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RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL:JEWISH RENEWAL:JEWISH SPIRITUAL RENEWAL:EMBARRASSED CHALLAH
In Honor of Gloria and Sam Sugarman and the Temple Oseh Shalom Sisterhood
Shalom:
Our Talmudic Rabbis were very concerned about our treatment of one another. While they were learned, they were men who lived in the real world, the world of gray, and not in the world of black and white. They knew that they had foibles and that we all do.
Yet they were very concerned about any of us embarrassing another...and certainly doing lashon ha ra about another. They likened both behaviors as akin to murder. Embarrassing one causes the blood to leave one's face, "azil sumaka v'ati hivara halbanat panim," which occurs when one is dead. (Talmud Bavli Tractate Bava Metzia 58b). They teach that one should rather throw himself into a fiery oven that cause embarrassment to another. (Ibid. 59a)
So Talmud Yerushalmi gives two parables with food, not animal food which we know have feelings, but with grain and vegetable foods, in which we must honor their feelings, as lessons about how we should never cause hurt to happen to another human.
In Talmud Yerushalmi Tractate Beracoth 6:4 : "Concerning the dessert tray of assorted nuts and fruits, Rabbi Jeremiah in
the name of Rabbi Ammi taught: 'One recites the blessing over the lupine, even though it is not one of the seven species of the Land of Israel (grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives, wheat, oats and (date) honey).' Said Rabbi Levi: 'This ruling is based on the verse :Do not rob the poor because he is poor. (Proverbs 22:22.) That is, do not deprive a lupine of its blessing, just because it is a common food.'''
the name of Rabbi Ammi taught: 'One recites the blessing over the lupine, even though it is not one of the seven species of the Land of Israel (grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives, wheat, oats and (date) honey).' Said Rabbi Levi: 'This ruling is based on the verse :Do not rob the poor because he is poor. (Proverbs 22:22.) That is, do not deprive a lupine of its blessing, just because it is a common food.'''
Lupine were very common and produce a pod containing seeds which are cooked, or pickled and eaten as beans. They were common during the Roman Empire in the Middle East. There are many varieties. The most famous in the USA is the Blue Bonnet, which is the State Flower of Texas. In our travels we have been blessed to see them in the wild in Scandinavia and at the southern tip of Argentina in Ushuaia.
The point of course of the rabbis is that if we should honor the common lupine, what we would call perhaps, a weed today, we should show honor to every person amongst us. The rabbis asked and answered : Who is honored? He who honors others? And the converse is true. When we dishonor others, when we embarrass someone, or worse, gossip about them, we are only dishonoring ourselves. No one trusts a gossip, because we all know in our gut, that if our gossipy friends can bad-mouth "Yaakov " today, some time in the future, '' we '' will be on their same tongues.
Rabbi Yaakov ben Asher (Spain, 1270 -1340), in his text, Arba'ah Turim (the Four Rows), also known as the Tur, a wonderful spiritual book on Halakah from Toledo, quotes the Talmud Yerushalmi. (Orach Hayyim ...laws dealing with our Holy days, including Shabbat, pg 271 )
Ben Asher says that we cover the Shabbat Challah to save it from embarrassment and to keep its honor. To what are the sages referring ? The two loaves of Shabbat Challah are sitting on the table while we making the long beracha over the wine. And we do not want those two loafs to feel left out, second best, or jealous. So we hide them from this, and cover them, until it is time to honor them, with the short beracha of the Motzi.
We are only on this earthly plain once. We only have one chance sometimes to treat some one with kindness. And we only have one life in which if we have treated someone unkindly to make Teshuvah, to make amends. We never know how the smallest act of chesed can have a profound wondrous effect on another's life, and conversely how a small slight, can wound and sting another, more than we can imagine.
What a blessed world this would be if we treated each person with the same respect and love in which we treat our Shabbat Challah.
Many Blessings,
Rabbi Arthur Segal
Jewish Spiritual Renewal
Jewish Renewal
Hilton Head Island, SC
Bluffton, SC
Savannah, GA
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