Jews around the World read a special reading on this Shabbos … the story of the Parah Adumah … פרה אדומה … the Red Cow. I wonder: “Why, now, Red Cow.” There are lots of Ma’amarei Chazal … sage thoughts about this but none of them appeal to me much, this morning.
The weekly parsha is about food, too … about things you can eat and things you can’t eat (such as creepers ... … no Shratzim … No creepers … Y’know … “we only eat that Kosher food, we don’t eat no ham.”) We are permitted Cow brisket … just throw him in the crockpot, maybe make’em with a cholent or, if you’re from Galitzia, maybe a choolent! Some think a brisket in a cholent is like the Republic in the small hands of Meister Drumpf. … A Brisket gone to Pot! Indeed!
Jews and food? I never understood this thing about Brisket, by the way … “I got the best Doctor, I’ll give’ya his name and y’gotta see ‘em but I’m not sharing my Bubbe’s brisket recipe.” When my wife, kids, and I moved to Philadelphia in 1974, I found out that there was a Jewish Apple Cake (best thing, it was said) and that Knish was a slang word for female accoutrementes. Who knew? Having been born in Coney Island, there was only one Knish and that was Mrs. Stahl’s right at the end of the El. And even though she died and then her sons closed up, when I met my sister (Meine Schwesster Esther) at Yona Shimmel’s Knish Place in Lower Manhattan, I came in to find her enmeshed in an argument with the owner over whether Yona Shimmel’s Knishes should be permitted in the same State as Mrs. Stahl’s.
“On Channukah, the Jews make latkes
they like them crisp and hot.
Latkes make the Jews light up.
I like them a lot.”
The best Latkes I can recall tasting were at Singapore Vegetarian Chinese Restaurant in Philly. Every year, Peter, the owner, would make these for his Jewish-looking customers. God, I miss Peter’s Latkes, even if I like my own. Purim? Cookie Dough or Yeast Dough? I’ve always been a Yeast kinda guy and I make “potatoe” (in honor of Dan Quayle) and onion blintzes and eschew … mind you, “I eschew” cheese blintzes though now that my granddaughter makes Farmer Cheese when home from college, I may have to rethink my na’arisch foible.
But and briefly back to “Why now, Red Cow.” Numbers 19 is the beginning of Parshas Chukas which is book-ended by two other Parshas … Korach and Balak … two stories of attacks on Moshe, his authority and the Children of Israel. Maybe, as we move towards Pesach and its lovely fanfare and ritual, it is important for us to know how we always have “Clowns to the Left of Us and Jokers to the Right” and how tenuous is the grip of even the most handsome of cows in the pasture … of how tenuous a grip we have on our institutions. If we come to believe that the fact that we’re “handsome, brave and intellekatektual” or that our system of governance is without peer … the best ever … and if we ignore those or the asses they bring with them to the party … those who seek to destroy or curse what we hold to be sacred, we shall watch what is precious to us collapse while we munch away on our Jewish Apple Cake and Dead Steers*.
Our ability to be repurified from sin is dependent on our ability to guard against Korach and to shoulder the attempted curses of Bilaam and Balak.
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חזק חזק ונתחזק
Let us be strong … and never forget ...
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כל המעמיד דין שאינו הגון … כאילו נטע אשירה אצל מזבח יהיה
Anyone who supports an unfit leader is comparable to an idolater practicing his stuff near the altar of God.
* I admit my sin, my grievous sin … I have had too many conversations with “Brown-eyed Girl” cows in pastures to ever roast them up for my holidays, though I wouldn’t shed too many tears in watching some contemporary asses getting burnt up like the Parah Adumah. Mea maxima culpa v’Al Chet!