We were hosting eleven people for Rosh Hashanah dinner on Thursday night, and there were several dishes on our menu that all demanded oven space. We decided, therefore, to cook the brisket on Wednesday, particularly because it was an eight and a half pound brisket that would take between six and seven hours to cook. Becky put it in the oven at 325°F at 9:30am. At around 2:30pm, I was in the kitchen chopping onions, prepping another dish, and Becky was in the living room working on her sermon. Suddenly, I heard a loud electrical surge noise and a pop. I looked over to the oven on my left and the back right corner of the electrical heating element was glowing white hot and throwing sparks. I ran over to the oven and turned it off while yelling for Becky. She came in to take a look, and we watched as the white glow slowly started to migrate up the heating element towards the front of the oven, still throwing sparks.
Fortunately, our state senator had just sent us a mailing with some political information for the upcoming elections and included a list of important town and state numbers. We had placed this card on our refrigerator just two days prior, and so we called the fire department. I explained what was going on and that I just wasn't sure what to do. We didn't want to open the oven door because of the sparks, and it was still glowing and sparking everywhere even though we turned the oven off. So, the fire department dispatched a truck to our house. It rolled up our street, sirens blaring with a police car just a few minutes behind it. The very nice firemen came into the house and said, "It smells good in here." :) They pulled the oven away from the wall and unplugged it for us. The glowing and sparking stopped, and our $50 brisket was saved! But, we were now without an oven for our dinner preparations. Fortunately, our landlords (who have to replace our oven) allowed us to go downstairs and use their oven for the rest of Wednesday and for a substantial part of Thursday. We could still use the burners on the stove in our apartment, too.
Dinner was delicious (the menu will be in a separate post), and we owe a big thank you to the Watertown Fire Department!
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I feel that humans are obsessed with starting anew. We celebrate the new school year, New Years Eve on December 31st, make New Years resolutions on January 1st, and now, for me, participate in my first "real" Jewish new year - Rosh Hashanah. Many people have their own rituals regarding starting fresh. For example, we celebrate most life-cycle events as a way to begin again. Jews visit the mikveh to mark the start of a new period in their lives. There is just a lot of talk in general about new years and fresh starts.
So, where did the human preoccupation with starting over come from?
On Rosh Hashanah morning, Becky gave her first High Holiday sermon at Brandeis. In it, she explained two things. First, she talked about the creation myth in Lurianic Kabbalah. She explained that it teaches that "in order to create the world God sent forth vessels of light. However, these vessels proved to be too fragile to contain God’s light, and they shattered, sending shards of divine light into the world. Humans were then created to pick up those shards of light."
Becky also explained that the midrash that states God created and destroyed several worlds before he created the one in which we inhabit was interpreted further by Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Shapira, the Rebbe of the Warsaw Ghetto. "The destroyed vessels from each world are reused when God creates the next world. Our world is a patchwork of new creation and reused materials – perhaps lessons learned in previous worlds or just spare iron."
So, God may have created many worlds before ours. And, after looking at his creations, He decided to start over and destroyed them before settling on our current world.
I guess I can blame God for our obsession with new years and fresh starts.
So … Happy new year, everyone, and l'Shana tova.
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