Soul food: At Hanukkah, Martyn Kelly talks ritual

‘Food rituals are a way of staying connected with home.’

On a recent episode of BBC Radio 4’s The Kitchen Cabinet, the Kurdish food writer Melek Erdal spoke about rituals and practices associated with food, and how important these are to immigrants. They are a way of staying connected with home, as well as of preserving identity and history. They help keep diaspora communities together.

We see traces of this in the letters written by Paul the apostle to the young Christian communities of the eastern Mediterranean. The encouragement Paul offers is all about identity. It’s not about food or diet per se, but understanding food’s relationship to belonging can help us see the other side to this story.

Paul’s early letters deal with the vexed question of how tightly these communities should adhere to the traditions of Judaism. From a modern secular perspective we can barely perceive what the fuss was about, but it was the biggest issue facing the young movement, much of which was centred around diaspora communities and their synagogues.

For every group that agreed with Paul, there must have been others whose discernment led them to the opposite conclusion. Their reasoning would have gone something like this: ‘We’ve met people influenced by Jesus, we’ve put them up in our houses (because that is what diaspora communities do when members of them visit), and we’ve debated with them in our synagogues. We recognise that Jesus fits into the rabbinical tradition, and find much of his teaching to be stimulating. But we are not convinced that we should change the rules that make us a distinctive community, because these traditions maintain a connection with our homeland, to our people, and, in particular, to the Temple in Jerusalem. So, with all due respect, we will continue to insist that anyone who joins our community will have to follow the same rules that we inherited from our parents, and which they inherited from their parents.’

This was, I suspect, a live debate even before Paul and the other early evangelists turned up. We get a flavour of it in Old Testament Esther (3: 8-9), and also the New Testament Acts of the Apostles. There we have Peter’s meeting with the Roman centurion, Cornelius, as well as references to ‘devout Greek’ people listening to Paul preach at Thessaloniki. It points to ‘boundary maintenance’ as a big issue.

Both Christianity and Judaism are defined, to an extent, by what they are not. The Gospels use the pedantry of the Pharisees and the ritualism of the Sadducees as foils to highlight Jesus’ message. But Paul’s letters also help us to see how the diaspora Jews, too, defined themselves relative to the Gentile world. His engagement with these communities points to a steely determination – a determination that enabled this small disparate people to retain its distinctive character right through to the present day.

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Comments

I was explaining to a dietitian that I may put on weight before my next appointment “Ah, Christmas?” “No, Hanukkah, and it’s a religious obligation to eat fried food for eight days.” This is a reference to the cruze of oil that should have lasted one day but kept the lamp burning for eight days so that the Great Temple in Jerusalem could be re-dedicated following the successful Maccabean revolt against the pagan Seleucids. It’s one of the few festivals that Jesus attended (John 10:22)

Had the revolt failed, the flame of monotheism would have been extinguished. The link between ethics and religion would have been broken and religion would have been no more than superstition. There would have been no Jesus, no Paul, no Mohammed and no Guru Nanak. The world would be a very different place.

So eat a doughnut and remember “the wonders that G-d performed in days of old, at this season”

By Ol Rappaport on 14th December 2023 - 8:50

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Would the flame of monotheism have been extinguished, or the link between ethics and religion broken? The link between ethics and religion in Buddhism dates back to its founders. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on monotheism has interesting arguments that polytheism tends towards practical monotheism.

By Abigail Maxwell on 14th December 2023 - 10:42

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