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Shalom:
Those that know me well, know of my love for garlic. If asked what my favorite veggie is, I will answer 'garlic'. If pressed, I will answer "broccoli rabe cooked with tons of garlic."
Before I was careful in what I ate or where I are it, I would have a pizza with freshly cut garlic piled high upon it. I would not accept minced garlic from a jar, nor garlic powder. At home, I still can nuke an entire garlic and let it get sweet and eat the cloves as one would eat breath mints. Needless to say, I can only do this if I am not planning on seeing others for two days after as the odor seeps from one's pores.
When in San Francisco I always made sure I ate at the Stinking Rose Restaurant which makes everything wonderfully with garlic including dessert.
Hence I could relate well with the Hebrews who ungratefully, bored with manna from God, complained:" We remember the fish we freely ate in Egypt, and the zucchini and the melons and the leeks and the onions and the garlic. Alas, now our soul has withered; there is nothing at all beside this manna before our eyes (Numbers 11:5-6)." Now I can talk about the Hebrews use of the word 'freely'' especially when they were slaves, and other words of their delusion in these telling two pusuks, but I am stuck on garlic.
This is the only time garlic in mentioned in the Chumash.
However in the Talmud, we find that Ezra, during the Second Temple period spoke of garlic for its medical properties. In Talmud Yerushalmi Tractate Megillah 75a, Ezra decreed that men should eat garlic on Shabbat as it was an aphrodisiac and would hence help re-populate Israel after the partial return from the Babylonia exile. My personal experiences have shown that eating garlic acts as a form of birth control unless one can have sexually relations from two ends of a king size bed.
Talmud Bavli Bava Kama 82 b gives five properties to garlic. The rabbis say it increases semen, it kills parasites in the intestines, it warms the body, it brightens a person's outlook, and it satiates. Other sages say that it eliminates coveting as it makes one happy in his mind and heart.
Because of Ezra's rule, and it was a rule and not a suggestion, Talmud Bavli Tractate Shabbat 118a and b give recipes for Shabbat foods that one can eat that have plenty of garlic. This they said was all part of Oneg Shabbat, the joy of Shabbat. One such dish was lots of cloves of garlic, a large fish and cooked beets. One of the basic rules for celebrating Shabbat is to set aside some special food during the week to be savored on the Sabbath. Garlic was deemed to be one of these foods.
As we know Jews were definitely known to obey Shabbat and to try to make alliyah to Jerusalem. Anyone who vowed to not do business with one who obeyed Shabbat or moved to Jerusalem, was put in a state of not being able to do business with ANY Jew. The third of the three type of people that one could not say he would not do business, is one who eats garlic. If one vowed that, he also could not do business with ANY Jew. In other words, garlic eating was a trait of the Jews in Talmudic times just as making alliyah to Jerusalem was and obeying Shabbat was. (Talmud Bavli Tractate Nedarim 3:10).
However, as is usually the case in the Talmud, there is always ''on the other hand.'' Even though garlic is lauded for its medical properties, being a delicacy for Shabbat, being a "Jewish" food, and even being a ''love potion," the rabbis in the Talmud decried its pungent, powerful smell.
In Talmud Bavli Tractate Sanhedrin 11a the rabbis give examples of going out of ones way to save someone from embarrassment which is akin to murder. They recount the tale of Rabbi Judah ha Nasi, who when teaching, smelled garlic. He announced loudly; "Whoever ate garlic should leave," because he could not concentrate on his lesson.
Rav Hiyya, the best student, walked out. Every other students followed Rav Hiyya . This left Rabbi Judah alone. The next day, Judah's son, Rabbi Shimon, spoke to Rav Hiyya. "Was it you who irritated my father with your bad breath?" Rav Hiyya answered: "Heaven forbid, I would never do such a thing; there should be no such thing in all of Israel. No one should eat garlic before coming to the study hall !" ( He only left to save some younger student embarrassment).
Garlic comes into play with blessings before meals. We learn in Tractate Beracoth that one who eats and doesn't bless is a ''thief.'' In Talmud Bavli Tractate Beracoth 51a one sage was asked concerning one who ate and drank but did not blessbefore eating and drinking. ''After having begun eating is it too late to recite the blessing normally said beforehand, even though the meal has not been completed?''
The answer given was : "If one has eaten a garlic clove such that his breath smells, should he go and eat another garlic clove so that his breath will smell even more?" Hence, the rabbis are saying that the ''odor of garlic is likened to the stink of sin''. One iniquity should not encourage a further wrongdoing. Thus the ''person who mistakenly began to eat without reciting a blessing should recite a blessing before continuing eating. ''
My friend, the garlic, is used again in the Talmud in the same manner. In Talmud Bavli Tractate Shabbat 31b the rabbis discuss :"Do not be excessively wicked (Ecc.7:17). They wonder if it is OK to be a little wicked. The rabbis pick on the garlic again. "One who has eaten a garlic clove and therefore his breath smells, should he go back and eat another garlic clove so that his breath will smell even worse? " They are saying that if we commit a sin, repent. Do Teshuvah. Do Renewal. Don't give up, and think the Gates of Repentance, or that Jewish Spiritual Renewal are closed to us, and throw our lives away and just continue to sin.
I wonder if Director Martin Scorcese was waxing Talmudic in the scene in Goodfellows when the heads of the local Mafia were in jail, being treated specially, and Paulie was cutting garlic so wonderfully thin, with a razor, and sauteing it in virgin olive oil? I love that scene.
Oy. I am glad I am out of the bondage of Mitzraim, but I do love my garlic.
Shalom,
Rabbi Arthur Segal
Hilton Head Island, SC
Bluffton, SC
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