The secret dish for Thanksgiving leftovers

(RNS)– Without even understanding you, I can anticipate what I would see in your fridge today.

Remaining turkey.

As a food author when composed in The New York Times: “Leftover turkey is a ghoulish pointer on the early morning after Thanksgiving. Roasted, dismembered and sculpted, residues of huge bird fine-tune the regret of all who attempt break the fridge door.”

Remaining turkey is Thanksgiving’s inescapable by-product. By today at lunch, it will be turkey casserole. This night, it will end up being turkey tetrazzini. Tomorrow afternoon, it will end up being turkey sandwiches. On Sunday afternoon, much of us will chomp on remaining drumsticks.

Therefore it goes, up until that turkey carcass is totally invested.

This is the lesson of the days that follow Thanksgiving.

Anybody can make turkey. The art remains in how to utilize the leftovers.

When I think about leftovers or residues, I instantly turn to the Torah. In the story of Jacob and Esau, there is that minute when Jacob is preparing to fulfill his sibling as soon as again. For several years, they have actually sustained an agonizing separation– a separation brought on by Jacob’s deceptiveness.

As Jacob prepares to fulfill his bro, he divides his household and ownerships– stating that need to Esau attack part of his household, a residue will endure. Leftovers.

Much later on in the Bible, in the story of Job, we checked out of the damage of Job’s home, and his ownerships, and his kids.

Messengers pertain to Job with a series of ravaging reports:

The oxen were raking and the she-asses were grazing together with them, when Sabeans assaulted them and brought them off, and put the young boys to the sword; I alone have actually gotten away to inform you … God’s fire fell from paradise, grabbed the sheep and the kids, and burned them up; I alone have actually left to inform you … A Chaldean development of 3 columns made a raid on the camels and brought them off and put the young boys to the sword; I alone have actually left to inform you … Your boys and children were consuming white wine in your house of their oldest sibling when unexpectedly a magnificent wind originated from the wilderness. It struck the 4 corners of your house so that it collapsed upon the youths and they passed away; I alone have actually left to inform you. (Job 1)

“I alone have actually left to inform you.” A residue. A remaining.

Where is the artistry in life? In how you utilize what you still have– what is left over. It remains in how we attest to fragility and hope, even hope beyond hope.

How can I even compose these words, in the existence of households who lost liked ones on Oct. 7 and beyond; in the existence of American households who are considering their enjoyed ones who are captives in Gaza?

The story of Job is now, as soon as again, the Jewish story. We are a country of Jobs. We are a deeply distressed individuals, and we hold on to the leftovers: remaining faith, remaining hope, remaining vision.

How do I handle what is left?

This is what I understand. I represent an individuals that has actually been handling the leftovers for its whole presence and history.

We are those who have actually taught ourselves– and the world– how to utilize history’s leftovers. This is the excellent style of Jewish history: survival and imagination, even and particularly in the middle of catastrophe and trial.

An ancient sage, Hanina ben Dosa, taught that when Abraham compromised the ram in location of his kid, Isaac, not a single part of that ram went to squander. Part of the carcass ended up being the coat for Elijah, the prophet. The sinews ended up being the strings of David’s harp. One horn ended up being the shofar blown at the discovery of the Torah at Sinai, and the other will be blown when the Messiah comes. All leftovers.

The ancient sages inform us that in the consequences of the golden calf, Moses burnt the calf and utilized its ashes to build the desert tabernacle. The residues of our individuals’s biggest spiritual failure would end up being the foundation of the location where we would fulfill God in the wilderness. The tabernacle was constructed from the leftovers of faith.

In the year 586 Before the Common Era, the Babylonians damaged the First Temple. We needed to discover how to sing the Lord’s tune in an unusual land. In exile, out of remaining stories, laws and legends, they developed the Torah. They utilized the leftovers of faith.

In the year 70 of the Common Era, the Romans ruined the Second Temple. The Jews are left without a method of making offerings to God. The ancient sages built a Judaism around prayer and praise, around rules and covenant. They reconstruct. They utilized the leftovers of faith.

In the year 1492, Ferdinand and Isabella expelled the Jews from Spain. Therefore, the Spanish Jewish exiles turned inward. They taught that simply as they remained in exile, the world itself remained in exile. They taught that whenever we do a mitzvah, we bring the world better to God. They reconstruct. They utilized the leftovers of faith.

In 1648, the Cossacks damaged the Jewish neighborhoods of the Ukraine and Poland. A generation later on, Jews discovered how to discover God in the middle of happiness and holy intimacy. Out of the darkness of pogrom, Hasidism was born. They reconstruct. They utilized the leftovers of faith.

Out of the really ashes of the Holocaust, an individuals ruined ended up being an individuals born-again. Millennia back, the Prophet Jeremiah said these words, even as the Babylonians were deporting him and his individuals from the Land: “And I Myself will collect the residue of My flock from all the lands to which I have actually eradicated them, and I will bring them back to their pasture where they will be fertile and boost.”

That is Zionism, which is Israel. Today’s Jews are the conserving residue of an individuals lowered to carcasses on the table of history. We are the residues.

It holds true of American Jewry, also– those people who hold on to our ancient faith, and restore it, and reconstruct it. The Prophet Isaiah so deeply felt his life linked with the life of his individuals that he called his child Shear-yashuv, “a residue will return.” We, who take seriously Scripture and prayer and the poetry of the spirit: In the words of Isaiah, we are the conserving residues. We are the spiritual leftovers.

I am not an excellent cook. I understand something about utilizing leftovers.

If the leftovers are fresh, go all out. You can reheat them, and they can be as excellent, or perhaps much better, the 2nd time around.

I have actually discovered there is a distinction in between leftovers that are prepared to consume and leftovers that are, or ought to be, history.

If ruined leftovers are ever to be utilized once again, they require to be composted. They require to be entirely broken down into their biological foundation. You require to begin fresh from scratch.

May you understand when to consume the leftovers, and when to make the compost heap, and might God provide you the knowledge to understand the distinction.