Rebecca Goldstein - 36 Arguments for the Existence of God

“All of the dishes have Qabalist significance, which must be why, as I have finally come to understand, a Jewish high cuisine never developed. If nothing can, hermeneutically speaking, exceed the potato kugel, then there can be little point in culinary refinement. The refinements are of an entirely different order.”

Professor Klapper reached into the chaos reigning on the surface of his desk and pulled out a book. He opened it to a page that had been marked, pulled his bifocals down from the top of his head, bringing tufts of hair down along with them, and read from the Yiddish, looking up at Cass, when he had finished, in a quizzical fashion.

“Is this not extraordinary?”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t understand it.”

“What?”

“I don’t understand Yiddish.”

“Indeed.” The professor examined him closely over the top of his glasses, his chin ruffling out against his shirt front. “Is that not unusual for someone of your background?”

“We’re fallen-away Valdeners, my mother and I. My father doesn’t come from that background at all.”

“In any case, with your privileged pedigree, it should not be difficult for you to assimilate the mama lashon , the mother tongue, with winged speed. In the interim, I shall translate. ‘The tzaddikim , or righteous ones, proclaimed that there are profound matters enfolded in the kugel. For this reason they insisted that every Jew must eat the Shabbes kugel. Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Rimanov recalled that once, when he went out for a walk with the holy rabbi of Ropshitz, all that they talked about for three hours were the secrets that lie hidden inside the Shabbes kugel.’”

He gave Reb Chaim a meaningful gaze and then pulled another book out of the pile on his desk, found the place he had marked, and read:

“‘Reb Itzikel of Pshevorsk taught that there is a special chamber in paradise in which the particular reward for eating kugel on the Shabbes is granted. Even he who has eaten kugel out of low physical desire will receive his reward.’”

Jonas closed the book, at the same time closing his eyes and sighing, sinking into reflection. Suddenly he roused himself with a start, eyelids snapping open like a window shade out of control.

“All of these primary sources, I am certain you will be delighted to learn, Reb Chaim, have been recommended to me by your sanctified relation, the Sage of the Palisades. There is a treasure trove more. Here is one by Rabbi Aaron Roth, of Jerusalem, which leaves no doubt concerning the covenantal significance of the kugel. ‘Kugel is the one special food that all Jews eat, one food in the service of the one God, so that anyone who does not eat kugel on the Shabbes in this country should be investigated for heresy.’”

He placed the book down on his pile, as always making certain to keep the space around the framed picture of Hannah Klepfish cleared.

“You can see the direction in which I am going here.” Again he stared at Cass over his bifocals, the high dome of his forehead corrugated with the inquisitorial ascent of his brows.

“To tell you the truth, Professor Klapper, I’m not exactly sure.”

“I am, I believe, your dissertation adviser?”

There was no need to answer.

“I venture to assert that I have located in this matter a topic that will not only satisfy the requirement of Faith-you have, I may remind you, to attain competence, under my supervision and to my satisfaction, in the areas of Faith, Literature, and Values-but might very well provide you with a topic for your dissertation for the degree of Philosophiae Doctor . You shall embark by first confronting the intriguing mystery of the kugel, both noodle and potato, although the sages favor potato. The potato stands for Yesod, which can be translated as Foundation, and is one of the ten Sephirot, the emanations of the revealed God radiated throughout the created physical world. Beyond the ten Sephirot is where the Ayn Sof lurks. Yesod is the channel through which the emanation Tiferet - another of the ten Sephirot and to be translated as Beauty, Glory-strives to unite with the Shechinah, which is God’s indwelling Immanence and which shares the cosmic exile that must be redeemed through the processes of ongoing history.”

He took a pause, perusing the face before him to see whether he could safely assume his meaning had been received. Satisfied, he continued.

“Nothing, Reb Chaim, is as it seems. The homeliest object or act can be of cosmic proportions. That which is common, undignified, vulgar- proste in Yiddish, which I submit to you is related to the ancient Greek prostychos -a potato or the fleishig eier floating among the shining globules in a mother’s chicken soup-is, when contemplated by the singular Self, numinous. Mysterium tremendum et fascinans . The Qabalist masters were able to divine that the potato symbolized Yesod, but how they did so I am not yet sure.”

There followed another protracted stare that lasted long enough for Cass to wonder whether the session had been concluded. It had not.

“I have made progress regarding other mysteries of the kugel. Kugel means, in both German and Yiddish, a circle, and the fact that the dish is called by this name, even when it is made in a square or rectangular pan, as my own mother most often prepared it, indicates we are dealing with the sacred nature of the circle. A kugel is always made with generous amounts of oil, which recalls the ritual of unction. ‘Messiah,’ or ‘Moshiach,’ literally means the Anointed One. In the Shabbes kugel one consumes and makes flesh the essence of the Qabalist message, that the created world is striving to repair the brokenness of the scattered shards, to unite the ten emanations, the Foundation acting to conjoin Beauty and Glory with the indwelling Immanence, so that the Anointed One will complete the sacred circle and repair the world.

“And yet one question of the kugel still remains: why the potato rather than the luckshen? I am vehemently disinclined to believe that, in identifying the potato with Yesod, the masters were resorting to its being a root vegetable. The potato’s significance is surely derived anagogically, and yet I have exhausted every numerical combination and rewording of which I could think, and have also dipped into the alternative methods of assigning numerical values to the letters, to no avail. There is a manuscript in the Bodleian Library at Oxford that lists more than seventy different systems of gematria, and it might become necessary-indeed, I cannot see how it could fail to become necessary-for your research to take you there. According to one alternative system, for example, the value 1 is assigned to the first letter of the alphabet, aleph , but instead of counting the second one, beys , as 2, beys is given 1 plus 2-in other words, 3-and gimel is given 1 plus 2 plus 3, and so on, which is enough to drive one mad. To add to the complexity, the Qabalists often mixed and matched the systems, so that a word that is gematricized under one method can be held as equal to a word gematricized under another. A method of this sort must lie behind the potato’s enshrinement. I bestow upon you, Reb Chaim, a quest.”

Without having to unseat himself, Jonas retrieved six books from around his office, all of them in Yiddish, and handed them to Cass, pointedly indicating the door-he pointed-and sending the scholar on his way.

to: GR613@gmail.com

from: Seltzer@psych.Frankfurter.edu

date: Feb. 28 2008 10:08 p.m.

subject: a friend in need

I seem to have committed myself to debating Felix Fidley, the Nobel laureate. Resolved: God exists. Guess which side I’m on. Not only did I commit, but I then promptly forgot all about it. Can you call me? Can I call you? I know it’s a little early in the night for you, but I’d much appreciate if we could talk tactics. Roz has been trying to tell me that there’s nothing Fidley can put over on me, that I should just use my Appendix as my cheat sheet, but I’m not so sure. Fidley could use my Appendix as *his* cheat sheet. I’ve made it easy for him. He knows all my moves.