Rabbi Noah Zvi Farkas
By Rabbi Noah Zvi Farkas
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Community Who are we?
As the events unfolded yesterday on Capitol Hill, I like so many, was taken aback by the brazen and swift insurrection by domestic terrorists. Four people died, dozens of peace officers were wounded, the Confederate Flag, a symbol of hatred and racism, was paraded through statuary hall for the first time in U.S. history. It…
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Food BBQ-ing for Dad
As a consummate foodie, my mind makes instant connections between food and people. It’s like I’m wearing Google Glass with an app that sends me food information about everything I see, whether I know it or not. The other night, for example, I was attending a function at a beautiful home in Beverly Hills and…
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Food Turning the Tables: It’s Not My Problem
Last week I walked around the tidal basin in Washington DC. It was a beautiful spring day with the famed cherry blossoms in bloom, boaters on the water, and tourists scampering about. I came to DC for a conference and ended up meeting with several legislators on a number of issues important to me and…
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Food Turning the Tables: The Secret of Tu B’Shvat
As we prepare for Tu B’Shvat, I can’t help but grow more introspective. Over the past century, Tu B’Shvat has evolved into a primarily mystical food holiday incorporating a Kabbalistic seder, dating back to 16th century Tzfat. At the center of our Torah lies our relationship to the natural world. In our Biblical stories, we…
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Food Turning The Tables: Food Resolutions for the New Year
If you’re like me, January prompts you to reexamine a few bothersome behaviors — and make a few (or more) resolutions for the coming year. Making resolutions is a dangerous proposition, of course. A strictly goal-oriented approach gives us a flat, “all or nothing” mandate that can lead to failure. By February, our resolution has…
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Food Turning the Tables:
My fondest memory of our Rosh Hashanah table is from even before we sat down to eat. As I was growing up, one of my chores on the Jewish New Year was to help set the table. Every year, as my mother would leave the plate of apples and honey on the table while she…
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Food Turning the Tables: Is a Jellyfish Potato Kosher?
Out here in California, there’s a policy debate heating up about the labeling of Genetically Modified Foods (GMOs). Take the fantastical glow-in-the-dark potatomade with jellyfish genes, for example. Scientists claim that by reading the fluorescence on the leaves of this engineered potato, farmers can reduce water usage by glowing when they are ripe. Proposition 37…
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Food Turning the Tables: The Black Fast
By its very nature eating to me is a spiritual practice. There are two components to food. The “what” and the “why.” As for the “what” that’s the food itself. The “why” is the choice I make to eat knowing the history behind the dish and its connection to the community of growers, workers, and…
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