There’s a lovely poem by Joy Harjo titled Perhaps the World Ends Here. I’d like to share just a few lines:

The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live.

The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it will go on….

It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human. We make men at it, we make women.

Photo by cottonbro studio

As my wife and I experienced our anxiety and relief over the past month, I realize now that my young daughter was also witnessing it, as we spoke in hushed codes and were glued to our phones more than a responsible parent ought to be. My 16-year-old son got a firsthand dose of what it feels like to worry about his brother. And all these interactions and conversations happened around the kitchen table.

Subscribe now

So as I go into July, hoping for better times for the entire world, I’m thinking about what a special place the kitchen table is. How much I learned at it when I was a child and now how much we share together at it.

And so, I’ll keep going with the daily rituals. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention my favorite weekly ritual: the starter needs to be fed early on Tuesday, loaves shaped on Wednesday, and bread baked on Friday.

Wishing you and yours a great month ahead—enjoying what we can and sharing it with our loved ones.

I think this is one of the reasons I love making sourdough bread so much. I love the effort, planning on Tuesday for something I’ll enjoy on Friday. But mostly, I love that moment of unadulterated pleasure, when everyone around the table stops their chatter and just has a taste of pleasure.

It reminds me of a passage from a Billy Collins poem, Introduction to Poetry. In it, he talks about the challenges of getting his class to just enjoy the poem and find their own meaning in the words:

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author’s name on the shore.

Photo by Ron Lach

But of course, the students can’t sit back and just take pleasure in the experience.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.

And how often we do that in so many different ways! We don’t just walk by and look up at the sky and notice the sunset. We’re too tied up in the future or past to appreciate the only thing we really have.

So that’s my hope for everyone. Let’s take a little of the passion of living in the moment and bring into every part of our day.

And while it’s a cute quote, it underscores a certain truth.

One of the things that dignifies us is the way we bring beauty to our lives. It could be a flower arrangement, a lovely way of setting the table, or how we serve our food. (My father-in-law, a former caterer and talented cook, likes to say, “we eat with our eyes” to explain why he painstakingly arranged evergreen bean on the platter facing the same direction.)

All these small acts elevate what could just be a physical existence into something more sublime.

As inspiration for the spring flowers that are coming out now in the northern hemisphere, I’d like to share a line from an e.e. Cuming's poem, where he describes his love by admiring the way she makes everything beautiful:

Thy fingers make early flowers of

all things.

e.e. Cummings, Songs (III)

I find that line brushes against this ineffable truth in ways ten thousand words never will.

And with that little inspiration, I’ll leave you with a pattern you can do on your sourdough, so your fingers can make early flowers too.

It's exhausting listening to the endlessly catastrophic terms each side describes the state of the country. And honestly, it doesn't really matter to me which flag you see when I say “country.” There’s a fair dose of turmoil everywhere.

So today, with the forsythia already blooming in Baltimore and the cherry blossoms about to make their appearance, I’d like to share one of the stories that I return to find comfort and hope. I feel a little sheepish admitting that it comes from the last book of Percy Jackson and the Olympians series.

For those of you who haven’t read Percy Jackson, here’s a brief synopsis:

• The Greek gods are real.

• Percy is a demigod.

• The world is about to be destroyed.

• Percy saves the day.

For any real fans, that summary might be a little too brief, so I apologize for any hard feelings.

As silly as it sounds, there is one scene in the final book, The Last Olympian, that expresses something beautiful, and true, even as this is a total work of fiction at every level. I’ll set the stage for you.

New York city is under attack from the titans, led by Kronos, and a slew of monsters. Percy and his friends have been fighting for days. Prometheus, the Titan who gave fire to humanity, visits Percy as an emissary from Kronos. He offers Percy a deal: surrender to Kronos and avoid the destruction of Olympus.

As a symbol of hope and choice, Prometheus gives Percy Pandora’s jar, telling him that as long as he holds onto hope, he can still surrender if he changes his mind. All Percy has to do is open the jar and let the spirit of hope out.

Of course, Percy doesn’t follow that path. On his way to the final battle on Olympus, conveniently located at the top of the Empire State building, of course, Percy meets Hestia, goddess of hearth and home.

He’s still carrying Pandora’s jar, and at that moment, feeling that everything is pretty hopeless. Here’s the scene, lighly edited.

I looked at Pandora's jar, and for the first time I had an urge to open it. Hope seemed pretty useless to me right now…. My parents were asleep down in the streets somewhere while a monster army surrounded the building. Olympus was on the verge of failing, and I'd seen so many cruel things the gods had done…. Surrender, Prometheus's voice whispered in my ear. Otherwise your home will be destroyed.

Then I looked at Hestia. Her red eyes glowed warmly. I remembered the images I'd seen in her hearth — friends and family, everyone I cared about…

I picked up Pandora's jar…

"Hestia," I said, "I give this to you as an offering."

The goddess tilted her head. "I am the least of the gods. Why would you trust me with this?"

"Because Hope survives best at the hearth," I said. "Guard it for me, and I won't be tempted to give up again.

I know I have a tendency to calibrate my emotional reality based on what I hear on the news. When I do that, my emotional state is usually pretty trashy.

But when I’m able to focus on the present, my friends and family, my life that exists around our table, that’s where I find hope and happiness, and the strength to keep going.

Photo by Matheus Bertelli

This year, Passover and Easter are in April. For many, these are great times to get together with those you love. Or perhaps you’ll take the opportunity to get outside and enjoy the spring.

However you celebrate, I hope you find hope around your hearth.

Subscribe now

A few nights ago, fairly late at night, I put the wash in the dryer, then ran downstairs to give my sourdough a final turn before letting it sit on the counter overnight. As I was walking back upstairs, my 16-year-old son asked me:

“Dad, do you like doing all this?”

Without missing a beat, I said, “Yes, of course.”

Which is nearly totally true. I love my family. I love doing things for my family. In The 5 Love Languages, Gary Chapman identifies different ways different people express their love and want to be loved. For me, I express my love through acts of service. So, I nearly always find myself happy to be doing for those closest to me.

And yet it’s undeniable that there is just so much work to be done. And sometimes, it’s just tiring.

There’s a short scene in Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince that I keep coming back to when I’m feeling overwhelmed. Of all the truths that this book contains, this one is probably the most profound.

The little prince, as you may recall, came to visit earth. He was sad to do so, because he was going to miss his flower on his planet. He considered himself so wealthy, because he had this one flower.

While on earth, he walks into a garden and sees the entire space bursting with flowers. He considers himself foolish, for having thought that he was so wealthy with just one flower, when right before him there were hundreds.

Of course, there is a big difference between all the flowers of the world and just your flower. And that’s the lesson that the fox teaches him. The little prince was lonely and wanted to play with the fox. But the fox wasn’t ready to play. He needed to be tamed first. The fox explains:

“It means to create ties… For me, you’re only a little boy like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you have no need of me, either. But if you tame me, we’ll need each other. You’ll be the only boy in the world for me. I’ll be the only fox in the world for you…”

“I’m beginning to understand,” the little prince said. “There’s a flower… I think she’s tamed me…”

So, I remind myself that it’s by creating the rhythms of life, being there for the people closest to you, and so often it’s just showing up that makes the difference. That’s how we create the ties between our friends and family. That’s why my wife and children are unique: because we’ve tamed each other.

Wishing you a month full of love, of giving, and doing the work of creating ties with those you share this magical journey with.

*This post contains affliate links.

If you’d prefer to skip my personal reflection, please do. Since this poem I’m about to share assumes some understanding of Jewish concepts, I suggest skipping ahead to the Concepts section. Or you can stick around for my personal reflections. Either way, thanks for being here.

My Grandmother’s Joy
To appreciate how this poem changed me, I’ve got to explain a little about my life before reading this poem, sometime around my 27th birthday. (I’m 47 now).

I grew up in Seattle, part of the Jewish Sephardic community there. We weren’t particularly observant, but we were connected. Meaning, we didn’t keep all the laws, but we felt close to our faith. That closeness, for me, was largely due to the influence of my grandmother, Alegra Alhadeff.

My grandmother was the middle child of David and Buena Leah Behar. David was the Hacham, the wise man and spiritual leader of the community. My grandmother inherited all her faith and love of God from both her parents.

This love was on full display for the holiday meals at her home. I remember so many Passover Seders, or meals, where delicacy after delicacy was prepared to exacting perfection. Since I was one of the younger grand kids, I got the treat of sitting next to her. Time after time during the meal she’d lean over to me and say, “Doesn’t it look so royal?” or some other reflection on how lovely it was to see her family together, celebrating her faith and enjoying her cooking.

Finding “Observance”
Thinking back, it isn’t surprising that growing up with a grandma like her that I’d eventually want to become more observant in my Judaism.

For me, that path to observance included studying in a traditional Yeshiva, or rabbinic seminary. I spent my college years studying, mostly Talmud, but a lot of Bible as well. So, while my contemporaries were doing whatever happens in frat houses and university campuses, my friends and I were attempting to memorize pages of Talmud, recall all the events in the books of the bible, and dazzle each other with penetrating questions. It was a great time, and I loved nearly every minute of it.

There was one aspect, however, that left me empty. The rabbis gave these rousing speeches about the centrality of spirituality, achieving academic prowess, and disparaged the physical world. It was, of course, an important message, and a strong antidote to the pursuits that my contemporaries were seduced by.

Yet for a kid growing up with my memories of family holidays sitting next to my pious grandmother, these rabbinical admonitions against temporal pleasure left me confused. And empty.

Where was the faith of my grandmother? Where was the beauty and joy of living life? How was I supposed to make sense of the love and peace I felt as a child with my newfound dedication to my faith?

I would find my answer in a poem writting by Rabbi David Ebner in his book, The Library of Everything, which I share here with his permission. This poem gave me the insight to carry on the faith of my grandmother, and doing all the work, all the cooking, baking, cleaning, that’s involved in living life and giving to your family.

But first, a little background so you can understand, and perhaps find your own meaning, in his verse.

Leave a comment

Concepts

I won’t provide an overview of the poem, because I want you to find your own meaning. Yet here are some of the concepts you might not be familiar with and the bare bones of what you need to know to let this poem come to life for you.

Now let’s get to the poem.

Subscribe now

The Poem

Modeh Ani 
מקים אמונתו לשני עפר

I.
Soul sits in the last (metaphorical) row
studying Torah
in the great Yeshivah of Olam Haba.
Body sleeps dreamlessly
on a Jerusalem mountain
waiting endlessly
for a moment,
a second,
perhaps myriads of millennia
are passing,
but the dead
don’t wear watches.
In heaven everyone is a no-body
in a world of non-sense.

II.
I asked Maimonides:
“If I have earned heaven,
found release from prison,
why must I return to body,
for resurrection?”
Reluctant,
to peak about resurrection
(was it a sore point for him?)
he said:
“Study the white fire text of
‘While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.’
The rest is commentary,
go learn.”

III.
I remembered a child raking leaves
their color and crackle
their smell when I rolled in the pile
and the steam of the hot chocolate
my mother brought me
rising in the autumn air.

And winter,
skating on a day so cold
the rhythm of the blades
cutting through the ice
froze like sound icicles.

A hot summer day,
watching the Dodgers,
Jackie and Gil,
Peewee and the Duke,
play the enemy Giants
to the bass roar of the crowd,
the shout of “Play Ball”
and the sweet taste of love
in the salted peanuts.

And an April day,
when winds began to gentle,
rains to soften,
and love began to root
in shy words
between two bodies.

I understood
metaphor alone
was not enough,
white fire alone
was not enough,
Heaven alone
was not enough.

I longed
to hear a driven leaf,
and see a red sunset,
to taste salt love,
smell fresh bread,
and touch
the incarnation
of a particular flesh.

And knew I would weep
from the joy of desire
if I were with body,
and wanted body back
so I could cry.

IV.
In Heaven
the rest is commentary.
Creation’s white fire
is to knead dark earth
and breathe this poem,
black fire on white fire
resurrected together
as one.

A promise
to a dust sleeper. 

by Rabbi David Ebner
from The Library of Everything pp. 49-51
Reprinted with permission from the author.

Share

The Response
I don’t want to go too deep into how I responded to this poem. I want to leave you space to have your own response, or maybe it won’t speak to you at all. That’s the way it is with poetry.

Photo by Isa Bödi

Leave a comment

Suffice to say, I first read this poem when I was 27, working as a teacher, and it was the end of the day when I was supposed to be grading some homework assignments. I was taking a break from the grading, having a cup of coffee, and this poem caught my eye. I still remember the feeling I had, like I was getting covered up in a warm blanket, and that something big was happening to me without fully understanding what it was.

Twenty years have passed, and I still can’t read this poem without getting a tear in my eye and being so happy that I can cry.

Update from Craft Sourdough
Our store is now officially live! And while we’re just servicing the Baltimore area for now, we have big dreams to bring artisan bake at home sourdough to your door soon.

Visit CraftSourdough.com.

Photo by InstaWalli

Everyone stares at the stars
by Jeff Alhadeff

Everyone stares at the stars,
Trying to decipher their meaning from afar.

I like to look at the stars at night,
Even if their brightness is dimmed by our modern lights.

I know we share a kinship,
Those shinning orbs and all of us,
We're all made of the same dust.

We've used some of that dust to make modern toys, 
Which blind us from our dearest human joys.

So when we meet, you and I,
I'll try, I promise, to look into your eyes,
And wonder who you really are.

News from Craft Sourdough

We’re still ironing out the details of delivery and a few kinks in our webstore. But we’re so excited to start sharing delicious bake at home artisan sourdough bread with you soon.