Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?

 By Eric H. Yoffie

For the sake of our health, and the Earth's, let's make a Jewish decision about what we put on our plates-curtailing red meat by 20% or more.

Abraham is sitting at the entrance to his tent. Only three days before, at age 99, he has been circumcised. What is his very first act as a Jew? He invites wayfarers to a meal.

Remember: Abraham is an old man, sick, in pain. But he does not give in to illness, the desert heat, or limitations of age. Instead, he offers his guests the finest foods, and presides himself over the serving.

There is a message here. Jewish history begins with a Jew-a new Jew, the first Jew-saying to others: "Come, eat with me." And ever since this first Jewish meal, Jews have believed that eating matters.

We know, of course, that eating is a biological necessity; but, beginning with Abraham, Jews have seen eating as more than a mechanical act. We are heirs of a tradition that makes a distinction between food and nourishment, between refueling the body and replenishing body and soul. We understand the physicality of eating, but, at the same time, we work very hard to transcend and transform it.

Rabbenu Bahya b. Asher reminds us that people who eat indiscriminately are no better than animals. My mother, when I was a child-and later as well-put it this way: "Don't eat like a pig." She was trying to civilize me, but-more importantly-to make me a Jew.

One might think that, 3,500 years after Abraham, we would be making progress in this area, yet the opposite seems to be true. The North American way of eating has become "gobble, gulp, and go." We shovel food in. We consume a fifth of our meals in cars. One-third of our children eat in a fast-food outlet every day, and the average McDonald's meal is 11 minutes long.

We Jews have a response to this animal-like eating: Our sources tell us to linger over our meals (Berachot 55a). And this above all: Jews invite God in.

The emergence of food and drink from the earth is a wonder and a mystery; therefore, we stand in awe before the work of God's hands. Knowing that the Divine Presence lives in the texture of our everyday acts, and that even the most mundane task can be sanctified, we elevate the act of eating by reciting blessings prior to and after every meal.

Beyond this, two practices strike me as essential.

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