorite Sephardic dishes are all about vegetables stuffed with spiced meat. Being a big fan of artichokes, I'm a big fan of using artichoke hearts for this. This dish is easily made with either meat or a plant-based substitute, such as Impossible™ meat.

What's generally sold as "artichoke hearts" are not the heart, but rather the innermost, soft petals of small artichokes. What I'm talking about is the base of a large globe artichoke, that meaty, tasty part that you get to after all the leaves have been enjoyed and the sharp, needle-like choke is scraped away.

You've got a couple of options when it comes to procuring them. The easiest is to find canned or frozen artichoke bottoms. If they're not available, you can start with whole globe artichokes. Steam them until tender, then peel off the leaves, set them aside, and remove the choke. Don't discard those leaves; that would be a travesty. They are soooo delicious!

This takes a bit of time and effort, but isn't difficult. Turn on your favorite tv show and set yourself up with a teaspoon, a bowl, and a pile of steamed artichoke leaves. Scrape the flesh off each leaf with the edge/tip of the spoon and collect the scrapings in a bowl. Once all the good, edible stuff is removed, you can toss the spent leaves in the compost bin. Or the trash can. Now, you can mix all that artichoke flesh in with the stuffing. Yum!

The stuffed artichoke hearts are going to be kept company on the plate by a twist on Loubieh bi Zeit, a Syrian dish of green beans stewed until tender in olive oil, with onions, garlic, and a bit of tomato. The twist is that I'm going to use sundried tomatoes for an extra punch.

Plain steamed basmati rice is a must, to soak up all the fabulous sauces on the plate. I happen to have a large Celeriac in the fridge, so I’ll be making Creamy Celery Root Soup. This is a simple and delicious soup.

I’ve got another soup using this unique ingredient, one that’s a bit more complex.

Check out my Creamy Celery Root and Apple Soup. Either one will be great with this menu.

And for dessert? I’m going to procure some baklava from my local Mediterranean market. Yes, I know how to make it. But I don’t have a day to devote to that wonderful project this week. And the stuff from that store is very good. I’ll also get some ice cream. Because…ice cream.

 Menu for Parasha Va’era

Creamy Celery Root Soup

Syrian Stuffed Artichoke Bottoms in Cherry Sauce

meat or vegetarian style

Loubieh bi Zeit with a twist

Syrian braised Green Beans with Sun-dried Tomatoes

steamed Basmati Rice

Baklava and ice cream

shabbat shalom!