Feeding Women of the Talmud, Feeding Ourselves

By Kenden Alfond

*WINNER OF THE JEWISH BOOK COUNCIL'S NATAN NOTABLE BOOK AWARD*

Experience the Talmud in a fresh way with recipes and stories that nourish the body and spirit.

Feeding the Women of the Talmud, Feeding Ourselves produces true food for thought by retelling the stories of sixty-nine women in the Talmud and honoring them with vegan or plant-based recipes. Enjoy sixty-nine delicious, balanced recipes ideal for family meals, entertaining, and healthy snacks. Each recipe is accompanied by stunning photography and meditations on stories of women in the Talmud that draw new meaning from the text.

This community cookbook is the co-creation of 129 Jewish women from around the world. Sixty rabbis, rabbinical students, Jewish teachers, and emerging thought leaders contributed to the Talmudic narratives, and sixty female professional chefs and passionate home cooks contributed to the recipes. The addition of this female-focused point of view to these women’s Talmudic stories—which were recorded and edited by men—is a bright and encouraging testament to a modern generation of women engaging in Jewish learning.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Turner Publishing Company
• Release date: Sep 6, 2022
• ISBN: 9781684427024

Kenden Alfond

Kenden Alfond is a psychotherapist based in Paris, France, where she lives with her husband and daughter. In 2005 she was an American Jewish World Service volunteer in India and went on to use her expertise in psychology in clinical and humanitarian work in Afghanistan, DR Congo, Switzerland and Cambodia. She started Jewish Food Hero in 2015 to get healthier plant-based and vegan food onto Jewish tables around the world, to improve our mental, emotional and physical health and help the environment. Kenden holds a BA in Literature from Brown University and an MA in Counseling Psychology from Naropa University.

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

This project allows contemporary Jewish women to retell and glean meaning from the stories of 69 women in the Talmud and honor them with vegan or plant-based recipes.

Adding a woman’s point of view to these female Talmudic stories, which were recorded and edited by men, is a bright and encouraging testament to our generation of women engaging in Jewish learning.

The cookbook formula offers Jewish text and recipes together to produce true food for thought.

These community cookbook/studybook projects are collective efforts, involving diverse women from all around the world. Feeding Women in the Talmud, Feeding Ourselves is the co-creation of 129 Jewish women: 69 rabbis, rabbinical students, Jewish teachers, and emerging thought leaders contributed to the Talmudic narratives and 60 female professional chefs and passionate homecooks contributed to the recipes.

The recipes in this book are all vegan and/or plant-based, except in the cases when honey is used. Some will become weekly favorites, while others are meant for special events and holidays. This book seeks to add more Jewish female stories and delicious vegan and plantbased foods to our tables, so we can connect to Judaism and healthy food at the same time.

ABOUT THE TALMUD

¹

Talmud means study in Hebrew. It is a fundamental Jewish text, a record of Jewish oral law and the commentaries expounding on these laws.

Rabbinic Jewish texts discuss two Torahs (teachings) – the Written Torah made up of the Five Books of Moses, Prophets, and Writings, and the Oral Torah, which consisted of a related dynamic and ever-evolving tradition. The Talmud reflects one of the earliest attempts to codify and preserve the Oral Torah so that it would not be lost in times of persecution. The Talmud consists of two parts:

■The Mishnah was compiled approximately in the year 200 CE in the Land of Israel. It is a collection of oral laws and practices recorded in Hebrew to preserve the wisdom and tradition of Rabbinic Judaism in that time.

■The Gemara is a written record of the oral discussions, rabbinical analysis, and commentary on the Mishnah, as well as the teachings of the rabbis in the centuries following the destruction of the Second Temple.

There are two Talmuds developed in two different geographic locations. The Jerusalem, or Palestinian, Talmud (aka Talmud Yerushalmi) was produced by Jewish scholars in Northern Israel and completed sometime around 350–400 CE. The Babylonian Talmud (aka Talmud Balvi) was produced by Jewish scholars living in Babylonia and was compiled in Late Antiquity (between the 3rd-6th centuries CE). The text continued to evolve for another 200 years.

HOW THIS COOKBOOK IS ORGANIZED:

This cookbook is organized around female stories in the Talmud, presented alphabetically.

Each chapter is devoted to one female character in the Talmud and has the following sections:

■Story: a concise true to the text recounting of the female character’s story in the Talmud.

■Context: This section seeks to enhance the stories by exploring their context: providing historical, social, literary, and/or liturgical context for the story; describing what falls before and/or after the particular story in the Talmud and exploring how the context and position of the story reveals more about its meaning.

■Aggadah: a modern commentary or fictional story, uplifting the subject’s voice without attempting to neutralize her imperfections, flaws, or struggles.

■Prompts: meaningful questions arising from the story, meant to inspire further reflection for readers today.

■Food offering: one vegan or plant-based recipe, each inspired by or honoring the female Talmudic character.

HOW TO USE THIS COOKBOOK

As a traditional cookbook

Dip in and out at your leisure; be inspired by new recipes coupled with intellectual and spiritual stimulation to deepen the experience.

As a learning experience

Go at your own pace, work through the book learning about the female biblical characters, and enjoy plant-based recipes that might have nourished them.

As a meaningful collective experience

Create a group learning and eating experience by using this book like a book club text. Invite your friends to read a specific female narrative and then cook the recipes together. Think about other recipes that might nourish each biblical character. Use the prompts for reflection as discussion topics to get beyond the small talk that can sometimes dominate our social gatherings.

CHARITY

All of the contributors, including me, volunteered their time and intellectual energy to create this book. As such, all of Jewish Food Hero’s proceeds from the sale of this book will be donated to a Jewish nonprofit every year.

A FINAL NOTE

Each woman in these stories is a world of her own. Reading about these women might bring up a wide range of emotions and feelings: from happy and delighted, curious and surprised, sad and despairing, to angry and disgusted. Some of the situations faced by the women in the Talmud might feel jarring and removed from our modern experience and sensibilities, while others may feel frustratingly familiar when they pivot on chronic and enduring themes.

The Talmud was written during the first century CE, when specific laws, values, and norms about gender and sexuality reflected a reality in which women and men were viewed as separate classes of people.² On the one hand, the rabbis, like all men and women of their time, were living in a patriarchal society: women were subordinate, and had respective social status and legal rights. Some of these sorrowful stories illustrate the impact of this legal and social reality on women and womanhood at this time. On the other hand, some of these stories show women with individual agency and social influence as they engage in aspects of their public and private lives, including in Torah learning and the Halachic process.

It is important to avoid the temptation to read these female stories as simplistic historical proof of either end of a spectrum of attitudes held by the rabbis about women.³

The essence of this project is to connect with and search for meaning in these female stories in the Talmud, as a means to uplift the voices and perspectives of women, from both the Talmud and our community.

May these stories from the Talmud and vegan and plant-based recipes nourish your body, mind, and spirit. I’m so glad you’re here.

To your health and inspiration,

Kenden

1.Thanks to Rabbinat Debbie Zimmerman and Tiki Krakowski for refining this section About the Talmud.

2.Baskin, Judith, Women in Rabbinic Literature, My Jewish Learning, retrieved from: https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/women-in-rabbinic-literature.

3.Hauptman, Judith, Rereading the Rabbis: A Woman’s Voice.

AGRAT BAT MAHALAT / אגרת בת מחלת

STORY

Agrat is a female demon in the Talmud.

She is introduced when Rabbi Yossi, the son of Rabbi Yehuda, tells Rabbi Yehuda Ha’Nasi not to go out alone at night. The source for this warning is a baraita¹ – a rabbinic teaching from between 0–200 CE – which says, do not go out alone on Tuesday or Friday nights, because ‘Agrat, daughter of Mahalat’ and her 180,000 angels of destruction stalk the earth that night!

The baraita continues, saying that Agrat, the daughter of Mahalat, used to stalk the earth with her angels of destruction every day of the week. But one time, she came across Rabbi Hanina ben Dosa, and said, Rabbi Hanina! I came here to put you in danger. But the Heavens spoke and said ‘Beware of Hanina and his Torah!’, so I cannot. Hanina then said, If the Heavens think me important, then I command you: Never travel through an inhabited place again! Agrat bat Mahalat pleaded and said, Please give me just a little space! And so Rabbi Hanina left her a little space, and allowed her to stalk the earth, but only on Tuesday and Friday nights.

Agrat bat Mahalat later came upon Rabbi Abaye and said the same thing: Abaye! If the Heavens hadn’t spoken to say, ‘Beware of Abaye and his Torah!’, I would have put you in danger. And so Abaye retorted in the exact same way as his colleague: If I am important in the Heavens, then I decree that you shall not pass through any inhabited place! This time, Agrat did not ask for leniency. However, the Gemara asks, If Abaye commanded her not to come through inhabited places, then why does she still do so?! The Sages explain that Agrat and her demons are only found on paths near inhabited places, because their horses flee along those paths, and they simply come to lead them back home.

After this, Agrat bat Mahalat is never heard from as a character in the Talmud again. She’s only mentioned once more – in a spell to ward off witchcraft, elsewhere in Tractate Pesachim.²

PASSAGES

Talmud.b.Pesachim.112b

CONTEXT

This story is an example of demonology – or the attempt to explain the world through the existence of demons. In the Jewish tradition, like others, there are demons everywhere and in every aspect of life: bathrooms, kitchens, travel, different times of day, public health, childbirth, etc. This is one story among many that tries to explain why bad things happen to people when they are out at night, and to try and provide a way for people to keep themselves secure in this unknown: by claiming that if only you just avoid walking on certain days (Tuesdays and Fridays), you will be safe.

The conflation of women with demons is ancient, and arises from the same place where demons come from – the unknown. The unknown has power that can produce fear and a desire for control – and in a male world this is true both for demons and women. An earlier sugya in the same tractate includes Agrat’s name in a list of demons to ward off witchcraft. In the context of these sugyas, the character Queen of Demons is introduced to play the part of the unknowable and fearsome other, and explain the unexplainable misfortunes that befall a person in the dark.

AGGADAH

As soon as she reached the gates of Heaven, Agrat bat Mahalat began to plot revenge. Unprovokedly, the last moments of her serene and studious life were spent under attack from a man, who slew her on the short road between her lover Asya’s home and her own home.³

Shocked at the unjust theft of her remaining years, she initially hoped to haunt and torture the man who abused her so cruelly. But, upon meeting many women who had suffered similar fates at the hands of men, they soon formulated a much sweeter revenge.

Agrat bat Mahalat gathered this group of women – bubbling over 180,000 strong – and flew them down to Earth as the sun began to set. They came down to where Agrat had died, and, fanning out across the planet, intervened to save every woman they found in duress. More specifically, though, they were making unsafe for men what was always unsafe for them. Daggers in the hands of attackers would switch directions mid-swipe, to slash those who wielded them. Feet would shrink in stirrups and snakes would strike at heels.⁴ From the innocuous to the deadly, word soon spread among the men of the world that it was unsafe to travel at night.

Agrat bat Mahalat and her 180,000 demons, however, did not inflict their vengeance on anyone who was not a man. And so, women suddenly found themselves protected and free on roads devoid of danger from men.

And oh, was this the sweetest revenge.

Women, leaving their husbands, brothers, and fathers at home, would find each other in the dead of night. Without fear of violation or attack, women were free: some would sing, some would dance, some would experience sapphic pleasure and others platonic love, some would gather, and some would sip a mashkeh.⁵ Covens could hone their witchcraft; healers could trade their skills; and women could live with abandon – their shrieks of pleasure and joy mistaken for the cackles of demons.

Over time, these evenings of liberation were boxed down by a countervailing patriarchy, from every night, to Tuesday and Friday eves. But Agrat and her women would cede no more. In vengeance for her death, the Queen of Demons reclaimed these nights on the road back for those who needed them most.

PROMPTS

■Who owns the street in the nighttime? Who gets to feel safe in the dark, outside?

■What is the magic that’s possible in an inhabited place, vs. an uninhabited one? What types of encounters do we expect in those locales?

■What is the strength in numbers? How can we be a horde of angels to those we love in their times of danger?

Binya Kóatz(she/they) is a frum transfemme Ashkenazi/Sefardi Jewess from Queens, currently living on Ohlone Land in the Bay Area.

TEJ – ETHIOPIAN HONEY WINE

Perhaps Agrat bat Mahalat and her 180,000 demons and all the women who joined them enjoyed Tej – Ethiopian Honey Wine – together.

Tej is a fermented honey wine and is one of the oldest alcoholic beverages produced. It is often home processed and consists of three main ingredients: honey, water, and shiny-leaf buckthorn, commonly referred to as gesho.

I created this recipe by combining the best parts of my mother’s and sister’s respective Tej recipes. The taste is sweet, similar to a dessert white wine with an even more subtle alcohol taste. The alcohol content can take people by surprise, so enjoy in moderation.

Prep Time: 1 hour

Fermentation Time: 4 days + 7 days + 22 days

Yield: 40x12 oz (250ml) bottles

(14+ liters in total)

Tools:

■Cheesecloth

■Kitchen scale

■Small soup pot

■Wide-mouthed glass vessel(s) with lid(s) (with total capacity of 15 liters)

■Wooden spoon

Ingredients:

■8.8 lbs (4kg) honeycomb

■15 liters drinking water

■3.3 lbs (1.5kg) shiny-leaf buckthorn, coarsely ground

■150g fresh ginger, finely grated or chopped

■200g fresh turmeric root, finely grated or chopped

Instructions:

Ensure the wide-mouthed glass vessel is extremely clean: wash with boiling water or on the hottest cycle of a dishwasher.

Pour the honeycomb into the clean glass vessel and add the water.

Stir until the liquid is a uniform golden amber color.

Cover loosely and leave at room temperature for 4 days.

After 4 days, place the shiny buckthorn in a small soup pot with a small amount of water. Warm the mixture over a very low heat for 20 minutes – simmer; absolutely do not boil. Turn off the heat and allow the shiny buckthorn to steep and chill for 30 minutes, or until room temperature.

Meanwhile, grate the ginger and turmeric with a tiny bit of water in a food processor, or finely chop.

Add the grated ginger and turmeric to the cooled gesho mixture.

Fold the ginger, turmeric, and cold gesho mixture into the honey and water mixture.

Loosely cover with a lid, and allow to ferment at room temperature for a week.

After seven days, strain the mixture through a cheesecloth to remove the pieces of gesho, ginger, and turmeric.

Wash the glass vessel and place the strained Tej back into it, making sure to leave a few inches at the top of the jar empty. Cover again with a lid – this time airtight.

Leave to ferment for 22 days at room temperature. Do not open!

Strain the Tej a second time.

Transfer into smaller bottles and refrigerate until serving.

Please note that a few bottles might not hold on to their fermentation fizziness correctly, and these can be discarded.

Fanta Prada is an Ethiopian-Israeli restaurateur, model, lawyer, and entrepreneur. She co-owns Balinjero, where she introduces visitors to the joy of Ethiopian culture through food.

1.See below, Talmud b. Pesachim 112b.

2.Talmud.b.Pesachim.111a.

3.Asya is another female demon listed in an incantation to ward off witchcraft, in Talmud.b.Pesachim.111a.

4.Referencing shrinking feet and snakes as witchcraft a traveler should beware of, mentioned on the same page of the Talmud as above, ibid.

5.A Mishnaic category for drinks other than water, commonly connoting alcoholic beverages.

BAT ABBA SURAH / בת אבא סוראה

STORY

Bat (the daughter of) Abba Surah was born into an extremely affluent family. Yet this fact did not guarantee she would remain wealthy her whole life. In Talmudic times, when a woman left her father’s home, she entered into her husband’s, accepting his financial circumstances as her own. Though a ketubah, a legal marriage contract, dictates that a man must provide a basic standard of living for his wife, it does not guarantee the same level of financial comfort she may have enjoyed prior to her marriage. She becomes financially tied to her husband, without individual ownership of possessions. Any money she earns or inherits belongs to her husband.

However, upon Bat Abba Surah’s marriage to the Sage Rav Papa, her father and her groom made a special arrangement. This marriage contract stipulated that Bat Abba Surah retained her own possessions and independently managed her expenses. Bat Abba Surah became the precedent in rabbinic thought for a financially independent woman.

The Talmud mentions Bat Abba Surah one other time, when we learn that she compares the pain of vaginal intercourse to the feeling of hard bread on the gums.

PASSAGES

Talmud.b.Sanhedrin.14b, Talmud.b.Ketubot.39b, and Talmud.b.Ketubot.52b-53a + Rashi

CONTEXT

According to a discussion in Tractate Sanhedrin, Bat Abba Surah’s financial independence enabled her to serve on the same court as her husband for the purposes of evaluating tithed produce. Since their finances were not intertwined, they were counted as distinct individuals – a unique situation for a woman at that time.

In the midst of a debate over the fine charged to a rapist for the pain caused to his female victim in Tractate Ketubot, three male rabbis attempted to imagine the experience of rape. The discourse then jumps to discuss the pain every woman feels the first time they have vaginal intercourse. Each Rabbi recounts a metaphor they originally heard from a woman in their family. Rav Pappa reports his wife’s metaphor last: it is like the feeling of hard bread on the gums.

AGGADAH

Bat Abba Surah’s first name is lost to history. In the Talmud, she is only named in reference to her father. Her reputation and anomalous status were connected to her inherited wealth. This inherited wealth enabled her father to secure her unique marriage contract, keeping her distinct from her husband. Her family’s wealth gave her a different role than most women within the patriarchal system at the time, but she nevertheless remained within that system.

Hearing Rav Pappa’s report about his wife’s visceral metaphor for the loss of virginity may be jarring for the modern reader. One feels as if they are eavesdropping on guy talk, a men’s discussion of women in which women are imagined and objectified. Women’s voices are strikingly absent in a conversation that has everything to do with women’s experience.

It is also striking that their conversation associatively jumps so easily between forceful rape and consensual sex. Perhaps modern readers can relate to this still persistent idea that rape and sexual harassment remain under the umbrella of sex, rather than what they actually are: pure violence.

Unable to relate to the female physical experience, the all-male academy draws on personal testimony from their female family members. One wonders how this information was acquired. Did they ask their wives and mothers to share personal sexual experiences for the expressed purpose of Torah study? Or were these intimate details shared privately, whispered under the covers in confidence, only to be announced in the study hall and recorded for generations? On the one hand, this snippet of text can feel voyeuristic. On the other, it can come as a great relief to women, who long to see their stories told in the Talmud.

PROMPTS

■What are the merits and challenges associated with being a financially independent woman?

■Who are the financially independent women you know? How do you feel about their (or your!) circumstance and the decisions which led to it? How do you think finances should be shared between spouses, if at all?

■How should people treat information about their partner’s sexual experiences? In what circumstances, if any, is it appropriate to share intimate details with others?

Ora Weinbach studies at Yale Divinity School and is a Wexner Graduate Fellow. She serves as the Community Educator at The Jewish Center in NYC.

NO-BAKE VEGAN MILLIONAIRE SQUARES

This recipe is a variation on Millionaire’s Shortbread. I think the recipe is perfect for Bat Abba Surah because of its name.

This recipe is yummy and fun to make. It has a vegan almond flour shortbread layer, a date and nut butter caramel layer, and a chocolate top.

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cook Time: 0

Yield: 12–15 square pieces, depending on the size

Tools:

■Bread loaf pan (8½×4½×2½")

■Food processor

■Kitchen scale

■Large mixing bowl

■Measuring cups and spoons

■Metal soup spoon

■Sharp knife

■Spatula

Ingredients:

For the vegan shortbread:

■2 cups (200g) almond flour (or use 75% almond flour and 25% rolled oats)

■¼ cup (54g) coconut oil

■1 tbsp maple syrup

■½ tsp salt

For the caramel layer:

■½ cup (120g) natural almond butter or peanut butter

■1 cup (180g) pitted dates

■2 dried figs

■1 tsp vanilla extract

■3 tsp fresh lemon juice, divided

For the chocolate layer:

■10.6 oz or more (100g-150g) 54%-72% vegan chocolate

■1 tsp coconut oil

Instructions:

Line the bread pan with parchment paper so it is easy to lift the No-Bake Vegan Millionaire Squares out of the bread pan and cut them on a cutting board.

Make the shortbread:

Place all shortbread ingredients in a food processor and blitz until a paste forms (3 to 5 minutes).

Using your hands, press the paste into the bottom of a lined baking pan and smooth evenly with a metal spoon.

Place in the refrigerator to chill for a minimum of one hour.

For the caramel layer:

Pulse all caramel ingredients in a food processor until a paste forms (5 minutes).

Using your hands, press the paste on top of the shortbread layer. Add a little bit of fresh lemon juice and smooth evenly with the back of a metal spoon.

Place in the refrigerator for a minimum of one hour.

Make the chocolate layer:

Melt chocolate and coconut oil over low heat or in a microwave until smooth.

Pour over the caramel layer, tilting the bread pan back and forth so it spreads evenly.

Place in the refrigerator overnight or for 24 hours. This allows the millionaire squares to set and cut more easily.

Lift the millionaires out of the bread pan, peel away the parchment paper, and using a sharp knife, cut the millionaires into squares.

Yaël Alfond-Vincent is a Franco-American living in Paris. She will be celebrating her Bat Mitzvah in 2023.

BATHSHEBA / בתשבע

STORY

Bathsheba was a wife of King David and the mother of King Solomon. She is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible and in rabbinic literature.

The Talmud discusses her primarily in the context of whether or not King David is to blame for their illicit relationship. David desired Bathsheba – at that time wife of Uriah the Hittite – and made her pregnant with Solomon. King David then orchestrated the death of Bathsheba’s husband and married her himself.

However, one Talmudic source¹ discusses Bathsheba not as a conquest or wife, but as a mother. The rabbis explore the relationship between King Solomon and his mother by expanding a tale about King Lemuel and his mother in the Book of Proverbs (31:1–4)²

In the Book of Proverbs, the mother of King Lemuel castigates him for his overuse of wine. Invoking the fact that she birthed him, she admonishes him, saying that kings who get inebriated forget the law and infringe on the rights of the poor.³

The rabbis say that the above story from the Proverbs teaches us that Bathsheba sees King Solomon engaged in excessive drinking and takes action to change his behavior.⁴ She ties him to a pole and delivers a speech designed to turn him away from his foolish course to follow a path of righteousness.

Bathsheba uses three arguments to convince Solomon to change his ways. First, she argues that society perceives King David as a God-fearing father, and thus any character flaws in their son will be attributed to her, the mother. Second, she describes a harem culture in which King David’s concubines did not have sexual relations with him after they conceived. She had to go to extra lengths to push herself in to have relations with the king while pregnant, in the belief that doing so would strengthen the fetus. Finally, she tells Solomon that while the other mothers in the king’s court vowed that their sons would be ready for kingship, she wanted more for her son. She wanted her son to lead through Torah and prophecy. She tells Solomon that he is letting her down by failing to be the model leader that she had prepared him to be.

The rabbis imagine that King Solomon’s mother does convince him. He responds that he has been foolish, less of a man even than Noah and Adam, who were not exactly paragons of virtue.⁵

PASSAGES

⁶

Talmud b. Sanhedrin 70 b

CONTEXT

At the beginning of a chapter about the topic of rebellious children, there is a lengthy discussion about the effects of wine. The story about King Solomon and his mother falls at the end of this discussion and combines the themes of rebellion and alcohol consumption.

While King Solomon’s behavior does not fit into rabbinic legal definitions of childhood rebellion, by placing the tale here the rabbis imply that debauchery reflects poorly on one’s parents and is therefore a form of rebellion. Bathsheba also stresses that poor behavior on the part of a child may be more harmful to a mother than to a father because of societal perceptions.

AGGADAH

One of the most emotionally challenging parts of parenting is that we cannot control our children. As we raise young children, this fact is inconvenient. We want them to eat certain foods, go to sleep at a certain time, and learn some basic life skills – but we have no actual control over whether or not they do. When our children emerge into adulthood, this challenge becomes existential. What if our child adopts values that feel alien or abhorrent to us? What if they make choices that are harmful to their health and wellbeing? We come face-to-face with how much our identity is tied up with our children’s conduct. It feels like if they are good, we have done good. If they do ill in society, then we have failed.

Before Solomon’s birth, Bathsheba is disempowered. Desired by a king who uses treachery to deprive her of her husband, she has no control of her fate. Motherhood has crystalized a thread of power for her. From the moment of pregnancy, she behaves with determined perseverance. Confronted by a son who has turned to alcohol, she now fears that her maternal labor was for naught. As modern readers, we chafe at and disagree with Bathsheba’s use of physical force but we empathize with the sense of desperation that led her there.

Bathsheba is ultimately successful in convincing her wayward son to repent. She uses her personal, maternal power to turn the most powerful man in the land from a path of apathetic drunkenness to a path of righteousness. She achieves her ultimate goal of applying all her resources to bring her son to a better version of himself: for her own benefit, for his benefit, and for the benefit of Israel. Her story reminds us that the parent-child relationship continues into adulthood and that even the most powerful of kings still has a mother.

PROMPTS

■The rabbis stress that a child’s debauchery reflects poorly on their parents. Solomon’s mother fears she, rather than his father, will be blamed for his bad behavior. Does society hold parents responsible for their children’s behavior, even when they are adults? Are mothers and fathers praised or blamed disproportionately for their parenting?

■Reflect on a time that you used tough love with a person you were in a position of responsibility or authority for. Reflect on a time when you were on the receiving end of tough love tactics. What are your main conclusions from these experiences?

■Solomon’s mother wishes her son would give up wine. She implies that a lifestyle of alcoholism makes him less respectable as a king and clouds his judgment. What are the pros and cons of consumption for you personally – whether drugs or alcohol, or other substances including caffeine and sugar?

■Solomon’s mother expresses the wish that her son be vigorous and fair-skinned. Today we read this as prejudice on the basis of skin color. How can adults relate to children in ways that dismantle entrenched colorism and racism?

Rabbi Miriam-Simma Walfish is faculty at the Hadar Institute. She revels in the process of learning Torah with and from her students.

RICH CHOCOLATE AND RED WINE MINI CAKES

Bathsheba’s story made me think about the connections between Judaism, alcohol, and parenthood. It has always struck me that Jewish parents give their children alcohol during religious rituals, and at the same time drunkenness is strongly discouraged. I wanted to offer a recipe that mirrored this, with a small amount of alcohol in a recipe adults and kids will love.

These rich chocolate and red wine mini cakes are moist, decadent, and with a delicate berry flavor from the red wine and strawberry swirl frosting. They are vegan, oil-free, and lower in sugar than traditional chocolate cakes. We’re also using spelt flour as a whole-grain option.

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Cook Time: 20 minutes

Yield: 6 mini cakes

Tools:

■Baking spray

■Blender

■Measuring cups and spoons

■Medium glass bowl

■Large mixing bowl

■Piping bag (optional)

■Small oven-safe ramekins

■Whisk

Ingredients:

For the cake:

■½ cup (120ml) unsweetened applesauce

■1 cup (240ml) red wine

■½ cup (100g) sugar

■1 tsp vanilla extract

■1½ cups (180g) spelt flour

■5 tbsp (35g) unsweetened cocoa powder

■1 tsp baking soda

■A pinch of salt

For the frosting:

■1 cup (140g) raw cashews

■3 tbsp (45ml) maple syrup

■1 tbsp (15ml) fresh lemon juice

■3 tbsp (45ml) water

■1½ tbsp (30g) strawberry jam (or a small handful of fresh strawberries)

Instructions:

Place cashews in a medium bowl and cover with boiling water. Allow to soak for 20–30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 350° F (175° C).

To make the cake, in a large mixing bowl, combine unsweetened applesauce, red wine, sugar, and vanilla extract. Whisk until combined.

Add flour, cocoa, baking soda, and a pinch of salt