Month: October 2017

Listening for the Sounds in Silence

Seven stories illuminate the character and path of Abraham…but five of the seven carry kernels of silence, words unspoken, sounds not recorded.  What meanings can we retrieve, buried in the silence?

Seven stories, five with silent spaces:

THREE VISITORS (18:1-18:15)
The three visitors arrive at Abraham’s and Sarah’s tent, bringing the news that Abraham and Sarah will have a child…after agonizing years when they could not conceive. Almost all the conversation in this segment is between Abraham and the guests, establishing Abraham’s commitment to hospitality. When Abraham persuades the visitors to stay for a meal, he rushes to gather the food for the feast and commands Sarah to make cakes — quickly, a command she obeys without recorded comment. When the visitors make their announcement, Sarah laughs — silently, to herself. When the visitors question her soundless laughter, they inquire of Abraham, not Sarah. Frightened by the visitors’ ability to see into her deepest thoughts, she finally speaks, lying, saying she did not laugh. Does Sarah’s silent laughter hide years of pain and fear and frustration? The future for a childless woman is uncertain and fragile in a time when a woman is supported first by her father, then her husband, and if widowed, her inheriting son — a time when a woman’s purpose, in her community and for herself, is defined by bearing children.

ARGUMENT WITH G-D (18:16-18:33)
In one of two stories without an actor who doesn’t speak, Abraham carries on an extended conversation directly with G-d, establishing Abraham’s sense of justice. He pleads eloquently and forcefully on behalf of the cities of the plain, Sodom and Gomorrah, asking G-d to spare them if fifty innocent are found, forty-five, forty, thirty, twenty, ten.  The story is remarkable for Abraham’s volubility as well as the content of his message, questioning and reminding G-d to be just by not punishing the innocent with the guilty. For all of Abraham’s anxious volubility, what we don’t hear is, what in Abraham’s history and experience with G-d would make Abraham feel the need to “argue?” Why does he question the justice of an outcome, whatever it is? Still, this is one of two stories in seven where all those present, Abraham and G-d, speak and hear.

TWO VISITORS, TWO DAUGHTERS  (19:1-19:38)
Abraham’s visitors move on, but now they are two. They arrive in Abraham’s nephew, Lot’s, home town, Sodom. Lot’s action when he sees them parallels Abraham’s in some ways when the three visitors arrived at Abraham’s and Sarah’s tent. He urges the visitors to come in and enjoy food as Abraham did…but Lot prepares the food himself, including the bread. Where are the women of the household? We see and hear nothing of them until Lot offers his daughters to the men and boys of Sodom in place of the visitors whom they demand. Lot says, “I have two daughters who have not known man…do to them as is good in your eyes.” This is the first mention of anyone in the household other than Lot, and no words are recorded from the daughters. Whether or not Lot’s action was praiseworthy in the context, imagine the terror the daughters must have felt. Their lives were about to change radically, probably end, if they became substitutes for the visitors as the objects of sexual assault. And finally, after the destruction, Lot’s wife comes into view momentarily as she looks back on the destruction and turns…silently…to a pillar of salt. Her sorrow and terror are also not recorded.

The daughters who were silent as their father offered them up for assault in place of the visitors are now talkative as they discuss and carry out a plan to fulfill their lives’ meaning in their restricted circumstance. Noah sleeps after too much wine, knowing nothing, the silent victim of his daughters’ strategy. Would he have agreed to the plan consciously? How would he have fulfilled the commandment, p’ru u’r’vu (be fruitful and multiply)? What a sad and desperate situation, living in a cave overlooking the devastated landscape, isolated from the society he so desperately wanted to join, without even the wife who bore their children and shared a life with him.

ABRAHAM & ABIMELECH…AGAIN (20:1-20:18)
Once again, Abraham presents his wife, Sarah, as his sister to prevent attacks because those more powerful than he might want his wife and would take her by force. This time, unlike the earlier occurrence with Pharaoh, Abraham doesn’t speak with Sarah, requesting her cooperation. He just presents her as his sister, and King Abimelech of Gerar “had Sarah brought to him,” that is, brought to his harem.  G-d comes to Abimelech in a dream, warning him of Sarah’s real status and the punishment that will come to him and his kingdom. Abimelech reproaches G-d in similar terms to those Abraham uses in his Argument with G-d: “Will You slay people even though innocent?” He pleads ignorance, and G-d commands him to return Sarah to her husband.

Abimelech speaks to his servants, telling them what happened, then summons Abraham, demanding to know why Abraham brought this guilt on Abimelech and his kingdom. Abraham explains himself, saying, “I thought…surely there is no fear of G-d in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife…And besides, she is in truth my sister, my father’s daughter though not my mother’s.” Abimelech gifts Abraham with sheep and oxen and restores his wife, inviting him to settle where he wishes in Abimelech’s land. And to Sarah, he says, “I herewith give your brother a thousand pieces of silver; this will serve you as vindication before all who are with you, and you are cleared before everyone.” Is there a hint of sarcasm when Abimelech refers to Sarah’s husband as her brother? In any case, events swirl around Sarah, she is transferred household to household, and throughout, her words and thoughts are never reported. She is silent as her husband misrepresents her and another man takes her into his household.

BIRTH OF ISAAC (21:1-21:21)
Sarah conceives and bears a son, as G-d promised her through the three visitors to the tent. Abraham names his son Isaac, connecting him to Sarah’s silent laughter, and at eight days old, Abraham circumcises him. Then Sarah finally finds her voice, expressing her joy after all these years of disappointment and pain: “G-d has brought me laughter; everyone who hears will laugh with me.” Further, she demands that Abraham cast out “that slave-woman and her son,” Hagar, to whom Sarah sent her husband when Sarah was unable to conceive, and Ishmael, Hagar’s son. Suddenly Sarah, a woman who remains silent through two occasions when her husband passes her off as his sister, allowing her to be taken into the harems of others, and who laughs to herself when told she would conceive in her old age, then lies about her silent laughter out of fear…has a lot to say. She is concerned for her son, Isaac’s, inheritance. The story reports Abraham’s feelings of distress, and G-d speaks to Abraham telling him not to be distressed, to follow whatever Sarah tells him to do, a reversal of their roles.

The next day, Abraham gives Hagar bread and a skin of water to carry along with her child, Ishmael, and he sends her away. Hagar wanders, with her son, in the wilderness of Beersheba until the water runs out. Despairing and unable to bear watching her son die, she leaves the child under a bush and sits down at a distance, bursting into tears. In the next line, the story tells us, “G-d heard the cry of the boy, and an angel of G-d calls to Hagar from Heaven and says to her…” Hagar, silent throughout her ordeal, finally weeps with fear and despair, and G-d hears…not Hagar, but her son, although the story reports no sounds from him. G-d speaks to Hagar, giving her G-d’s promise for Ishmael’s future and showing them a well of water.

In The JPS Torah Commentary for Genesis, editor Nahum Sarna notes how Yishmael recedes into the silence of history with verbal cues. In the course of this story, which unfolds from Gen. 21:1-21, Yitzhak’s name appears 6 times. The root of his name, ts-h-k (associated with laughter), occurs “suggestively” 3 times. Conversely, Yishmael’s name appears not at all, although the word “boy” with reference to Yishmael appears 6 times. The root of the name Yishmael, sh-m-‘ (associated with hearing), occurs “suggestively” 3 times. These skillful verbal cues elaborate the silent theme associated with Yishmael in this story…the boy left under a bush by his despairing mother, a mother who weeps for her son and G-d who hears her silent son.

ABRAHAM & ABIMELECH REDUX (21:22-21:34)
In a brief transitional story, the second of two without a silent actor, Abimelech once again meets with Abraham, this time bringing along Phicol, chief of his troops. On this occasion, equals meet, with King Abimelech seeking a pledge of loyalty from Abraham, the sojourner in his land. Abraham makes that pledge, then reproaches Abimelech for the well Abimelech’s servants seized. Again, Abimelech pleads his innocence on the basis of lack of knowledge. Abimelech and Abraham now make a “pact,” sealed by a gift from Abraham to Abimelech of sheep and oxen. Abraham then pays Abimelech with seven ewes as proof that he, Abraham, dug the well. Their business together concluded, Abimelech returns to the land of the Philistines, and Abraham plants a tamarisk at Beersheba, invoking the name of the Lord.

AKEDAT YITZHAK – THE BINDING OF ISAAC (22:1-22:24)
The Binding of Isaac, Abraham’s final test of faith, climaxes this seemingly unrelated series of seven stories which are, nonetheless, intimately linked through verbal cues and parallelisms. The story is filled with silences, beginning with the somber silence that pervades the scene of Abraham preparing to go on a journey to sacrifice his son. Despite the eloquence of his pleas on behalf of Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham is silent in response to G-d’s command that he “Take your son, your favored one, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the heights that I will point out to you.”

Just let that sink in for a moment. Four identifications to make certain there is no doubt. G-d is demanding that Abraham sacrifice his future, a promise finally fulfilled late in his life. Abraham already unwillingly gave up his first son, Ishmael, on G-d’s instruction. Now he is being asked to give up his son, Isaac, the one he favors, a repository of his love and hope for the future — and he must do that in a most horrifying way — he must tie him down, put a knife through him and burn him on the altar. Abraham’s response is fiercely and dutifully silent.

Imagine the buried pain in the conversation between Abraham and his beloved son, Isaac, as they walk toward what Abraham believes will be his awesome duty, the sacrifice of his son. “Father!”…”Yes, my son…” “Here are the firestone and the wood; but where is the sheep for the burnt offering?”…”G-d will see to the sheep for His burnt offering, my son.” And the two of them walked on together.

What did Isaac think as his father, Abraham, bound him and laid him on the altar on top of the wood? As Abraham picked up the knife with the intent of killing him? We don’t know. The moment is buried in silence. And then, in this awful moment, a moment suspended in silence, G-d, who spoke with Abraham directly, who conversed with him, with whom Abraham argued about Sodom and Gomorrah, sends a messenger to hold Abraham back from the terrible deed. Abraham looks up, and his eye falls on a ram, caught in a thicket by its horns. Without hesitation, Abraham goes and takes the ram and offers it as a burnt offering in place of his son.

But the silence continues. Imagine the terror of the ram, first trapped, then bound on an altar for slaughter. It’s hard to imagine the ram’s terror wasn’t finding expression in bleating, that there wasn’t a struggle. The story doesn’t report that — the scene remains submerged in a deep, impenetrable silence.

G-d speaks with Abraham one more time…and again, after so many direct meetings, real conversations, this last one, following the horrifying silent moment on Mt. Moriah, is through a messenger.

Everything changed in that terrifying moment, as much as it changed when Adam and Eve ate from the Tree or Noah entered the Ark with his family and fellow creatures. We are a long way from the vision of the Garden.

Published in Bob’s Fresh and Local Newsletter, 10/25/2017.

I found this recipe last year on The Green Panda’s Kitchen. A group of women made it outdoors in Kenya, and when I read that, I started dreaming of making beautiful meals outdoors with veggies from Farmer Bob’s fields. The squash at this time of year is plentiful, and the fall weather has been amazing…just right for cooking outdoors. A cast iron Dutch oven, some heat, a place to cut up my veggies, and that’s all I needed.

But you don’t have to cook outside! You can use your kitchen cutting board and put a soup pot on your kitchen stove. I halved this recipe for the two of us, and I usually bump up the seasonings a little when I taste it toward the end.

MOROCCAN SOUP WITH BUTTERNUT SQUASH & SWISS CHARD

Ingredients

• Chickpeas, 1 lb., rinsed and cooked until just tender
• Butternut squash, washed, remove seeds and fibers, cut into 1.5 inch cubes (Don’t peel – I tried this! It really works!)
• Carrots, 1 lb., washed and cut into medium dice
• Onions, 1 lb., cut into medium dice
• Tomatoes, 1 lb., cut into medium dice
• Swiss Chard, 1 large bunch, remove leaves from stems, finely chopped
• Garlic, 1 head, peeled and chopped
• Extra virgin olive oil, 1/4 cup
• Smoked paprika, 1 TB
• Cinnamon, 1 TB
• Cilantro, 1 bunch, washed and coarsely chopped
• Lemon, 1/2 – 1, juiced
• Cumin, 1 tsp. (Most recently I used 1 TB and no coriander)
• Coriander, 1 tsp.
• Salt, to taste (I usually use about 1 TB per gallon of soup)
• Hot paprika, 1-2 tsp. (Opt.)
• Water to cover (between the chickpea liquid and water, about 5 quarts)

Instructions

1. Prepare the chickpeas by rinsing, covering with plenty of water, and cooking covered on low heat until tender (1-2 hours). Check periodically to make certain there is still sufficient water. Set aside with the remaining water.
2. Prepare the veggies (squash, carrots, onion, tomatoes chard, cilantro) and set aside. Note: you can replace the fresh tomatoes with one-half of a 19 oz. can of petite diced tomatoes if you’re in a hurry)
   Mince the garlic.
3. Add 2 TB extra virgin olive oil to a large soup pot. Saute the garlic and onion until softened.
4. Add the squash, carrots and tomato (or one-half of a 19-oz. can petite diced tomatoes) and the reserved chickpeas with their water.
5. Add additional water until all is cover — less for a more “packed” soup, more for a brothier soup.
6. Bring the soup to a boil, reduce heat to simmer, cover and cook until the veggies are tender.
7. Add the seasonings and lemon juice and check the taste. Adjust seasonings if needed.
8. Stir in the cilantro and chard.

I hope you enjoy this delicious, aromatic soup.

Tonight I’m making pumpkin and black bean patties for dinner. I’d love to share the results with you next week, but we’ve reached the end of the season! I hope the winter isn’t too hard on us this year, and I’ll look forward to connecting with you all again when we start getting Farmer Bob’s veggies again in the spring.

For more, visit my blog, vegetatingwithleslie.org, “Like” me on FaceBook/Vegetating with Leslie or follow me on Twitter, @vegwithleslie.

I’m not a scientist, nor am I a medical professional. I just love well-prepared food and a feeling of good health. I like to read and test out on myself theories that make sense and judge them based on experience.

These are the 10 things I’ve learned about healthy, satisfying eating over more than fifty years of experimenting with myself, my family and friends and in my cafe:

1. Eat real food. By real food, I mean whole foods from the earth as little manipulated as possible other than by your own preparation and cooking processes.
2. Eat until you’re satisfied, not stuffed. There is a delay before the satisfaction message reaches your brain. Allow for that.
3. If you’re not satisfied after meals and if you experience cravings, something needs adjusting in your diet.
4. Be careful about eliminating categories of food from your diet. There’s a lot of “fake news” about the disaster that will overtake you when you eat certain foods. There’s also a lot of imperfect nutritional knowledge.
5. Be careful about eliminating “food” categories, that is, except for added sweets of all kinds, natural and artificial. Get rid of those as much as you can. That includes most commercially processed foods.
6. Eat fiber. When appropriate and possible, buy organic and don’t peel things.
7. Don’t let the excuse that you can’t afford organic fruits and veggies stand in the way of eating them. It’s much more important to consume those whole foods than it is to avoid chemical residues. For the path of moderation, ewg.org provides a Dirty Dozen list of the worst offenders, updated each year.
8. Aim for at least 80% plant foods in your diet.
9. Nuts and seeds and avocados are your friends. They are the best source of healthy fats.
10. Enjoy your meals! Remember, it’s always a work in progress. You learn more, we all learn more, we get lazy and need system rechecks and adjustments, perfection is never a possibility, and if you put healthy whole foods on your table, you can savor the taste and experience instead of counting calories or “carbs.”

I have found the best way for me to experience healthy, satisfied pleasure from what I eat is to work with my CSA. On the days I spend out in the field, I often accumulate 15,000 steps or more. I feel the wind and the sun and the rain. I enjoy the beauty and the colors that surround me. I have my hands in the food chain and can’t imagine much that is more satisfying than knowing I have a direct relationship to the food I eat and feed my family.

Best of all, I am challenged to use 3/4 bushel of seasonal produce and more every week. I try things that are new to me, that I’ve seen in stores but haven’t bought because they were unfamiliar. There just isn’t a way to eat more healthfully than by using up my box of beautiful whole foods that I had a hand in producing.

For more, visit my blog, vegetatingwithleslie.org, “Like” me on FaceBook/Vegetating with Leslie or follow me on Twitter, @vegwithleslie.

Lech Lecha tells the story of Abram becoming Abraham. That story includes many tantalizing “historical” and “biographical” details, details that show us how the Torah wants us to understand the character of Abraham and the meaning of his transition.

Until now, the Torah story has been about the relationships among human beings and between human beings, their environment, other animals and Transcendence. Animals are featured in the early Torah story along with the first human beings. The serpent has as dramatic an impact on the progress of history as the first humans. Animals suffer the consequences of Adam and Eve eating from the tree along with humanity. In the Flood story, animals transgress as human beings do, and again animals suffer the consequences along with human beings.

What we learned in the story that precedes Lech Lecha is that non-human animals, like humans, connect with G-d through the breath of life, breathed into them by G-d. Non-human animals, like humans, are also substance, basar, which without the breath of G-d is merely dead meat, a carcass. And non-human animals are moral beings held accountable for their infractions. Human beings are not passive in their relationship to G-d and their world — and neither are non-human animals, who also have moral capacity and make decisions that have consequences.

In the story that unfolds in the Garden, the relationship between humans and animals is harmonious, and both are vegan, as G-d instructed. The fact that all creatures are vegan is central to the narrative:

“G-d said, “See, I give you every seed-bearing plant that is upon all the earth, and every tree that has seed-bearing fruit; they shall be yours for food. And to all the animals on land, to all the birds of the sky, and to everything that creeps on earth, in which there is the breath of life, [I give] all the green plants for food.” ~ Gen. 1:29-30

Outside the Garden, everything changes, all relationships, not only the one between human beings and G-d. The human relationship with the environment changes, with a less generous earth yielding its fruits more grudgingly to hard labor. And the human relationship with other animals changes. The snake and the woman are enemies. Hierarchical relationships prevail, even in the intimacy between husband and wife. Animal husbandry is in play with the Cain and Abel story (which assumes meat-eating), and accompanying it, animal sacrifice. Even human-to-human relationships change with the first homicide, a fratricide.

The Flood story confirms what the Cain and Abel story assumes: both animals and humans are implicated in unlawful bloodshed. Some animals, like humans, kill for food — and predator animals, like some human beings, sometimes kill human beings. The earth is filled with violence and lawlessness, and all flesh (kol basar) on earth, human and non-human animals and birds, are implicated and suffer consequences in the flood. Animal sacrifice is an integral part of the human relationship to G-d, with “pure” and “impure” animals entering the ark.

Post-Garden, blood is involved in all relationships. There is an economy of blood in the post-Garden world, the blood of sacrifice paying for unlawful blood spilled…in the ancient history of the world and in the present moment.

The changed relationships and the blood economy are confirmed in the diet post-Flood. Humans may kill non-human animals for food but cannot eat the blood with it; neither humans nor animals can kill human beings without consequence:

“The fear and the dread of you shall be upon all the beasts of the earth and upon all the birds of the sky—everything with which the earth is astir—and upon all the fish of the sea; they are given into your hand. Every creature that lives shall be yours to eat; as with the green grasses, I give you all these. You must not, however, eat flesh with its life-blood in it. But for your own life-blood I will require a reckoning: I will require it of every beast; of man, too, will I require a reckoning for human life, of every man for that of his fellow man.” ~ Gen. 9:2-5

Suddenly in Lech Lecha, the non-human animals’ and birds’ story is muted. No longer is their story and relationship to creation developing — it is fixed. References to animals are fleeting and not part of the evolving narrative.

• In Gen. 12:8, Abram builds an altar to the Lord in the hill country east of Bethel — although strangely, there is no mention of sacrifice.
• In Gen. 12:16, Abram acquires sheep, oxen, asses, she-asses, camels, and male and female slaves from Pharoah. This kind of wealth assumes a meat-eating lifestyle.
• In Gen. 13:1-9, we learn that Abraham, like Abel, is a herdsman, the first herding sheep, the latter primarily cattle. In Lech Lecha, this lifestyle is both assumed and acceptable without comment or elaboration.
• In Gen. 13:4, Abram returns to the altar east of Bethel on his return from Egypt and “invokes the Lord by name.” Again, there is no specific mention of sacrifice. This might mean nothing…but the doubling of this event is suggestive.
• In Gen. 14:17-19, as Abram returns from his victorious pursuit of the invaders who took Abram’s brother Lot along with all his possessions, he is met by the king of Sodom in the Valley of the King…and King Melchizedek of Salem. The king of Sodom approaches ambiguously, bringing neither food nor blessings. King Melchizedek of Salem brings both, bread and wine (a vegan offering) and a blessing for Abram that invokes the G-d of creation, the G-d whose original plan did not include either sacrifice or killing animals for food.

Finally, in the economy of blood established post-Garden, this portion concludes with a covenant agreement, sealed on G-d’s side when a flaming torch, representing G-d, passes “between the pieces,” three animals cut in two, a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old she-goat, a three-year-old ram and a whole turtle dove and small bird. (Gen. 15:9-18). On Abraham’s side, the covenant is sealed with a parallel blood rite, circumcision. (Gen. 17:9-14). The first part of the covenant agreement brings the promise of land while the second part brings the promise of descendants and a name change. The transition from Abram to Abraham is complete — and the transition to a new reality.

Animals may be treated as moral beings in the Torah story, but in Lech Lecha, their position in the new scheme of creation is a settled discussion, not a point of debate. Predator animals are “impure” beasts, animals who might kill humans, and other animals are “pure,” most, but not all of them, domesticated. In this Torah portion, domesticated animals are a fact of existence, and certain domesticated animals are a regular part of the human diet and of sacrificial worship.

Humans have the potential to become impure. But humans also have the opportunity to purify. The difference between human and animal impurity is that the human impurity is temporary, animal impurity permanent.

Yet hints of the original vision of the relationship between human and non-human animals remain in the stories of King Melchizedek and Abram at the altar east of Bethel. Abram invokes the name of the Lord without specifically engaging in animal sacrifice — twice. King Melchizedek blesses Abram of the G-d Most High, the Creator of heaven and earth, the G-d who created a world in which all of creation lived in harmony.

Lech Lecha begins a story of a life that includes death and killing, one genus in the family of living beings using others, a blood economy of creation that involves G-d … a world that isn’t quite according to anyone’s plan. For all the powerful and inspirational moments in the ongoing story of the developing relationship between G-d and the patriarchs, there is some sadness in finally leaving behind the vision of a world without death and violence, a world where all creatures live in harmony.

For more, visit my blog, vegetatingwithleslie.org, “Like” me on FaceBook/Vegetating with Leslie or follow me on Twitter, @vegwithleslie.

“Justice, justice you shall pursue, that you may live, and inherit the land which the LORD your God gives you.” (צֶדֶק צֶדֶק, תִּרְדֹּף–לְמַעַן תִּחְיֶה וְיָרַשְׁתָּ אֶת-הָאָרֶץ, אֲשֶׁר-יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ נֹתֵן לָךְ) – Deut. 16:20

Religions begin with looking at the world and seeing a problem, then imagining solutions. For the Torah and later Judaism, that problem is injustice. Since injustice is a problem in relationship, the solution the Torah imagines is a body of laws to guide first humanity, then a subset of humanity, the Israelites, in establishing right relationships.

The justice issue informs the overarching thematic structure of the Torah, set out in Genesis 1-9: creation, moral failure, roll-back of creation, a new creation. When morality fails and relationships are out of balance, catastrophe follows. When justice fails, worlds return to pre-creation emptiness and void. All of creation interconnects and depends on each part, and each part connects to and depends on others. Moral failures in any area of life affect everything.

My primary purpose in Torah Ecology is to explore what the Torah envisions as correct relationships. From my study so far, I believe the parameters are much wider than the human realm, embracing other creatures and the whole earth.

Ethical consciousness and responsibility pervade all of creation, human beings, non-human animals, the earth itself. Not only human beings but non-human animals fail to fulfill G-d’s plan for creation, and both are morally accountable. The earth is G-d’s instrument in ensuring justice. From this week’s portion:

“The earth became corrupt before G-d; the earth was filled with lawlessness. When G-d saw how corrupt the earth was, for all flesh (בָּשָׂר – basar) had corrupted its ways on earth, G-d said to Noah, ‘I have decided to put an end to all flesh (בָּשָׂר – basar), for the earth is filled with lawlessness because of them: I am about to destroy them with the earth.” (Gen. 6:11-13).

Our assumption is that G-d intends to wipe out humanity because of its “lawlessness,” because it “corrupted” its ways, but the text doesn’t say humanity — it says “all flesh” (בָּשָׂר – basar). The word signifies the substance or flesh of a being, most often without life in it, a carcass suitable for food or for sacrifice on the altar. It refers to any kind of creature.

The word בָּשָׂר – basar, meaning flesh, contrasts with נֶּפֶשׁ – nefesh, often translated “soul” — yet Gen. 12:5 reports that “Abram left Haran with his wife Sarai and his brother’s son Lot, and all the wealth that they had amassed, and the נֶּפֶשׁ (nefesh) – persons that they had acquired in Haran…”  The story of Noah and the flood suggests that נֶּפֶשׁ (nefesh) has an even more comprehensive meaning than “persons,” that like basar, it doesn’t only refer to human beings. Perhaps a better translation, then, is living being, substance given life by the breath of G-d.

Along these lines, Gen. 1:29-30 reads, “G-d said, “See I give you every seed-bearing plant that is upon all the earth, and every tree that has seed-bearing fruit; they shall be yours for food. And to all the animals on land (חַיַּת הָאָרֶץ – hayyat ha-aretz), to all the birds of the sky (עוֹף הַשָּׁמַיִם – of ha-shamayim), and to everything that creeps on earth (רוֹמֵשׂ עַל-הָאָרֶץ – romes al ha-aretz), in which there is the breath of life (אֲשֶׁר-בּוֹ נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה – asher bo nefesh hayyah), [I give] all the green plants for food.”

In Gen. 2:20, we learn of a further division of land animals into domesticated and wild: “And the man gave names to all the cattle (בְּהֵמָה – behemah) and to the birds of the sky and to all the wild beasts (חַיַּת הַשָּׂדֶה – hayyat ha-sadeh)…”

Once again, in Gen. 2:19, all creatures are living beings: “…and whatever the man called each living creature (נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה – nefesh hayyah), that would be its name.” All creatures are livings beings (נֶפֶשׁ – nefesh) brought to life with the breath of G-d. Ha-Adam, humanity, is but one genus in the family of living beings.

The word ”flesh” (בָּשָׂר – basar), then, in this context means all creatures were lawless and corrupted their ways on earth. The text emphasizes this point in the phrase, “The earth became corrupt before G-d” (וַתִּשָּׁחֵת הָאָרֶץ – va-tishaket ha-aretz). It also implies that all living beings were already dead, that the breath of life wasn’t within them. They were not נֶּפֶשׁ – nefesh. They were “basar,” carcasses, devoid of the breath of life.

Certainly this theme isn’t presented in a one-to-one correspondence, life vs. lifeless flesh. The creatures who enter the ark are “all flesh in which there is the breath of life” (מִכָּל-הַבָּשָׂר, אֲשֶׁר-בּוֹ רוּחַ חַיִּים – mi-lol ha-basar asher bo ruach hayyim) – Gen. 7:17. But it is the ongoing and repeated association of flesh with the beings on earth before the flood that focuses attention on the material and therefore transient aspect of life on earth, dependent on the breath of G-d for life.

More than that, skillful and repeated use of flesh, בָּשָׂר – basar, and נֶפֶשׁ – living being, points to the equality of all creation in this respect: all creatures, not only humans, depend on G-d for life, and their life is the breath of G-d. At the same time, all creatures, including humans, without the breath of life from G-d are merely meat, dead carcasses.

The emphasis on the equality of all being on earth finds another expression in Gen. 7:23: “All existence (כָּל-הַיְקוּם – lol ha-y’kum) on earth was blotted out — man, cattle, creeping things, and birds of the sky; they were blotted out from the earth.” An alternate translation of “existence” is “substance,” again a reference to the material aspect of all creatures on earth, human and otherwise. And those who leave the ark are all “living things of all flesh” (כָּל-הַחַיָּה… מִכָּל-בָּשָׂר – kol hayyah … mi-kol basar) – Gen. 8:17.

What Noach describes is a world in which all living beings became lawless and corrupt and all, therefore, suffered the consequence of their moral failure. Creation rolls back to watery emptiness and void but for the tiny remnant, human and non-human, who still have G-d’s breath of life in them, כָּל-הַחַיָּה (all living beings), floating on the vast, dark water in a tiny ark.

The story of the flood reverses the imagery of the creation story in Gen. 1 and is rich with allusions to that creation narrative as creation rolls back. But it is the reference to corruption in the flood story that makes me wonder what, exactly, brought on this roll back to pre-creation darkness and emptiness. Significant differences between the first creation and the new one that follows the flood suggest an answer.

The key Hebrew stem sh-h-t, “corrupt,” appears seven times in the flood narrative, according to Nahum Sarna in the JPS Torah Commentary. These further comments are telling: “The universal corruption is further defined as hamas. This term parallels “no justice” in Job 19:7 and is elsewhere the synonym of “falsehood,” “deceit,” or “bloodshed.” It means, in general, the flagrant subversion of the ordered processes of law.”

This helps us understand the nature of the lawlessness and corruption permeating all of creation that brought on the flood. A comparison of Gen. 1:29-30, quoted above, and Gen. 9:2-5 tells that story, once again including non-human creatures with humanity in both moral failure and consequence. Gen. 1:29-30 provides “every seed-bearing plant that is upon all the earth, and every tree that has seed-bearing fruit” to human beings for food and “all the green plants for food” to every kind of creature. In other words, both humans and animals are offered a vegan diet. Everything changes in the post-flood world:

Gen. 9:2-5: “The fear and the dread of you shall be upon all the beasts of the earth and upon all the birds of the sky—everything with which the earth is astir—and upon all the fish of the sea; they are given into your hand. Every creature that lives shall be yours to eat; as with the green grasses, I give you all these. You must not, however, eat flesh with its life-blood in it. But for your own life-blood I will require a reckoning: I will require it of every beast; of man, too, will I require a reckoning for human life, of every man for that of his fellow man (brother).”

The new creation of Gen. 9:2-5 differs profoundly from the creation of Gen. 1-3 that it mirrors. G-d specifically allows meat-eating to humans, generating fear throughout the animal kingdom. Immediately this reluctant permission is ringed with prohibition: not to eat flesh with its life-blood in it. Further, human beings are not to kill their “brothers,” their fellow humans, an allusion to the story of Cain and Abel, suggesting that every homicide is fratricide.

The passage also, however, pre-supposes meat-eating among animals and cautions they will now be held accountable if their prey is human. Both animals and humans, in taking life that was not permitted to them in the original order of creation, acted lawlessly and corruptly. For both animals and humans, there were consequences for moral failures tied to unjustly taking life that returned the world to watery emptiness and void. In the new creation, while G-d gives humans and animals permission to continue their practice of eating meat, restrictions surround the practice and they are warned of their accountability.

Humans killed their own family, and animals killed humans for food in the pre-flood world. This is the lawlessness and corruption that subverted G-d’s plan and brought down the first creation. In the brave new world post-flood, G-d recognizes and accepts the reality of human and animal natures and recluctantly, and I have to imagine sadly, allows meat-eating with restrictions to humans and animals according to their natures.

For more, visit my blog, vegetatingwithleslie.org, “Like” me on FaceBook/Vegetating with Leslie or follow me on Twitter, @vegwithleslie.

Published in Bob’s Fresh and Local Newsletter 10/16/2017

Our dry early spring and late planting brings us a bonus in our fall harvest…lots of beautiful peppers, sweet ones, spicy ones, beautiful colored ones.

This versatile recipe works for any combination of peppers. Just adjust the recipe overall for quantity, and adjust the hot paprika depending on the heat of the peppers you use.

The original recipe used all sweet bell peppers. Today I made them with two of our sweet yellow bell peppers and seven of the spicy Anaheim peppers.

Here’s my original recipe. I halved it for this group of peppers and eliminated the hot paprika since the Anaheims gave the salad plenty of bite. If you are heat-sensitive, use more sweet bell peppers and fewer Anaheims:

SWEET (OR SPICY) PEPPERS

Ingredients

• 6-8 red, yellow or orange bell peppers
• 2 – 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/4 cup white vinegar
• 2 TB extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tsp cumin
• 1 tsp Szeged hot paprika
• 1/3 bunch cilantro, chopped

Procedure

Rub the peppers with oil, and run them under the broiler, turning them as needed, until browned and wrinkly all over. Don’t over cook — you want plenty of pepper flesh. Thinner peppers finish quickly. Peel the peppers, remove the stems (don’t worry about the seeds – they make a nice garnish and add nutrition and flavor), and cut into lengthwise 1/4″ strips. Cut across the lengths into 1″ pieces. Add seasonings, stir, taste and adjust seasonings. Enjoy!

For more, visit my blog, vegetatingwithleslie.org, “Like” me on FaceBook/Vegetating with Leslie or follow me on Twitter, @vegwithleslie.

Published in Bob’s Fresh and Local CSA Newsletter 10/10/2017.

Farmer Bob’s pumpkins and winter squashes are beautiful this year, and they deserve to be the centerpiece of a meal, maybe even Thanksgiving dinner. This pumpkin feast is something you can feel proud to serve as your main dish for a vegan Thanksgiving — or right along with your turkey to satisfy vegetarian and vegan guests or as a festively colorful side dish. Even Peter will eat it and thank you, and he knows pumpkins!

This dish has three parts: the pumpkin, the pumpkin filling and the apples with their beautiful cranberry sauce topping.  You’ll have more filling than you need for the pumpkin, so you can just spread the extra around the pumpkin on the platter and put the apples on top of it. As you can see, the colors are amazing and will make any meal a special meal.

 

STUFFED PUMPKIN
Pumpkin and Stuffing (serves 4+ as a meal, many more as a side)

• 1 Sugar or Pie Pumpkin
• 2 Cups (Pre-cooked) Brown Basmati Rice
• 2 Cups (Cooked) Chickpeas
• 4 Cups Almonds/Raisins/Craisins/Apples
• 4 TB Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• 2 TB + 2 tsp. Sugar
• 2 tsp. Cinnamon
• Pinch Hot Paprika

Cut off top of pumpkin. Cut stem to 2 inches. Scrape out seeds. Season inside of pumpkin with olive oil and honey (or unfiltered sugar). Rub outside of pumpkin with olive oil. Roast one hour at 350 degrees.

Cook two cups brown rice. Set aside. Sauté almonds, raisins, craisins and apple slices with olive oil, sugar, cinnamon and a pinch hot paprika. Add to rice with chickpeas. Stir together and re-season. Set aside.

Apples and Cranberries

• 3 Baking Apples
• 6 Cloves
• 1 LB Bag Cranberries
• Pinch Cinnamon
• Juice of 1 Oranges
• 2 TB Honey (Unfiltered Sugar for Vegans)
• 1/4 – 1/2 Cup White Sesame, Toasted

Halve and oil the apples. Bake with cinnamon and cloves.

For sauce, juice orange and add 2+ TB honey (or sugar). Reduce sauce. Add cranberries and cook very briefly. Remove cranberries. Reduce sauce further. Recombine sauce and berries.

Assembling Pumpkin Meal
If you make everything ahead, warm each part separately. When ready to serve, fill the pumpkin loosely, replace pumpkin lid, and plate the pumpkin. Surround the pumpkin with the remaining filling, and place the apples on top of it around the pumpkin. Top the apples with cranberry sauce, and garnish with white sesame.

For more, visit my blog, vegetatingwithleslie.org, “Like” me on FaceBook/Vegetating with Leslie or follow me on Twitter, @vegwithleslie.

IMAGINING THE TORAH, A STORY OF RELATIONSHIP

The Torah tells us a story, imagining a world and inviting us to join in imagining.

Our ability to imagine, to create fiction and persuade others to believe it, says Yuval Noah Harari in Sapiens, is what gave Homo Sapiens the ability to finally move beyond a mediocre status as just another land animal in the middle of the food chain to world domination.

The profound and elegant imagination behind the first chapters in Genesis touches me deeply every time I read through these pages. Each time I find new things in the technical details of these words that enrich my understanding, for example, the structure of the first creation story. G-d creates a 3-part environment in majestic stages, then fills each part of the environment in three more stages and finally stops to survey the goodness of it all, pointing to creation with a plan and majestic order to it. But it’s not just ordered — it’s good, and the life in it is blessed.

So I am moved and awed by the form of Torah — but connecting to its imagination through my own brings me to core emotions and meanings and helps me connect to its content.

PART I: Imagining a G-d who chooses to live in relationship

Imagine.

Darkness so total you can’t see yourself, and you can’t see anything around you. The darkness cuts you off from any relationship, animate or inanimate, that might give you definition, make you “real.”

There are only two things, each so profound you can’t distinguish one from the other: darkness and deep.  It’s as impossible to know where one begins and the other ends as it is to know where you begin and end. Your isolation is complete.

A wind sweeps over the water. The only reason you know that is you feel it. Without light, there are no glimmerings on the water as the wind moves over it that might distinguish the darkness of the water from the darkness over it.

Two potential entities, darkness and deep, indistinguishable, unformed…and then a sudden flash of light emerges from the darkness, filling it, illuminating everything. The light provides day and night. It’s possible to differentiate between the darkness of the deep and the darkness above it. First day.

With light, other differentiations begin. A vastness (רָקִיעַ) emerges, separating the waters into those above and below it, as the primordial light separated the darkness into day and night. G-d names the vastness Heavens (שָׁמָיִם, possibly meaning “like water”). Second day.

More differentiations follow. As light emerged from darkness on the first day, the dry land (הַיַּבָּשָׁה) emerges from the deep when the waters below are gathered together (מִקְוֵה הַמַּיִם). G-d names the gathering of the waters Seas (יַמִּים) and the dry land Earth (אֶרֶץ). The earth sprouts vegetation. Third day.

These things, then, are the environment: Heavens, Seas and Earth with its vegetation. The Heavens and the Earth, including its Seas, are no longer formless and empty.

Now the environment begins to fill with life: celestial bodies, Day Four. Sea creatures and birds, Day Five. Land creatures, including Adam, “in our image, after our likeness; and let them…”, Day Six.

All the work G-d surveys at the end of the sixth day G-d judges very good. Only the work of the fifth day, though, when G-d creates fish and birds, and the sixth day, with the creation of humanity, are blessed. In addition, fish, birds and humanity receive their first commandment, p’ru u’rvu, be fruitful and multiply.

G-d appoints Adam, humanity, to domesticate the fish of the sea, birds of the air and every living thing that creeps on the earth.  G-d encourages intimacy between Adam and other creatures when he tells the human to name them as G-d named the Heavens and the Earth and the Seas.

Finally G-d assigns a vegan diet to Adam and to “and to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creeps upon the earth, wherein there is a living soul.” There is no prey and no predator here — all creatures live together in harmony.

Finally, G-d ceases (שָׁבַת), blesses the seventh day and declares it holy (וַיְקַדֵּשׁ), setting it apart from the other days of the week.

As the light emerges from the darkness, and the dry land emerges from the waters when they gather into seas, so this day emerges from time as something set apart. We understand the nature of each feature of creation only in relationship with that from which it differs.

Teeming with life in all its variety, in the heavens, on the land and in the seas, this creation is very different from the undifferentiated darkness, emptiness and isolation in the beginning. We have imagined our way from profound isolation to potential relationship and awareness of being. As creating is differencing, difference makes relationship possible and forms its basis.

Of course no human being was there to observe the creation of the world, and not one of us experienced that pre-creation moment when the breath of G-d moved across the deep, between darkness and darkness — but our imaginations can connect us to the moment.

The experience I had this year as I read those first words of Bereishit, Genesis, was a sense of profound loneliness. What if it had been my breath that moved over the deep, between vast darkness and vast darkness, where all was empty, where there was no environment, no teeming and varied life in it? How does that feel? It feels lonely.

I wonder if G-d created life because S/he was lonely?

PART II: Imagining the first humans exploring the meaning of relationship

Imagine.

No more does G-d’s breath hover over the undifferentiated deep between profound darkness and profound darkness. Now G-d walks in the heat of the day in the Garden S/he created. G-d blesses, commands, feels anger, loves. G-d can relate to creation.

“In the beginning” of this imagining, G-d creates the human being, the “ground being” from the dust (עָפָר) of the ground (הָאֲדָמָה), in G-d’s likeness and image. Here is the entire phrase in Hebrew with my translation/interpretation/imagining of it:

וַיִּיצֶר יְהוָה אֱלֹהִים אֶת-הָאָדָם, עָפָר מִן-הָאֲדָמָה, וַיִּפַּח בְּאַפָּיו, נִשְׁמַת חַיִּים; וַיְהִי הָאָדָם, לְנֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה.

G-d formed the-Adam (ha-Adam), the “ground being,” from dust G-d took from the ground (Adamah, a grammatically feminine noun that means “ground”), breathed G-d’s own breath into the-Adam, the breath of life; and the-Adam was a living being.

The-Adam is both male and female. This intricate word play suggests that the-Adam is like G-d, body and soul, an expression of wholeness, containing all possibilities.

Returning to the twin themes of loneliness and relationship, G-d knows “It is not good that the-Adam should be alone…” How does G-d know that? G-d experienced it.

So G-d separates the-Adam into two beings, male and female. Not until G-d separates Eve from the-Adam does Adam become a man. Ish (man) and Isha (woman) come into being simultaneously.

With this differentiation, G-d creates the possibility of relationship for the-Adam because relationship between human beings depends on difference. In the same moment, G-d creates the possibility of relationship for G-d’s self. The-Adam is no longer an extension of G-d’s self but is a differentiated being in body…and as we will soon imagine, soul.

The separation of the-Adam into Adam and Eve is both blessing and challenge. While it makes room for relationship, it also makes the world more complicated. Differentiated beings in relationship may not always see the world in the same way or make the same decisions. They are no longer necessarily of one mind just as they are no longer one body. The majestic order of Genesis 1:1-2:3 starts to get a little messy in Genesis 2:4-3:24.

Chapter 3 concludes with G-d locking in another critical difference between G-d’s self and humanity: when Adam and Eve eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, attaining for themselves G-d’s capacity for moral judgment, G-d prevents them from eating from the Tree of Life and Death, gaining G-d’s power over life and death.

So Adam and Eve enter the human frame, taking all of creation, now subject to life and death like them, with them. They learn that in relationships, actions have consequences, not only for oneself but for others.

The story explores another relationship, the one between these first human beings and a beast of the field, the-Snake (הַנָּחָשׁ).

The snake is more עָרוּם, arum, than any other beast of the field. But what does arum mean? Used infrequently in the Bible, it is most often translated “prudent” or “cautious,” which has a positive connotation. In Job, it translates “crafty,” with a more negative connotation. It also means, “naked.”

In just a few verses of chapter 3 of Genesis, the word arum appears several times, describing both the snake and the first humans — and yet because our translations select different words, crafty or shrewd for the snake and naked for the humans, we miss the parallel. How does it change the way we imagine the story if we use the same word for both humans and snake?

As a beast of the field, the snake is not domesticated by the humans. It is free and independent — yet it is also “more arum (עָרוּם) than any beast of the field.”

Reading this, I hold all possibilities in my mind while I imagine the story. The snake, like the human, is somehow superior to all the other beasts of the field, captured in the word, arum. Like the human, the snake is “naked,” without a coat of fur. The snake, however, is also “crafty” or “shrewd,” capable of imaginative manipulation — or perhaps the prudence to manage its life skillfully, planning the best strategy for its own advancement.

Prudence also implies that the snake is capable of anticipating the consequences of its actions, a capability that requires imagination, but the snake also fails at that sometimes just as the humans do. Surely the snake hoped for different results when it told Eve the truth about the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

In my imagining, when Adam and Eve eat from the Tree, they realize they, like the snake, are naked. Or crafty and manipulative. Or prudent, meaning they have the imagination to understand that their actions have consequences. Tragically they attain this understanding too late, realizing with horror the disastrous consequences of their action not only for themselves but for all of creation.

All imaginings that use the same descriptive word for the snake and the human draw a parallel between them and cause us to consider their natures and relationship. Unlike all the animals the humans domesticate, the snake remains independent, an untamed beast of the field but superior to them, human-like in appearance, discernment and perhaps imaginative and manipulative ability. The snake is consigned to go on its belly and eat dust all the days of its life, but the human lot isn’t much of an improvement, coming from and returning to dust.

And the snake, with its capability to regenerate, associates to what is denied humans, eternal life: “As snakes shed their skin through sloughing, they are symbols of rebirth, transformation, immortality, and healing.^[7] The ouroboros is a symbol of eternity and continual renewal of life.”

The humans and the snake are competitors in this brave new world they enter post-Garden. Interestingly, this imaginative, suggestive story, like so many others in the Torah, turns out to correspond to recent research: “Snakes are predators on, prey of, and competitors with primates.”

Part III: Imaging how life gets messy and relationships run amuck

Imagine once again.

You are a tenant farmer. Your days in the fields are long and backbreaking, tilling, planting, watering, weeding and nurturing, harvesting. At the end of a day you have no more energy. You just want a few hours of sleep before you go out into the hot sun for another day like the last. Still, you know it’s appropriate to say thank you for what you have, so you quickly gather some fruits of your labor, thinking the whole time about how you just want to get home and sleep, and you take your bundle to the landowner.

Your brother herds sheep. Instead of back-breaking work in the fields under a hot sun, he is off hiking in the hills, watching over his flock. In the heat of the day, he, like his flock, finds a shady area for rest. He probably knows each animal he tends, their names, their personalities, possibly even loves them. Your brother also knows he must thank the landowner for the life he has, and he carefully and with complete attention selects the very best from his flock, the one he loves the most, and takes that animal to the landowner.

The landowner responds to this special care and attention, this heartfelt sacrifice, in kind, turning to your brother with complete, focused attention: וַיִּשַׁע (va-yisa).

Aware only of the backbreaking hours you spend every day tilling the hard earth, lifting and hauling, planting and weeding under a hot sun, you don’t notice the subtle but immense difference between your gift to the landowner and your brother’s.

Your brother’s offering wasn’t just any animal of his flock. It was the choicest of the firstlings of the flock with its fat, a coveted delicacy (מִבְּכֹרוֹת צֹאנוֹ, וּמֵחֶלְבֵהֶן). It was the best of the best. Your offering was whatever you gathered from the field, not necessarily the best nor the earliest. It was just something you pulled from the harvest as you thought about going home to sleep before another day.

Focused only on your hard work and your desire for attention and recognition, though, that detail escapes you…and you feel anger that your gift receives as little attention as your selection process got. In your anger (and again, without thinking, just as your gift was without much thought), you lash out. The result of your ill-considered, imprudent action is the death of another, your brother.

And so the first story beyond the borders of the Garden, beyond the ideal world G-d intended, a world with no death, where all of creation lives in harmony nurtured by the abundance of creation, is a fratricide.

The fratricide occurs for much the same reason as the exile from the Garden: it is the result of an imprudent moment, a moment without thought, without considering the disastrous consequences of an action. And in both cases the result is the same, although in different ways: Cain’s act, like Adam and Eve’s, brings death into creation, Adam and Eve in a future they cannot yet imagine, and Cain in the here and now for his brother.

As Eve’s (sexual) desire (תְּשׁוּקָתֵךְ) after her thoughtless act is for her husband while her husband rules (יִמְשָׁל) over her, directing her life, sin’s urge (sexual connotation?) is for Cain (תְּשׁוּקָתוֹ), but Cain has the potential to rule (תִּמְשָׁל) over it. Sadly he doesn’t, allowing sin to direct his life (compare Gen 3:16 and 4:7).

The parallelism between the creation story and Cain shows up elsewhere as well: Genesis 4:17-24 recounts the generations of Cain, seven of them. In the course of those seven generations, not only does Cain murder his brother, but Cain’s great-great-great grandson, Lamech, murders a boy who “wounds” him. As Lamech says to his wives, “If Cain is avenged sevenfold, Then Lamech seventy-sevenfold” (Gen 4:24).

The play on seven parallels G-d creating the world in seven days. Through seven, G-d creates life, and through seven, Cain and his descendants destroy it.

One more thing about Cain’s story: it is vague, and it dead-ends. The story of Cain’s generations is told without specifying the age at which children are born and without death notices. After this chapter, Cain and his line are never again mentioned. They disappear into emptiness and void as Cain came into creation, absorbed with himself and disconnected from any greater relationship or purpose.

Chapter 5 returns us to Adam. The generations of Adam mention both births and deaths of the firstborn male in each generation, assigning specific ages to each and citing the number of years each man lived after the birth of his firstborn son. Some students of Torah (and much better mathematicians than I could ever dream to be) find progressions in these numbers, and I suspect they are there. There is a clear mathematical progression in the ages of the patriarchs. The specific progressions, though, have little meaning in themselves.

Numbers in the Torah are regularly used, however, as a literary device, suggesting order and regularity — a plan. Here they indicate that despite the forces of violence and death and evil in the world, G-d’s plan for life emerges victorious. G-d’s creation and plan for history parallels Cain’s violence and destruction, and the force for good prevails, building relationships, meaning, significance and a place in our imaginations, as the seven generations of Cain disappear into oblivion and meaninglessness.

Part IV: What I imagine as I read these chapters

My focus in my Torah Ecology study is to understand the worldview of the Torah, its vision of G-d, humanity and the rest of creation and the relationships between them all. Noticing literary and structural details and imagining myself into the story are the best ways I have to understand the Torah’s story from its own perspective, to let the text, as much as possible, speak to me.

Having imagined, and noted a few technical details, these are things I see:

• The stories of Genesis 1-3 are aspirational, an imaginative exploration of what G-d wants for creation, an ever-present potentiality.
• Beginning with Genesis 4, we enter the human frame, a world of sexuality and birth (Gen. 4:1-2) and death (Gen. 4:8).  It is a world of differences that offers the possibility of relationship but also the possibility of violence when those differences are not managed “prudently” (עָרוּם – arum), anticipating consequences of actions, and harmoniously.
• All creation suffers from Adam and Eve’s imprudence, their inability to consider consequences of their actions, the environment and the animals right along with them. The ground is no longer necessarily rich and fertile. Soaked with blood, it returns thorns and thistles. Animals, along with human beings, procreate in this world. They kill and are killed. They are both prey and predators.

The first three chapters present a vegan ideal in accord with the aspirational idea that G-d “intends” all of creation to live in harmony and abundance, nurtured by the love of its Creator and in turn nurturing the earth and other life.

This ideal extends to the animal world, who receive the commandment, along with humanity, that they eat plant food: “See, I give you every seed-bearing plant that is upon all the earth, and every tree that has seed-bearing fruit; they shall be yours for food. And to all the animals on land, to all the birds of the sky, and to everything that creeps on earth, in which there is the breath of life, [I give] all the green plants for food.” (Gen. 1:29-31)

G-d requires of both animals and humanity that they not take life for food; and consequences fall on every living creature, whether human or other, when humans choose the wrong food (the fruit of the Tree in the middle of the Garden).

The parallelism between the snake and the humans (עָרוּם – naked or prudent) on the one hand, and the vegan ideal set out for all on the other hand, points us to the idea that in this ideal world, humanity in is on a plane with all other living creatures, receiving the same life-giving instructions and consequences for all when one fails.

Shared responsibility and shared consequences remind us that in our real world, the things we do, great and small, always impact our world in ways we can hardly imagine but must learn to do, for we are all in relationship, everywhere and always, with everything.

The Torah story tells us we humans are very important. We have the capacity to build relationships, meaning and significance with all of creation and with a G-d who cares…and we have to capacity to be imprudent and thoughtless, ignore our connection to G-d, to other human beings, other life on the planet and to the planet itself, bringing catastrophe to all, fading into oblivion as we return everything to formlessness and emptiness.

Our choices to sustain life bring us life…different choices return us to that space where there are only two things, each so profound we can’t distinguish one from the other: darkness and deep. A space where it’s as impossible to know where one begins and the other ends as it is to know where we begin and end. A space where we disappear into isolation, without meaning.

* * * * *

Note: Nicholas Petersen discusses Hebrew cosmology and a word pattern in Genesis 1 that elaborates the theme of an overarching plan, a creation neither accidental nor haphazard in its origin but rather majestic and purposeful.

Petersen shows how each of the three realms is named only after G-d creates its “essence: “The term ‘rāqîaʿ’ perfectly conveys these notions of expansion and enlargement (of the skies and universe). This use of a simple-technical word to describe the ‘cosmic region’ of sky / heavens fits precisely with the pattern in Genesis 1, in which the other major cosmic ‘regions’ (seas and earth) were first described with a simple-technical word, before being given their common name.”)

For more, visit my blog, vegetatingwithleslie.org, “Like” me on FaceBook/Vegetating with Leslie or follow me on Twitter, @vegwithleslie.

Published 10/3/2017 in Bob’s Fresh and Local CSA Newsletter

I always make pumpkin pies for Thanksgiving, and I like to make them “from scratch,” with real pumpkin, not canned. It’s so easy — why not? All it requires is to slice the pumpkin in two, scoop and scrape out seeds and pulp (and set aside for roasted pumpkin seeds), oil, and place face side down on a roasting pan in a 350 degree oven for about an hour. At the end of the cooking time, remove from the oven, cool, and easily scoop out the pumpkin flesh.

And of course there are the seeds, which I’m munching as I write. You don’t get those with canned pumpkin! I put them in a colander with the pulp, run cold water over them, rubbing the seeds and pulp together. The seeds easily pull away, and I discard the pulp. Usually I dry the seeds briefly, then oil and salt them and oven roast in a shallow pan. This time, for some reason, I decided to pan roast them in a cast iron pan. I had just made some sweet pita in that pan using maple syrup, and I was too lazy to wash the pan, so I just threw in the seeds over the bits of darkened maple syrup and stirred constantly until they browned slightly and voila! Done. Delicious.

There are so many ways to use pumpkin that I can’t even count them. I get my inspiration from Morocco most of the time. Those folks love pumpkin and are so creative with it! Pumpkin soups, kibbee, stews, stuffed.

This week I’m going to share two pumpkin hummus recipes, the first with a slightly sweet profile, the second a savory Lebanese version. The Lebanese version didn’t have chickpeas in it, and it was lovely, but I confess to having an aversion to calling things hummus that don’t have chickpeas since in both Hebrew and Arabic, “hummus” means chickpeas as well as the “dip” in which they are used. When I finished the slightly sweet hummus, I had a few extra chickpeas, so I threw them into the Lebanese hummus mix, and it was delicious. I could have used more and will next time.

PUMPKIN HUMMUS

Blend the following until as smooth as you like it:

• Chickpeas, 2 cups cooked (I always make my own from dried beans, but if you used canned, rinse and drain)
• Pumpkin, 2 cups prepared as above
• Cinnamon, 2 tsp.
• Ginger root, peeled and minced, 2 tsp.
• Salt, 1/8-1/4 tsp.
• Nutmeg, 1/8-1/4 tsp.
• Cloves, 2-4
• Hot paprika, 1/8-1/4 tsp.
• Sugar, 1 TB slightly rounded

For the “chips” on this one, I use whole wheat Lebanese pita, available in the Middle Eastern section of many stores. Cut it into chips and oven-crisp at 200 degrees until lightly toasted. Remove, cool and bag up for use later.

For this slightly sweet hummus, I stirred the chips in a hot pan for a few minutes with a bit of olive oil, maple syrup and cinnamon. Yum.

LEBANESE PUMPKIN HUMMUS

Blend the following until as smooth as you like it:

• Pumpkin, prepared as above, 600-700 grams
• Chickpeas, 1/2 cup
• Lemon juice, freshly squeezed, 2 TB
• Garlic, 1 clove, minced
• Tahini, 5 TB
• Salt, 1/2 tsp.
• Hot paprika, 1/4 tsp.
• Extra virgin olive oil for garnish
• Roasted pumpkin seeds for garnish

Serve this one with the regular pita chips from the Lebanese pita, not sweetened. Enjoy these delicious variations on a classic Middle Eastern favorite.

For more, visit my blog, vegetatingwithleslie.org, “Like” me on FaceBook/Vegetating with Leslie or follow me on Twitter, @vegwithleslie.