Sweet Savor
Wednesday afternoon, I was running around trying to tie up loose ends before three solid days of "rest". The days between the close of Yom Kippur and the start of Sukkot are hectic to say the least. There's the Sukkah to build (It's considered a sign of true teshuvah - repentance - to take the first step immediately following Yom Kippur - in other words - that same evening!) and making sure that all the lulavs are assembled and that's besides the normal preparations a person would make for a holiday.
Wednesday evening, Thursday and Friday would be two days of yom tov followed immediately by Shabbat through Saturday evening. Whatever work didn't get finished by then, would just have to wait until the close of Shabbat - a tangible reminder not to place too much value on ones own personal "necessities".
I had just picked Micah up from school and as we walked through the front door, our nostrils were greeted by the sweet complex smell of the stuffed cabbage Susie was preparing, as she does every year, especially for Sukkot. What a gift to the senses and to the mind! It's no secret that the olfactory nerves physically penetrate the most inner recesses of the brain, that our sense of smell possibly affects our emotions in way more primitive and powerful than any of the others.
My mind automatically turned to some of my earliest memories; my childhood in Durban. I can so clearly remember my mother, who called them Praches (pronounced: prah-kez), making them for the family. In my mind I can still taste the unique complex of flavors of the cooked cabbage wrapped around the precious contents of rice and ground beef, allowed to simmer for hours in the specially sweetened tomato sauce! Back in South Africa, at the time, my father would wait anxiously for the long brown package bearing the lulav and etrog to arrive before the holiday. He would love to share with us how the etrog had been shipped all the way from Israel, and I remember the stern warnings about handling it carefully so as not to break off the pitum - the unique protuberance on the opposite side of the stem - which would render the fruit pasul - unfit for the mitzvah. We could only imagine the dire consequences if such an accident should happen and the only etrog in the congregation became unusable!
Years later Susie's mom who descended from Russian Jewish immigrants called these same delicacies Challopses (pr. chah-lup-sez - "ch" as in the Scottish "lo ch ") and I learned from other sources that they also answer to the name Chalipkes. Regardless the name, their sweet savor conjured up memories of the time when she lived with us and shared her mother's recipes and her enthusiasm for the holidays.
Later that evening, as Micah and I shared our first Yomtov meal in the Sukkah, feasting on the praches and joining in the birkat hamazon, I turned to him and said, "You know, there's something so touching sharing this moment with you and hearing you sing the melodies that your grandfather taught me... even though you never met him, and even though I can just imagine how thrilled he would have been to watch you grow."
It's a little taste of immortality... just like the sweet aroma of the praches !
May you enjoy life's sweet savors throughout the year!
