There\u2019s been an uptick in the eating of comfort food in our house since the pandemic began. Cooking and eating are a big deal during stressful times.<\/p>\n
Now, we were \u201cinto\u201d food pre-pandemic. I cook a lot. However, everything went up a notch when our focus turned inwards, particularly for holidays like Passover, Rosh Hashanah, Sukkot and Thanksgiving. When our neighbourhood bakery closed down in the spring, I went from making only challah to making all our bread. My kids, surprised, said, \u201cMommy, you<\/em> made this? It\u2019s really good!\u201d \u2013 as they gobbled up the crusty spelt bread I turned out. Over these months, it\u2019s gone from bread production to canning. Once the shelves filled up with jams, pickles and applesauce, autumn became baking and roasting season.<\/p>\n We\u2019ve eaten too much: apple pie and crisp, sweet potato pie, cherry pies, and more. I tried for moderation \u2013 and then my husband bought Halloween candy. He started doling out two snack-sized chocolates a day. I couldn\u2019t resist.<\/p>\n In the summer, I combated all this \u201cextra\u201d with dog walks and playing outside, but now it\u2019s cold out again. It\u2019s harder to take long walks. Fall virus numbers have soared, so swim lessons, gym visits and other kinds of exercise are off the table for now.<\/p>\n Imagine my surprise when Daf Yomi<\/em>, the practice of reading a page of Talmud a day, came to the rescue! I found good advice while reading Eruvin 82b and 83b. After all, it\u2019s not the first time in Jewish history that we\u2019ve gone through periods of stress. When feeling out of control, it might only be natural to struggle with basics like \u201chow much is enough to eat?\u201d<\/p>\n In Eruvin 82b, a discussion emerges. To extend the eruv<\/em>, the boundary of how far you can go on Shabbat, you can place food in a location, usually cooperatively, with your neighbours, so that you all \u201cshare\u201d the space. When you establish this with your neighbours, it\u2019s communal space, like in your house. You can carry things within a larger area. Imagine a block party potluck, and you\u2019re understanding this.<\/p>\n How much food is enough? It\u2019s supposed to be enough when each neighbour puts in enough for two meals. However, that amount must be defined. Is that food enough for two \u201cwork day\u201d meals, when people might be doing hard labour? On Shabbat, we eat more, so do we put more out to designate the eruv? How much should it weigh? Does it need to be expensive or fancy food?<\/p>\n The rabbis then do math, which is always a bit dodgy, to be honest. Why? Measurements in the ancient world varied from one geographic location to another. Food staples varied, too \u2013 for instance, some places had better access to one kind of grain as compared to others. Rice bread is acceptable, for example, but millet bread can\u2019t be used, because the rabbis say it\u2019s hard to make edible millet bread.<\/p>\n Different communities couldn\u2019t afford the same things and, even if they could afford them, in some cases, the bread they produced was simply not edible. In Eruvin 81a, there\u2019s a discussion about a kind of mixed grain lentil bread, a concoction of wheat, barley, beans, lentil, millet and spelt as spelled out in Ezekiel 4:9. \u201cRav Hiyya bar Avin said that Rav said: One may establish an eruv with lentil bread.\u201d The Gemara determines that there was a bread made like this in the days of Mar Shmuel, and even his dog wouldn\u2019t eat it. So, the food put out for the eruv must be edible to humans (and dogs) and taste good!<\/p>\n The rabbis refer to the Torah and decide that the manna the Jewish people received while wandering in the desert was about an omer<\/em> (two litres) each. There\u2019s some dubious calculating to determine how much food is \u201cenough.\u201d The most helpful information I found was repeated by multiple sages over more than a thousand years.<\/p>\n In Sue Parker Gerson\u2019s introduction of Eruvin 83 on myjewishlearning.com, she offers some context for understanding the talmudic text. The sages say, \u201cOne who eats roughly this amount [an omer] each day is healthy, as he is able to eat a proper meal; and he is also blessed, as he is not a glutton who requires more. One who eats more than this is a glutton, while one who eats less than this has damaged bowels and must see to his health.\u201d<\/p>\n Maimonides, a physician and a Torah scholar more than 800 years ago, wrote a lot on healthful eating. In Gerson\u2019s article, she includes eating tips from him, as well as from Rashi and Adin Steinsaltz. Regarding Maimonides, he said, \u201cOne should not eat until his stomach is full. Rather, he should stop eating when he has eaten close to three-quarters of his full satisfaction.\u2026 Overeating is like poison to anyone\u2019s body.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s only natural to use food to celebrate, to comfort and to cope during this crazy time of upheaval. How can we combat this temptation? The rabbis advise: remember not to overeat, eat only what is edible and healthy, and practise moderation.<\/p>\n This is hard. We live in a world of plenty, possibly even including leftover Halloween chocolates. But there are Jewish teachings, over generations, about avoiding overeating. Weight gain could make us more susceptible to complications from COVID-19, and so many other illnesses. It\u2019s not good for us, but, knowing how much food is \u201cenough\u201d isn\u2019t a new issue and, like everything else, it\u2019s a Jewish one. The rabbis probably didn\u2019t have leftover candy or sweet potato pie, but they knew the temptations we might feel to make, or eat, too much of them.<\/p>\n Joanne Seiff<\/strong> has written regularly for CBC Manitoba and various Jewish publications. She is the author of three books, including <\/em>From the Outside In: Jewish Post Columns 2015-2016, a collection of essays available for digital download or as a paperback from Amazon. Check her out on Instagram @yrnspinner<\/a> or at joanneseiff.blogspot.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There\u2019s been an uptick in the eating of comfort food in our house since the pandemic began. Cooking and eating are a big deal during stressful times. Now, we were \u201cinto\u201d food pre-pandemic. I cook a lot. However, everything went up a notch when our focus turned inwards, particularly for holidays like Passover, Rosh Hashanah, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[9717,9784,9609,6073,2864,218,8302,19980,2231],"class_list":["post-35744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-op-ed","tag-coronavirus","tag-covid-19","tag-daf-yomi","tag-food","tag-health","tag-judaism","tag-lifestyle","tag-moderation","tag-talmud"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35744\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}