Reflection of TuBishvat

During the week of February 5, we finished A Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman, read excerpts of Authors of the Impossible by Jeffrey Kirpal, and hosted a TuBishvat Seder, the first class activity of the semester. The seder was a way for the group to experience a religious ritual that engages the senses in a celebratory context. About three weeks later, we read Rabbenu Bahya on how to elevate the dining experience by incorporating holy texts at the table. I saw the connection with TuBishvat, and for this reason I am incorporating the two weeks’ of responses into one.

The other senses may be enjoyed in all their beauty when one is alone, but taste is largely social. Humans rarely choose to dine in solitude…As Brillat-Savarin says, “every…socialibulity…can be found assembled around the same table: love, friendship, business, speculation, power, importunity, patronage, ambition, intrigue…” If an event is meant to matter emotionally, symbolically, or mystically, food will be close at hand to sanctify and bind it. (Ackerman, 127)

It was an (obvious) epiphany that food does taste better in company. Even if you're eating something bad, you can make the people around you try what you're eating and have them experience the horror. That being said, I did not eat anything that wasn't delicious during our TuBishvat seder. This was my first time celebrating it, and I'm happy with how it went. 

In the ceremony, we recited the blessings for food four different times because there were four groups of food with different Rabbinic interpretations. One group is food that is hard on the outside and soft on the inside (nuts). Nuts represent how we have to protect the divine instinct inside of us, the softness. I think of it as a literal metaphor of how each of us develops a shell to protect what is vulnerable. 

When I was cracking walnuts at the table, Professor came over and said brazil nuts are the most difficult to open. Because of who I am, I was immediately compelled to try. I spent at least five minutes trying to crack that nut. It kept slipping out of the pincers, and you had to apply a lot of pressure very slowly so it wouldn’t fall out. I did not expect such great concentration and strength to go into cracking a nut. And I did not expect the shell to go flying around the room when I cracked it. I was pleased when I finally got to eat it. 

The rhetoric that we have to work for our food as punishment is the result of Adam and Eve eating from the Tree of Knowledge. God says "Cursed be the ground because of you; By toil shall you eat of it All the days of your life:...By the sweat of your brow Shall you get bread to eat, Until you return to the ground" (Genesis 3:17-19) I certainly had to work to eat the brazil nut. Cracking the nut also reminded me of Rabbenu Bahya's idea in the Second Gate that eating is destruction. He uses the word, ““akhilah,” from the expression kilayah – “annihilation” – of what is being consumed in the stomach.…” (Brumberg-Kraus, 2010) In an empirical sense, food is destroyed when we chew and swallow,  in addition to being dissolved in our stomach acids for nutrients. The process of preparing food, cooking, chopping etc., also ‘annihilates’ food so that we can gain nourishment. 

Preparing produce is not as violent as preparing meat, where taking the life of an animal is far more drastic than picking an apple. The rationalization behind killing animals for food is extensive. By being alive, we know life is precious and that we have the power to make deliberate choices in how we survive. In many cultures, where meat is apart of the diet, there are specific rituals to form a connection with what you eat so as you don’t consume in guilt or gluttony.

This is not something I’ve done lately. The only time in my life where I observed the process that goes into meat was when I was 13. When I worked on a farm for a few days, I watched a pig being gutted. It was graphic and although I don’t mind gore, its not the same kind portrayed in horror movies. It was something I watched in fascination and shock. I didn’t eat pork that night, and even if that option was presented, I don’t know what I would have done.

The way I live now, where I do not make extensive choices about where and what I eat, is a matter of luxury. The convenience of having food prepared at Emerson and Chase is so I can focus more on studying and learning. It’s a privilege that I take for granted when I complain about something gross they make. TuBishvat is a holiday for giving thanks to the earth, and reminding ourselves that it's the earth that gives us food to survive. Something to continually reflect on is that there is responsibility to be taken for how we consume, and how to do so sustainably.