Judaism – Page 12

Rosh Hashanah table talk

In his diaries, Franz Kafka reflected that our not knowing “the real highway” we’re on means that “we drift in doubt. But, also in an unbelievable, beautiful diversity. Thus, the accomplishment of hopes remains an always unexpected miracle.” (photo from Piotr Malecki)

The Chassidic Rebbe Haim of Tzanz told this parable: A person had been wandering about in the forest for several days, unable to find a way out. Finally, in the distance, he saw another person approaching him, and his heart filled with joy. He thought to himself: “Now, surely, I shall find a way out of the forest.” When they neared each other, he asked the other person, “Brother, will you please tell me the way out of the forest?”

The other replied: “Brother, I also do not know the way out, for I, too, have been wandering about here for many days. But, this much I can tell you. Do not go the way I have gone, for I know that is not the way. Now come, let us search for the way out together.” (Adapted from S.Y. Agnon, The Days of Awe)

Perhaps this is a story to read at your Rosh Hashanah table, to start a discussion about your – and your guests’ – hopes for new direction in life. Think about a new path you would like to explore this coming year, or let others know about an old path you have tried that they might best avoid.

In his diaries, Franz Kafka, the 20th-century Czech Jewish writer, reflected on the difficulty of finding our way and yet our eternal hope:

“If we knew we were on the right road, having to leave it would mean endless despair. But we are on a road that only leads to a second one and then to a third one and so forth. And the real highway will not be sighted for a long, long time, perhaps never. So, we drift in doubt. But, also in an unbelievable, beautiful diversity. Thus, the accomplishment of hopes remains an always unexpected miracle. But, in compensation, the miracle remains forever possible.”

The poet and Bible scholar Joel Rosenberg speaks of Rosh Hashanah as a homecoming, rather than as journeying:

“The Hebrew word for year – shana – means change. But its sense is two-fold: on the one hand, change of cycle, repetition (Hebrew, l’shanot, reiterate, from sh’naim, two), but, on the other hand, it means difference (as in the [the Pesach seder when we ask] mah nishtana? How is this night different?) We are the same, we are different. We repeat, we learn, we recapitulate. We encounter something new. ‘Shana tova!’ means, ‘Have a good change!’”

And yet, how familiar is this time! The chant, the faces, the dressed-up mood, the calling on the same God, the words, the blessings, the bread, the apples, the honey, the wine – all are the same, and yet completely new. We meet ourselves again and for the first time.

A year that begins anew is also the fruit of the year that preceded. Good or bad, it has made us wiser. It will not constrain us. We choose from it what we want and need like gifts we brought from journeys. Rosh Hashanah is always like coming home – just as Pesach was always going on a journey.

“How do we find our Divine Parent who is in Heaven? How do we find our Parent who is in Heaven? By good deeds and the study of Torah.

“How does the Blessed Holy One find us – through love, through brotherhood, through respect, through companionship, through truth, through peace, through bending the knee, through humility, through more study, through less commerce, through the personal service to our teachers, through discussion among the students, through a good heart, through decency, through No that is really No, and through Yes that is really Yes.” (Midrash Seder Eliyahu Rabbah 23)

Noam Zion is a senior fellow emeritus of the Kogod Research Centre at the Shalom Hartman Institute. He has developed study guides on Bible, holidays and rabbinic ethics. His publications and worldwide lectures have focused on “homemade Judaism” – empowering families to create their own pluralistic Judaism. This article was originally published in 2014; it is adapted from his Rosh Hashanah seder. Articles by Zion and other Hartman Institute scholars can be found at shalomhartman.org.

VHA’s new principal

“Children want to be heard and validated for what makes them unique at all ages, just like us adults. The old adage that children should be seen and not heard is exactly the opposite of what we need from kids today,” Ellia Belson told the Independent.

photo - Ellia Belson, principal of Vancouver Hebrew Academy — Ellia Belson, principal of Vancouver Hebrew Academy *(photo from Ellia Belson)*

Belson is the new principal of Vancouver Hebrew Academy. She comes to VHA from King David High School, where she was the director of Jewish life, and has also taught at Vancouver Talmud Torah. “The experience gives me insight into the learning process and what motivates children to learn at different stages of their lives,” she said. “While a child in Grade 2 will be motivated by classroom activities, by the time they are 11, they are already starting to differentiate themselves from their parents and looking for ways to express their individuality.”

Belson takes over from the team of Ian Mills, Shannon Brody and Rivki Yeshayahu, who supported VHA while the school “looked for a principal who can lead an Orthodox Jewish school in such a unique city as Vancouver,” said Leslie Kowarsky, VHA board president. Prior to this trio, Rabbi Barak Cohen was principal for a year, after having taken the helm from Rabbi Don Pacht, who served as the school’s head for 17 years.

“We are thrilled to have secured Ellia Belson as our new principal,” said Kowarsky, noting that Belson has a master’s in special education from the University of British Columbia. Belson attained her teacher certification and bachelor’s from Simon Fraser University, and her resumé also includes Judaic studies for teachers from Bais Rivkah Seminary and Touro College in New York and Hebrew University in Israel, as well as other education training. In addition, she has more than 10 years’ experience at Energex Energy Management Systems Inc., a company started by her husband Rami.

“She is a Vancouver native, and many of our families remember fondly that her father, Sol Pavony, was himself the founding principal of what was then Vancouver Torah Academy,” said Kowarsky. “Mrs. Belson is already hard at work and is available to any prospective parents seeking an Orthodox Jewish education for their child.”

Belson’s education philosophy is focused on student-centred and inclusive learning.

“Students need multiple modes of learning to stay engaged and motivated. By providing students with multiple avenues to the curriculum and by offering choices, students feel a sense of control over their learning,” she explained. “For instance, a student might choose to read a storybook, a news article or a Gemara text to express their analysis on how one’s actions will have consequences. Then, they might choose to express this through writing, art or a PowerPoint. By recognizing a child’s individual learning style and offering different ways to access the information, you can provide opportunities for enrichment and academic achievement.”

For the coming year, Belson said the focus will be “on increasing our school spirit and joy for learning. We will be offering a new Judaic curriculum for Hebrew and Torah learning. We will be implementing a social-emotional program for all the classrooms, with opportunities for teacher growth through additional professional development. In addition, classes will enjoy extra teacher supports for those who need it.

“We want to emphasize the positives of our Judaism through experiential learning while keeping parents in the loop with consistent streams of communication coming home,” she said. “Our view is that a child’s academic and social learning happens as a team, which includes parents, students and teachers. We need to work together to reach our goals.”

VHA is also working towards expanding its existing daycare to open spots for infants and toddlers, “as there is a huge demand,” she added.

Belson’s ties to VHA are many. As Kowarsky noted, Belson’s father was the first principal of VHA’s predecessor, Torah Academy, which was started under the auspices of Rabbi Yitzchok Wineberg, head of Chabad Lubavitch BC.

About that family connection, Belson said, “It is an incredible feeling of responsibility to our VHA community. He was my mentor in every way and my inspiration for what a person should be. Humble, wise, attentive, full of love for every person – he was a true educator and authentic to his beliefs.”

While Belson herself was too old to attend VHA by the time it started – she attended VTT as a child – all four of her kids attended VHA.

“Each of our Jewish schools has a lot to offer our children and each has its own emphasis and values,” she said. “At VHA, the feeling is for living a Jewish life that is accepting of who you are no matter where you come from, your socioeconomic status or your level of religiousness. At VHA, the emphasis is on being your best self, with kindness to others and a cultivating a strong Jewish identity. Having a place to be accepted, whether Orthodox or not, was very important to me then and now.

“VHA has historically been a school known for its academic excellence and many of its alumni are, today, successful doctors, lawyers, teachers and rabbis. I took on this position,” she said, because “having no Orthodox school for our children would have far-reaching consequences to our wider Vancouver Jewish community.”

Belson concluded, “I’m excited and positive about contributing to VHA’s sense of excitement for learning. I think we have a bright future and an opportunity to implement modern teaching strategies within our ancient traditions.”

The first step is the to-do list

Yesterday, I shared my to-do list with a friend via email. She responded with “Ahh! I’m tired just reading this!” What I didn’t mention is that I had to do all this plus other chores, thrown in, which I had either forgotten to write down or were such household habits that I didn’t list them. For many caregivers who work and manage households, this sounds familiar. It’s the list that is the first step. Write it down. Name the obligation. Then release yourself from trying to remember it all. Finally, cross it off the list later.

This isn’t a new phenomenon. Studies have shown how much of this organizational and emotional labour falls to women. For example, a recent National Public Radio piece from the United States covered research by economists, which showed that women (mothers) were almost always contacted by schools first, no matter which parent was designated as the “first contact” on the emergency form. The social media chatter that followed remarked on how female medical residents or surgeons, working hours away from their children’s schools, were still called first even though the primary caretaker was the father. In the study itself, one economist described the mental load of planning ahead for “if the school called” and how women’s workload could be managed in such situations. She noted that, even though her husband was the vice-president of the Parent Teacher Association, the school always called her first.

In economic terms, women then self-select for lower paying, more flexible work simply to manage these challenges, resulting in lower income and fewer opportunities for career growth. Societal obligations placed mostly on women create a lifelong effect on earning power and household income.

This morning, as I bake bread, make chicken broth in two slow cookers, write this article and air out the house with fans because of an unexpected drop in temperatures due to a rainstorm, I time everything to fit into the hours between when I drop kids off at 9 a.m. and pick them up at noon for their half day of camp. This is, of course, not a specifically Jewish problem, but aspects of it are in our house.

We have twin 12-year-olds, with both kids doing b’nai mitzvah lessons at the same time. These kids come with different challenges. Like all learners, they may need different supports to master chanting trope. Amid the meltdown tears last night, it became clear that what was necessary was for each kid to have 15 minutes to practise separately every day with me. As the crying continued – and I include myself in the crying – my partner tried to help.

This is when you might wonder why all this falls to me, and you’d be right to ask. My partner told us that the year before his bar mitzvah involved a lot of crying. He was so overwhelmed that he quit playing drums at school, because he couldn’t manage both things. His mother had been given no Jewish education. She couldn’t read Hebrew and didn’t know the prayers. His father worked late every day, coming home at 11 p.m. My twins’ dad was truly on his own, with a cassette tape. He never learned the trope and struggled with short-term memory issues. Mastering his bar mitzvah portion took him a long time. As an adult, he never gained some of these prayer skills. A demanding job means now is not the time for him to catch up. The obligation’s all mine.

We’ve now been married for 25 years and I just learned last night about this tough path my husband took towards bar mitzvah. By comparison, I had supportive parents with some Jewish literacy, plus we attended services regularly. I was self-directed as a learner. Mastering everything for my bat mitzvah was interesting and challenging but not a struggle. I continued learning through university and graduate school and beyond, as I continue to study Talmud when I can. We chose a bilingual Hebrew/English elementary school for our kids partially because it would make bar mitzvah study easier for them.

Few people see what my lists of work and household obligations look like. I tell even fewer people about fitting in 20 minutes of Daf Yomi, a page of Talmud every day. When I mention the Talmud study, I’ve been asked why I bother. The minutiae of discussions of Jewish law that rabbis conducted so long ago is of no interest to most. Sometimes, if the person wants to know why, I explain that I learn things about Jewish tradition, history and daily life from these debates.

I also admit to myself that I find some reassurance in these pages. Although the specifics might have been different, life’s minutiae is pretty much the same. The rabbis struggled over multiple daily tasks, relationships and household concerns in many of the ways I do. They sweated the details, even if they didn’t do them all personally.

If everything works out, in June 2024, my kids will step up to the bimah (pulpit) and become bar mitzvah boys, which is a huge lifecycle event. Between now and then, practising with them will be another part of my to-do list. Good study habits mean you do a little every day until, suddenly, you learn something new. Just like my lists, nothing is insurmountable if you name it, take it step by step, and cross it off the list when the task is complete.

Like many women, I get bogged down by the minutiae. I wish I could share more of the household labour and emotional load. Even men who try to assume more of these tasks have to struggle against the societal expectations our culture wields. Step by step, we make change in our lives, our lists and our expectations for one another. It’s not a sprint. You can’t cram the night before to pass this exam. Life is a series of chores, moments, obligations and, well, joys.

Early this morning, I leashed up the dog while I sang the first Haftorah blessing aloud. I try to put the melody into the twins’ heads while donning my shoes and raincoat as I head out. Each step makes a difference to hopefully hit one very big milestone ahead.

Joanne Seiff has written regularly for CBC Manitoba and various Jewish publications. She is the author of three books, including From the Outside In: Jewish Post Columns 2015-2016, a collection of essays available for digital download or as a paperback from Amazon. Check her out on Instagram @yrnspinner or at joanneseiff.blogspot.com.

Connecting from heart

Zelik Segal teaches an ongoing, free class in Nonviolent Communication. (photo from Zelik Segal)

We’ve all had an experience in which someone is short-tempered with us for no apparent reason, or doesn’t respond to us as we would like. We have a choice in that moment to react in kind or to pause, understanding that they may be having a bad day, or are dealing with chronic pain, or any number of things that have little or nothing to do with us. In situations like these, something called Nonviolent Communication (NVC) might come in handy.

In a nutshell, NVC teaches how to observe a conflict with objectivity, in place of subjective evaluations of right and wrong or appropriate and inappropriate. It also teaches how to sort out your own feelings and understand what needs of yours are in play, then how to determine what action might fulfil your needs in a conflict without taking away from the needs of the other person or people.

Want to experiment with that process? Zelik Segal teaches an ongoing, free class in NVC in Vancouver that helps people who are experiencing conflict and are ready to address it. It could be a marital problem or an ongoing argument with a friend or family member.

Segal took his first course in NVC in 2012 and has been facilitating and practising for the past six years; he is working on his certification. Segal began studying NVC after he retired from 18 years as a bus driver with Coast Mountain Bus Company. Prior to that, he worked as Lower Mainland regional coordinator for the B.C. Head Injury Program, under the ministry of health.

“When coming into a group to teach NVC, I also experience learning together and creating community that feeds my soul,” Segal told the Independent. “And having the good fortune to have discovered this jewel of living a more rewarding life, I like to share my good fortune with anyone else willing to learn.”

Segal calls himself an “empathy coach.” As such, he sometimes helps NVC students unravel difficult situations in their lives.

“Teaching NVC is the most immediate and direct way I can fulfil the talmudic statement from Rabbi Tarfon, who said, ‘You are not responsible to complete the task (of repair, tikkun olam), nor are you free from doing your part.’”

Segal recognizes that NVC is not always effective in resolving conflict and that it can take a lot of patience to sort through complex situations. He told the Independent that it did, however, change his life.

“While my connections to people and activities have remained the same as they were before I began to practise NVC, the way I connect and experience these connections are significantly different and far more satisfying,” he said. “I have learned to apply my learning to my marriage, to my employment as a bus driver prior to my retirement, to my retirement, to family and to my own self.”

Psychologist Marshall Rosenberg developed NVC in the 1970s. In part, it was his reaction to the bullying he went through in school because of his Jewish surname. In his book Nonviolent Communication: The Language of Life, he states that bullying is a “tragic expression of unmet needs.”

Segal further explained that Rosenberg’s nine categories of needs are safety, sustenance, love, empathy, community, creativity, recreation, meaning and autonomy.

Rosenberg became famous for creating dialogue between people around the world who were involved in violent conflicts, including Israelis and Palestinians. Trainers in NVC today are continuing his work.

“While NVC teaches the use of compassionate understanding to achieve resolution of conflict, it supports the use of force in situations where there is a threat to life, where the other party is unwilling or unable to enter into conversation and presents a threat,” said Segal.

Rosenberg suggested that, in times of conflict, people respond by defending themselves, attacking the other or withdrawing from the situation, sometimes even experiencing complete collapse, explained Segal.

“Learning that emotions are rooted in previous learning and part of a complex, unconscious process in the brain and directly rooted in the degree to which needs are fulfilled, one can then respond with curiosity and reflection in place of old patterns of reaction,” he said.

Segal sees NVC as a way to practise Judaism’s emphasis on social justice and “apply many of the maxims expressed by the rabbis in Pirkei Avot [Ethics of Our Fathers],” he said.

If you have questions about NVC or are interested in Segal’s classes, you can contact him at zelik@telus.net. Rosenberg’s books are available online and the Centre for Nonviolent Communication, which he founded, offers international training and certifies individuals as trainers: cnvc.org.

“NVC is about connecting with ourselves and others from the heart,” it says on the centre’s website. “It’s about seeing the humanity in all of us. It’s about recognizing our commonalities and differences and finding ways to make life wonderful for all of us.”

Cassandra Freeman is a freelance writer living in Vancouver.

Sharing the load as a team

The greatest triumph of our summer so far is moving 10 cubic yards of gravel. Obviously, there’s a story in this! When we moved to our present house, we knew that the landscaping (along with the plumbing, electricity, insulation, boiler and more) needed work. A previous owner created rock-filled beds in both the front and backyards. This wouldn’t have been our chosen landscaping technique, but, when we moved in, these beds had so many weeds and enough scattered rock that it would be hard to remove them, so we chose to improve on what was here already.

We found an advertisement offering an entire dump truck’s worth of (slightly used) gravel for a low price. I made bad geology jokes about “new” versus “used” gravel after that, but we called them up. Soon after, we received two huge piles of gravel in our driveway, dumped efficiently by a Hutterite colony that found they had too much on hand. We had saved cardboard and put it down to kill weeds. Then the cardboard was covered with the slightly dusty and dirty (used) gravel.

The first pile of gravel, for the front of the house, was moved by the end of May long weekend. Through trial and error, I found a successful system that one mom (me) and twins (age 12) could manage. It involved using beach sand buckets and plastic flowerpots. Each person filled up two of these, and we pretended to do weightlifting as we marched from the pile to the landscape bed, over and over. My much larger partner filled a heavy wheelbarrow full of gravel with a shovel and moved it instead. We also had help from a kind neighbour who loaned us a second garden cart, which could be operated by the twins if (and only if) they cooperated.

The backyard gravel pile took longer. It wasn’t in the way as much, not as publicly in view and, well, some of our enthusiasm for the project had worn off. We finally moved it all into the backyard by mid-July. There are, of course, people who hire landscapers using Bobcats, or workers with multiple wheelbarrows, but we did the physical labour, for free, as a team. It worked for us. As neighbours commented on the hardworking “mama and twins” and the disappearing piles, we felt proud of our efforts.

This gravel experience reminded me of other Jewish traditions around summer, with Tisha b’Av coming. This day of mourning, where we remember the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, has a lot of upsetting stories attached to it. One reason the rabbis give about why the Temple was destroyed is “sinat chinam” or “baseless hatred.” In other words, there was so much infighting between Jewish factions that it caused the Romans to be able to destroy Jerusalem and the Temple.

The Roman Empire was big and powerful. Probably there were many reasons its leaders wanted to conquer more territory, including Jerusalem and the Temple. Yet, the talmudic rabbis give multiple examples of how individuals’ bad behaviour resulted in the fall of the entire Jewish world. Was every single one of these painful stories of bad behaviour completely historically factual? Well, maybe not. It’s hard to say from here.

Regardless, the personal stories of hatred remain powerful thousands of years later. I thought of this stuff as we trudged back and forth with our little buckets of stones. I also nearly joked with my children about Sisyphus, forced to push his rock uphill for eternity, as they occasionally complained, but Sisyphus was Greek, not Roman, and I didn’t want to mix metaphors while hauling gravel.

What I found most interesting about moving the gravel, or cleaning up construction messes as a family, is that, after initial grumbling, we all settle down into a rhythm together. We put in the work. We all pull in the same direction and, well, with all four of us working, things get done.

This struck me as the absolute opposite of sinat chinam, or baseless hatred. We are faced so often with hard tasks – as individuals, as families, in neighbourhoods or in the wider Jewish community. Not every task is physical labour either. It’s easy to fall apart and bicker over everything instead of finding a common cause and working efficiently together. However, if we search for what we have in common, including big goals, it’s amazing what we can accomplish.

Jewish people are like everyone else – we’re all very different individuals, prone to disagreement and conflict. Some of us will avoid haircuts, washing clothes, eating meat and then fast on Tisha b’Av. Others may skip those rituals altogether. Whatever we do or don’t do for Jewish holiday observance, we also might forget that we have things in common, too. If we choose to pull in the same direction to make changes about things that matter to us, we can do it.

I’m not claiming to know what matters for all of us or how to fix it, because in my mind, that, too, is part of our work. The work we have to do together, as people who care about one another, as part of a larger community. Perhaps identifying common goals is a hard part of our task, too.

This summer, my family moved gravel. It wasn’t world peace and it didn’t end homelessness or poverty. It was just a step closer to restoring our character home, which needs so much more done to it. Each time I see my family working together, wiping up endless drywall dust or moving small stones, I think about how much we accomplish and build as a family “team” and how proud I am to be a part of this one.

As community members, we’ve also got a “team” and, together, we can do so much to improve the world if we pull in the same direction. If we base our efforts in love, we can find common ground and work together. It might not bring about the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem (and not everybody even yearns for that) but it might make the world we live in a much better place in the meanwhile.

Eating locally and Jewishly

My family enthusiastically eats huge salads at dinnertime in the summer. We love to celebrate the fresh local lettuce and other vegetables we receive from our community-supported agriculture (CSA) share. A CSA is a membership/subscription service that allows farms to directly market to customers. A CSA membership pays the farmer in advance to buy seeds and cover other costs. In exchange, the member gets a share of the farm’s products. Most CSAs are for vegetables in season. There are also many other sorts of CSAs, including for grain, meat, cheese, eggs, and more.

We’ve had a farm share nearly every summer for more than 20 years. Some weeks, our share is huge, full of delicious seasonal delights. Perhaps we get tomatoes, basil, peppers and eggplant at the height of summer, or enormous heads of springtime lettuce. This membership model depends on relationships between the farmer, the customers and the growing season, with a bit of luck sprinkled in. Sometimes, the CSA enables us to experience the challenges of a farm’s drought or flood. Other years, we’ve eagerly distributed rhubarb, beets, or squash around our neighbourhood when we’ve been overwhelmed with produce.

We also buy a “freezer lamb” and a quarter of beef (a quarter of a steer), along with farm-raised chicken. This is where our “eat local” mantra conflicts with traditional Jewish practice. Everyone used to depend on local butchers. Having a kosher butcher nearby meant eating local foods that were butchered according to the laws of kashrut. As modern health regulations and slaughterhouses developed, small-scale butchers, including local kosher butchers, became less common. Now, it’s nearly impossible to get fresh kosher meat anywhere outside of large urban areas with a big Jewish population.

In the Jewish community of Winnipeg, where we live, the city’s kosher butchers were well-known. According to historians Arthur Chiel, Allan Levine and Rabbi Moishe Stern, there was even a congregation here, Beth Judah, or “the Butcher’s Shul,” from 1937 to 1971. The butchers, and their Retail Kosher Butchers’ Association, had a lot of power in the 1930s and 1940s, occasionally running into conflicts with Winnipeg’s rabbis.

Given this history, it’s sad that there are no longer any kosher butchers here. A few years ago, a newcomer shochet (butcher) friend from Hungary collaborated with the Winnipeg Chabad. They butchered turkeys to provide fresh kosher meat. It was a difficult proposition, even though the provincial regulators tried to help. We were one of the families who tried to support him by buying a kosher-butchered turkey. It didn’t become an ongoing business venture.

Jewish diets worldwide have been shaped by what’s available locally, what’s affordable and how to make it kosher or maybe just “kosher style.” Traditional or noteworthy food choices change over time. Our diets are influenced by our families and communities of origin, even beyond issues of kashrut. Whether our relatives came to Canada from Russia, Ethiopia or Yemen, kashrut is part but not all of our cultural food choices.

As a younger married couple, we ate lots of local fruits and vegetables, even growing some ourselves. A few years after we married, we heard scary family news. My husband’s first cousin was younger than we were, but her (also young) husband had been rushed to the hospital for an emergency medical procedure. He had serious blockages in his arteries that needed immediate intervention. We lived far away and weren’t sure how to help. We discussed it over dinner and formulated a plan.

The family of this “cousin-in-law” kept kosher. He ate a steady diet of Eastern European specialities. Lots of holiday meat meals, plenty of dairy, very well-cooked vegetable side dishes. Salads were heavy on fattening dressings. This young guy also ate well. (Jewish grandmothers approved!) We looked at the summertime salads and vegetarian meals in front of us – as undergraduates, we attended Cornell University, in Ithaca, N.Y., where the famous Moosewood Collective has specialized in vegetarian cuisine for many years. I ordered a bunch of Moosewood cookbooks to be sent to this cousin’s house with a get well note.

Twelve years ago, we gathered in Florida for a family vacation meal. I was pregnant with twins and surrounded by this couple’s young kids. We heard that the medical intervention probably saved his life. They changed their diet entirely to be more “heart healthy.” The cookbooks helped.

Integrating a foodie’s enthusiasm with locally produced, healthy foods with Jewish practice can result in discord, though. I’ve been told that the “only way” to get some special items is to arrive at the farmer’s market early on Saturday morning. There’s no alternative if I’m going to synagogue instead. I shrug and suggest that they consider other sales venues, too. At the same time, my choice of locally raised (but not kosher-butchered) meat results in divisions around the Shabbat table, too, as some people won’t eat at my house, even if I only serve vegetarian foods to them.

For those whose level of kashrut is very strict, some won’t eat fresh berries or broccoli due to the chance of ingesting a bug, which would not be kosher. My husband is a biology professor who studies bugs. We’ve had some interesting conversations about this. One of our favourite consultations involves a busy Chabad rabbi and his wife who run wonderful youth programming. Occasionally, they send my professor husband photos of insects to ask, “What is this?” and “How should I get rid of it? Should I throw away the flour?” as they manage their kosher home.

Embracing ethical food choices can be an important expression of one’s Jewish practice. It goes beyond kashrut, whether it’s choosing to donate to Mazon Canada (the Jewish response to hunger) or foodbanks, growing a garden or buying local produce. We express our values through what we eat, as well as care for our health and the earth. That effort feels like an important (and Jewish) thing to do. Finally, the Israeli thing to do would be to wish you a hearty appetite or b’tayavon! May you enjoy whatever you eat!

Joanne Seiff has written regularly for CBC Manitoba and various Jewish publications. She is the author of three books, including From the Outside In: Jewish Post Columns 2015-2016, a collection of essays available for digital download or as a paperback from Amazon. Check her out on Instagram @yrnspinner or at joanneseiff.blogspot.com.

Honouring ancestors’ stories

Juan Villegas rehearsing Edictum, choreographed by Vanessa Goodman, which is about Villegas’s Sephardi ancestry. The work is part of Dancing on the Edge’s EDGE One July 6 and 8 at the Firehall Arts Centre. (video still from Vanessa Goodman)

“I am very happy to be able to share my work and talk about Sephardic Jews, as I am doing a lot of research and I am discovering a lot about my own culture and where it comes from,” Juan Villegas told the Independent about Edictum, a new work with Vanessa Goodman about his family heritage, an excerpt of which he will perform at this year’s Dancing on the Edge July 6 and 8. “Throughout history, the Jewish community has suffered a lot and I am very happy to be able to pay respect, honour, shed some light and help tell the story of my ancestors,” he said.

Villegas and Goodman had already started their collaboration when Villegas found out that his ancestors were Spanish Jews who, following the Alhambra Edict of Expulsion in 1492 and the persecution of Jews by the Spanish Inquisition, sought refuge in Colombia.

In 2015, Spain passed legislation to offer citizenship to members of the Sephardi diaspora, but the window of opportunity to apply was only a handful of years and Villegas’s family missed it. However, they did apply to Portugal, which passed a similar law, also in 2015. Given the number of applicants, it could be several years before the family finds out. For the application, certified records were needed, so Villegas’s siblings hired a genealogist.

“They did both of my parents’ family trees and both ended up having the same ancestor – Luis Zapata de Cardenas, who came to Antioquia, Colombia, from Spain in 1578 and whose family had converted to Catholicism in Spain,” he said. “What is unclear to me is whether Luis Zapata de Cardenas was a practising Jew and was hiding it or if his family back in Spain became Catholic and raised him Catholic. I find it very hard to believe that people fully converted to Catholicism, as religion is so embedded in one’s culture and must be very difficult to switch by obligation. So, this is probably when they started disguising some Jewish rituals as Catholic, which happened a lot in Colombia.”

Villegas left Colombia in 2003, at the age of 18, concealing from his family his real reasons for leaving.

“I told them that I was going to only be in Canada for eight months to study English and then come back to Colombia,” he shared, “but deep inside I knew that I wanted to find a way to stay in Canada. I am gay and had a hard time growing up in Colombia – without realizing it, I was also escaping from a traumatic childhood, as I had been sexually abused and bullied at school. I was lucky enough that my parents helped pay for ESL studies in Canada and then I was able to do my university studies in Vancouver at Emily Carr University.”

After getting a bachelor’s degree in design from Emily Carr, Villegas worked at a design studio but was let go when the economy collapsed in 2008. He took about a year to figure out what he wanted to do next.

“I had a lot of unresolved trauma and I think it was a combination of having the time and (unconsciously) wanting to be healed from trauma that I started taking yoga and dance classes,” he said. “I met a dance artist named Desireé Dunbar, who had a community dance company called START Dance and she invited me to join her company. Vanessa [Goodman] had just graduated from the dance program at SFU and she was in the company also, this was back in 2009. Then, in 2010, I joined the dance program at SFU and Vanessa came to choreograph for us a couple of times. I always loved working with her and I felt like I connected with her.”

Graduating from SFU with a diploma in dance, Villegas moved to Toronto, where he danced for a few years. When he returned to Vancouver in 2017, he started following Goodman’s work. Intrigued, he asked if she would choreograph something for him and she agreed.

“And that piece that we created was about family,” he said, “but we left it at that, because I did not get the grants I needed to continue the work. So, when I discovered about my Sephardic Jewish ancestry, I pitched the idea to her and she agreed (without me knowing that she also has a Jewish background).”

video still - Juan Villegas rehearsing Edictum — Juan Villegas rehearsing Edictum. *(video still from Vanessa Goodman)*

Everything fell into place, he said, including some funding, so they took up work again this year on Edictum, which is Latin for order or command. The project was always intended to be a solo for Villegas, and they had started by “diving into his family history and the names of his ancestors to build movement language,” said Goodman.

“Since his family found that they have Jewish ancestry and were a part of the diaspora from Spain and Portugal in the 1400s, we found it very relevant to revisit the starting material and expand on this history inside the work,” she said. “I was raised Jewish culturally and we found, through conversations about our family rituals in relation to culture, food and celebration, there were some very interesting links between his family’s expressions of their identity and mine. We have woven these small rituals into the piece and have found a very touching cross-section of how this can be shared through our dance practice in his new solo.”

Goodman is also part of plastic orchid factory’s Ghost, an installation version of Digital Folk, which will be free to visit at Left of Main July 13-15. It is described on plastic orchid factory’s website as “a video game + costume party + music and dance performance + installation built around the desire to revisit how communities gather to play music, dance and tell stories.”

“I began working with plastic orchid factory on Digital Folk in the very early days of its inception,” said Goodman. “James [Gnam] and Natalie [Purschwitz] began researching the work in 2014 at Progress Lab, and I was a part of that initial research for the piece. Since then, the work has been developed over a long period of time with residency creation periods at the Cultch, at Boca del Lupo, at the Shadbolt, at SFU Woodward’s, and it has toured Calgary and northern B.C. This work lives in several iterations, but the Ghost project is a beautiful way for the work to live in a new way one more time. The cast got together at Left of Main in December of 2022 and filmed the piece for this upcoming iteration…. It is exciting to see a work have such a rich life with so many incredible artists who have been a part of this project.”

Dancing on the Edge runs July 6-15. It includes paid ticket performances at the Firehall Arts Centre, where Edictum will be part of EDGE One, and offsite free presentations, such as Ghost. For the full lineup, visit dancingontheedge.org.

UBC Chabad celebrates 10th

Rabbi Chalom Loeub and student Sagiv Fadida put on tefillin at the weekly Chabad booth at the UBC campus. (photo from Chabad at UBC)

This year marks a milestone, as the Chabad Jewish Student Centre at the University of British Columbia (UBC) celebrates its 10th anniversary. As part of the global Chabad on Campus movement, UBC Chabad has remained steadfast in its commitment to providing a warm and welcoming home for every Jewish student, regardless of their educational or religious background. UBC Chabad offers opportunities to build meaningful relationships with other Jewish students, deepen their connection and sense of belonging to their Jewish heritage, and strengthen their Jewish pride.

Rooted in the mystical traditions of the Hasidic revival of the late 18th century, Chabad-Lubavitch continues to try and make Judaism accessible and personally relevant to Jews worldwide. The teachings of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, also known as the Rebbe, emphasize the importance of caring for the spiritual and material needs of all Jews, from Vancouver to Berlin to India and beyond. Inspired by his philosophy, Chabad emissaries, or shluchim, have established thousands of Chabad Houses, providing all Jews a home away from home.

photo - Chabad on Campus students from Western Washington University, University of Washington and University of British Columbia at an annual U.S.-Canada get-together — Chabad on Campus students from Western Washington University, University of Washington and University of British Columbia at an annual U.S.-Canada get-together. *(photo from Chabad at UBC)*

Over the past decade, Rabbi Chalom and Esti Loeub, the shluchim at UBC Chabad, along with their five children, have supported Jewish students’ physical and spiritual needs. They have hosted many fun and meaningful events, including weekly Shabbat dinners, Lunch & Learns, interactive tabling, and Grill the Rabbi barbeques. They have led holiday programs with lavish kosher meals, hosted a monthly Jewish Women’s Circle, and led educational initiatives such as the study of the Tanya (Chabad’s foundational book), Sinai Scholars (an eight-week series on the introduction to Judaism) and a course on the Six Day War (in partnership with the Jewish Learning Institute).

photo - One of the many weekly Lunch & Learn sessions that take place at the UBC campus — One of the many weekly Lunch & Learn sessions that take place at the UBC campus. *(photo from Chabad at UBC)*

However, the true measure of their impact lies in their ability to help Jewish students connect with their Jewish identity by performing mitzvot (good deeds). By encouraging students to give tzedakah (charity), wrap tefillin(phylacteries, or black leather boxes containing parchment from the Torah), light Shabbat candles, affix mezuzot (small pieces of parchment with a verse from the Torah rolled in a container) on their doorposts, and keep kosher, UBC Chabad has made a difference in the lives of countless Jewish students on campus.

“When I first came to university, I felt a distance between myself and the Jewish community,” said Gabby Tselos, president of UBC Chabad on Campus. “I always had my family and synagogue at home, but I felt like I was missing a piece of me when I came to UBC. Thankfully, in my second year, I became involved in Chabad and that has changed my whole college experience. Not only do I feel I have a Jewish family at UBC, but one that will remain with me as I continue to explore the world and my future.”

photo - A recent BBQ hosted by Chabad at UBC — A recent BBQ hosted by Chabad at UBC. *(photo from Chabad at UBC)*

Baruch Eckermann, outreach chair of UBC Chabad on Campus, also spoke about the positive impact Chabad has had on him.

“Chabad at UBC has helped awaken the Jew that was dormant inside my heart,” he said. “Without the love and care I received from Rabbi Chalom and Esti Loeub, I would not have become the Jewish man I am today. They work so dedicatedly for the students on campus, going far and beyond, not only in relation to religious needs, but in personal matters. They care about every Jew so much, it is beautiful to watch. All I can say to them is thank you. And please keep on doing your amazing work. We need you!”

To me, Rabbi Chalom and Rebbetzin Esti are like family. Whether on campus or at their Chabad house, they always put Jewish students’ needs first. What I love is that they genuinely see the inherent goodness in every Jewish student and believe that, by encouraging students to do more good deeds, the students will bring more blessings into the world.

For more information or to connect with the Chabad Jewish Student Centre at UBC, follow them on Instagram (@chabadubc) or visit their website, chabadubc.com.

Eitan Feiger is a student at the University of British Columbia, Class of 2024. He is vice-president and treasurer of UBC Chabad on Campus.

A foolproof eggplant recipe

Rebbetzin Chanie’s eggplant dish is “super-easy and ridiculously yummy.” (photo by Shelley Civkin)

A recent Shabbat dinner with Rabbi Yechiel and Chanie Baitelman and a few other guests was like waking into the light after being in darkness for three years. The isolation brought on by COVID, compounded by health issues leaving us feeling vulnerable, resulted in Harvey and I spending every Shabbat and all Jewish holidays by ourselves for three long years. It was our first Shabbat “out in the open” and we couldn’t have asked for a warmer or more welcoming environment.

Observant, but not very much so, Harvey and I are used to lighting Shabbat candles, and he always reads Eishes Chayil (Woman of Valour) to me. But that’s pretty much all we do on Shabbat. So it was truly a delight to spend it with the rabbi and Chanie, their two youngest children, and a few others. The Shabbat rituals added much to the sanctity of the evening, and reminded me why we do what we do, and why Jews are G-d’s chosen people. The singing, the chatting – really, just the feeling of being “home” – all contributed to this intimate and freilach (joyous) evening. And then there was the food.

No Jewish celebration is complete without spectacular homemade food. And Chanie hit all the right notes on that count. We started out the meal with a bunch of small dishes, including the best eggplant dish I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting. There was also baked fish, another eggplant dip, a gorgeous salad, freshly baked challah and an Israeli couscous salad. And that was just to start! Having been a guest at their home before, I knew that this was just the beginning, and that I should pace myself. Juicy, delicious Shabbos chicken followed, along with zucchini and onion quiche.

The star of the show for me, though, was Chanie’s Middle Eastern eggplant dish, which is the stuff that Jewish dreams are made of. People always say delicious food is “to die for!” but, really, the saying should be: “It’s to live for!” Naturally, I asked Chanie for the recipe and she admitted that she doesn’t really use one, which is why it tastes different every time she makes it. I tried to nail her down, as I wasn’t about to let this amazing dish get away. A couple of days later, and after a lot of question-asking and prodding, she relented and texted me the ingredients. No measurements. Just ingredients. Her directions to me were simple: “Just taste it as you go along.” Not unlike what our grandmothers did. But this is not something you say to someone like me, who’s a bit compulsive, and a stickler for a recipe. Needless to say, I was a bit flustered by the meagre directions.

Not to be daunted by a challenge though, I did what I rarely do – I winged it. With great trepidation, I might add. Chanie’s eggplant dish was so spectacular that I just knew I had to figure it out on my own, no matter how many tries it took. And, whaddaya know, I hit it out of the ballpark on the first go! And now, as humbly as possibly, I will share (to the best of my memory) the ingredients and measurements that I recall, and if it doesn’t work out … well … just try again. All measurements are approximate. As if that helps.

REBBETZIN CHANIE’S EGGPLANT
(makes enough for four as a side dish)

3 smallish eggplants, cubed and with skin on
juice of 1 lemon
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
2-3 cloves minced garlic
2 heaping tbsp tomato paste
2 heaping tbsp honey or date syrup (I used honey)
large handful of parsley, finely chopped
pepper to taste

Dice unpeeled eggplants into small cubes and sprinkle generously with olive oil. Don’t be afraid to use a lot of oil. Then sprinkle with salt. Bake at 375°F. until very soft, about 40 minutes. Turn it halfway through.

While the eggplant is baking, fry up minced garlic in a good amount of olive oil. Once it starts to brown, turn the heat down and add lemon juice, cumin, paprika, smoked paprika, tomato paste, honey or date syrup, and pepper. As you fry it up, taste it and adjust accordingly. There won’t be a lot of sauce but, trust me, the flavour is enough to permeate all of the eggplant.

Once the eggplant is nice and soft, mix it in with the garlic and tomato paste mixture, add the parsley, and you’re good to go. This dish is spectacular on its own, or with challah or focaccia to soak up the oil. It’s great served hot but it’s even better served cold the next day, once the flavours have had a chance to meld and marry. My husband declared it “company worthy” and hopes I’ll make it daily. Nice try, honey.

What I like about this dish is that it’s super-easy and ridiculously yummy – it’s sweet, smoky and slightly tart all at once. It’s also very oily, but that’s part of its Middle Eastern charm. You can adjust the amount you use, as eggplant tends to suck it up like a sponge. In our household though, you can never have enough olive oil.

I served this eggplant dish with steak, but it would go well with pasta, fish, rice, chicken or pretty much anything. Chanie told me that she makes up a big batch of the garlic tomato paste mixture and freezes it, so that when she’s in the mood for eggplant, all she has to do is cube the eggplant, bake it and add it to her defrosted pre-made “sauce” mixture. If I were a store or a restaurant, I’d put a money-back guarantee on this dish. Short of outrageously over-spicing it, you really can’t go wrong. I mean, it’s eggplant after all. The nightshade superstar. Enough said. Go dice your eggplant and call me when it’s done. I won’t take no for an answer. I’ll even bring the bread.

Shelley Civkin, aka the Accidental Balabusta, is a happily retired librarian and communications officer. For 17 years, she wrote a weekly book review column for the Richmond Review. She’s currently a freelance writer and volunteer.

Recipes for special moments

As my kid peered over the counter, straining to see into the mixer bowl, I had a moment that I hope I will always remember. “Egg chemistry is amazing!” I commented, as he asked what cream of tartar did and we read the label together. Then, as the mixer churned faster than I could ever do by hand, we saw soft peaks and medium peaks pass into stiff peaks. We were ready to drop globs of this air-filled sugar mixture onto the baking sheets, ready to turn egg whites into crunchy meringues.

It’s after Shavuot. There’s Winnipeg’s glorious spring all around us, as well as the remains of a delicious lemon custard pie (like key lime pie, if you’re wondering, but with lemons) in the refrigerator. Since some of the Shavuot dairy desserts use egg yolks, we were left with the practical gift of the whites and the magical meringues that followed.

I live with a science professor and twins who won their school science fair this year, but I wouldn’t call myself good at science. However, moments like these, whipping egg whites with one of my kids, make me think back to my high school chemistry teacher, Tuvia. Tuvia grew up in New York and settled on a religious kibbutz in Israel. He had an impressive beard and was probably in his 40s when he taught our Grade 11 class of North Americans, living on secular Kibbutz Beit HaShita in 1989-90. He had limited access to supplies or facilities when it came to doing experiments. I got the sense that teaching our class took time out of his regular work schedule. Even so, he captured the joy and neat magic of how basic chemistry worked.

Due to a sickness that caused a lengthy absence, I was behind in his class. I got to visit his family at their kibbutz with another classmate or two. From what I remember, I sat at his kitchen table to do make-up work. His wife offered us snacks. Kids played outside, running through the sprinklers on the well-tended paths, surrounded by flowers.

Tuvia offered us a good grounding in chemistry but also a window into what an Israeli religious kibbutz settlement looked like, simply by inviting us home to help us catch up on our schoolwork. This was something our year abroad program wasn’t offering. More than 30 years later, that memory is a valuable one. Tuvia, if you’re out there in our “connected by Jewish geography” world – thank you for being such a good teacher.

On social media at this time of year, it’s common to see lots of weddings and other celebrations. Family picnics, parties and graduations fill up many people’s schedules. My household’s not immune: this month, we’ve got a big school play, three birthdays, an end-of-year elementary school event, a milestone wedding anniversary and more. I joked with a friend that it’s like somebody pushed a “GO” button. Everybody’s running around like crazy.

Many people (likely extroverts) get a lot of joy from the big occasions. Turns out that I’m one of those people who can do without the big events. The pandemic reminded me that, if I had to avoid gathering in large groups forever, I probably wouldn’t mind. There’s a lot of pressure to “return to normal” right now, even though COVID still exists. But, even if it didn’t, I am one of those who didn’t really find “normal” large social events all that easy before.

The gift that I’ve received instead is this amazing joy in the small things every day. In sitting outside in the shade, watching one kid construct mysterious imaginary fairy worlds while the other one doggedly coaxes along things he has built, like his solar rover. I loved starting our garden, where we all dug in the earth together, tucking in our seedlings and seeds, and feeling such hopeful enthusiasm for what will grow and for the growing season’s potential.

We have lots of specific, prescribed blessings in Jewish tradition to help us find that everyday gratitude and joy. There’s the brachah (blessing) for seeing a rainbow, for a thunderstorm, or even for seeing a king. I don’t always remember the blessings at the right moment, but, in the end, I’m not sure it matters. The prompt to recognize these things, express gratitude and sense the wonder of the world is still there.

Along with making meringue magic and planting in the sunshine this past weekend, I heard some hard news, too. One friend from university, a single mom who lives far away, age 49, is facing a new diagnosis of lung cancer. Another faraway friend, dear to my heart, is soon to enter palliative care and hospice. This bad news just about derailed me. There were moments to cry. Yet, I grasped hold of the sunshine, the airy bits of sugar and egg, the time weeding and digging in the earth, and, instead of tears, two kid drawings and a note filled with love went out in the mail today to my friend entering hospice.

Very few things are as tidy as basic math or chemistry problems. Food chemistry, like making meringues, is just about the most predictable experiment I know. Those recipes are like the ritual prayers for seeing moments of wonder. To me, recipes, like their religious ritual equivalent, perhaps express a purely rote way to acknowledge wonder in the everyday. I am holding onto that recipe for wonder with both hands as I head forth through this warm season of celebration. Sometimes, a “recipe” for complete healing after surgery removes cancer or a prayer for a peaceful send off to Olam HaBa (the next world, the place some believe we go after death) is all we can do. In the meanwhile, it’s a good time to eat those crunches of sugar and air – but only after we clean the dirt from our fingernails and race through the sprinklers to another summer day.

Joanne Seiff has written regularly for CBC Manitoba and various Jewish publications. She is the author of three books, including From the Outside In: Jewish Post Columns 2015-2016, a collection of essays available for digital download or as a paperback from Amazon. Check her out on Instagram @yrnspinner or at joanneseiff.blogspot.com.