I can also tell you which book is my favorite, which was my first purchase, and which I use most often. My ‘Spice and Sprit; the Complete Kosher Jewish Cookbook’ by the ladies of the Lubavitch community, probably known better by its semi-official title, ‘The Purple Book’, holds pride of place in my collection. Not only was it my first cookbook, but it is also esteemed because its older, yellow version was my mother’s first cookbook. The yellow cookbook kept my mother’s already kosher kitchen “heimische” no matter where in the world we were living.The book has accompanied me on a veritable cooking odyssey, from spicy cheese lasagne to summer fruit soup. At other times, it has led me through the details of rolling knish dough and kneading challah. I have traveled to China with lemon chicken and South America with empanadas. I once inquired of my mother if the Lubavitch women had collected their recipes from all the different Chabad houses around the globe. My mom said she wouldn’t have been surprised, though she couldn’t for the life of her imagine which national cuisine had spawned ‘beer-batter-covered deep fried meatballs’. The Purple cookbook is a highly recommended addition to any cook’s reference library, from novice to Michelin-starred chef.
My early childhood was spent in Caracas. The Chabad House in Caracas was like a second home to me. It was a fun-filled place to go on a Sunday morning. My mother would teach arts and crafts in the back room, my brothers would run in and out of rooms teasing each other and anyone else who came past them. While the younger kids were busy making cardboard marionettes or yarn pompoms, the older ones played educational games or learned torah with the Chabad emissaries. On one memorable rainy Sunday, a young Chabad emissary taught us South American kids how to play his new American game, ‘Twister’. I can still remember us as young kids, hopelessly tangled, with the young Chabadnik laughing along with us.
The summers in Caracas were spent traveling back and forth on the school bus to Chabad Camp. At camp, my brothers were three-star generals and I was a cadet. These were our ranks in the Tzivos Hashem or “G-d’s Army” (please don’t think for a second that there were any militant over- or undertones to any of this). Our ranks were determined by how many good deeds we had done. On one memorable outing, my brothers made up a song concerning me, and to this day - thirty years later - anyone on the bus that day can remember the Ilana song; word for word. Let me just say that Ilana and banana rhyme perfectly in any language. I believe that for creating that song alone, they should have been stripped of their stars.
A few years later my parents took the show on the road again; this time to Hong Kong, where the Chabad emissaries made every Jew who came to town – whether transient or permanent – feel welcome. In this outpost, so far from the communities in which most of us grew up, the welcome was a wonderful surprise. Lubavitch in the Far East (“LIFE”) made Judaism as accessible to the traveler or resident as chopsticks in a Chinese restaurant. Yet again, the tremendous energy that the Chabad emissaries bring to their jobs has never failed to impress me.
The loss of any life is to be mourned, yet G-d is kind to us. He lets us feel only the closest of deaths with heartbreak, with complete sadness. But a death within the Chabad community, a community that for years has seen their charter as offering Judaism in every corner of the globe, affects us all. Orthodox or secular, traveler or resident, the Chabad representatives who venture out into the world are not missionaries. They are emissaries.
View from Taj Mahal Palace, Mumbai, India (5"x 7")(by kind permission of Nira Spitz)
A missionary is a persuader. His job is to convince you that his way is correct, and that what you have been doing until now is incorrect. An emissary is an ambassador, his job is to represent his boss; be it a country, an organization or a religion. With diplomacy, he offers another point of view. Chabad’s job is to teach that Judaism is not only possible wherever you may find yourself, it is desirable.
I can’t comment on global terrorism, or the age old question of why good people suffer. I don’t know how the Lubavitch community will deal with the tremendous loss their family, their community has suffered in the last week. For my part I’ll bake. It’s the only way I know how to deal with any crisis. Whether stressed or sad, I have one surefire coping mechanism. The more I “potchker” with my food, the more time I spend on a particular recipe, the closer I feel to G-d as if by creating puff pastry from scratch, I can hold on, even for a millisecond, to some ever-fleeting godliness. This week, you can be sure that I will be using my Chabad cookbook for inspiration. Perhaps the baking will help me find the strength to cross the chasm of despair into faith. When we lose something, we each find a way to make it better in our own minds.
This coming week, find a way to commune with G-d. Light Shabbat candles, do good deeds, put on tefillin. That is what the people in Chabad recommend. For my part, I will bake.
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