JHOM - Bread - Kitchen

In her article "The Traditional Piety of Ashkenazic Women," Dr. Chava Weissler's focuses on a neglected area in the history of Jewish spirituality — the spiritual life of women. She finds that a particular literary genre — called tkhines (supplications) — popular among Ashkenazi women throughout the 17th-19th centuries, opens a window to the study of women's religious lives and their spiritual concerns. Recitation of tkhines was particularly popular before the performance of the three "women's commandments," the first of which is the duty of separating out the hallah portion.

Hallah refers to the part of the dough separated out as a gift for the priest. Any dough made from a determined volume of wheat, barley, spelt, rye or oat flour, was subject to the laws of hallah^[1]. After the destruction of the Temple, the separated portion could no longer be given to the priest, and was therefore burnt. Since it was usually the woman who baked in the home, the dictate of hallah is enjoined particularly upon her^[2]. She takes a tiny quantity of the dough (the size of an olive) as a symbolic reminder, throws it into the oven or fire to be burned, and recites a special blessing. The loaves baked for the Sabbath and festival meals are called hallot, since their preparation provides one with the opportunity fo perform the duty of separating out the hallah portion.

Collections of Yiddish prayers, called tkhines,^[3] became a widespread literary genre in the 17th-19th centuries among Ashkenazi (central and east European) women. Unlike the Hebrew liturgy, tkhines (supplications) were voluntary; women could recite them if and when they wished, and on a variety of occasions. Tkhines provide an excellent focus for the study of women's religious lives, because, in contrast to other Yiddish religious genres, a significant number of them appear to have been written by women. Further, as prayers, they express women's spiritual concerns in a more direct manner than the other types of Yiddish religious literature.

Tkhines were written for a wide variety of religious occasions and everyday concerns (recovery from illness, rain during a drought, visiting the cemetery), which were common to the lives of women and men. With tkhines for the special "women's commandments," three religious duties singled out as incumbent especially upon women since mishnaic times,^[4] we enter the women's world: there are the supplications recited for performing the mizvot of hallah, separating a small portion of the dough; niddah, marital separation during menstruation and ritual immersion after menstruation; and hadlaqat ha-ner, lighting the candles on the eve of Sabbaths and festivals.^[5] We will focus here on hallah — the first of the three, and the expression it found in these very personal supplications.

Shloyshe She'orim (The Three Gates)

Varying collections of tkhines differed both in style and in substance. One particularly beautiful, erudite and sophisticated collection of tkhines, Shloyshe She'orim (The Three Gates) was written by a woman named Sore (Sara) bas Tovim.^[6] The introductory material in Shloyshe She'orim includes both historical background and laws of observance for each of the three "women's commandments," thereby preparing the woman who reads the book to understand more deeply the religious acts themselves and even the allusions contained within the tkhines she recites.

The introductory material concerning the taking of hallah begins by quoting the biblical verse from which this mizvah is derived: "As the first yield of your baking, you should set aside a loaf as a gift" (Numbers 15:20).^[7] The text continues by interpreting a paraphrase of Proverbs 8:21 ("By the merit of this [commandment] God will fill your storehouses to satiety") as an assurance that fulfilling the mizvah of hallah will ensure plentiful sustenance. Next the author explains the biblical system of tithes and states that since the destruction of the Temple, the mizvah of taking hallah is all that remains of this system.

In the quick transition between the historical and the personal which is typical of Shloyshe She'orim, the paragraph continues:

A later section of the work, entitled "Laws of Hallah," explains that the dough must be made with at least 43 "eggs" (a rabbinic measure of volume) or at least two "quarts" of flour (another edition specifies three "quarts") in order for it to require that a portion be separated as hallah.^[8] This is followed by the blessing for separating hallah (in Hebrew) a little paragraph asking that the performance of the commandment be acceptable before God, and Yehi Razon, a brief Hebrew prayer of kabbalistic origin asking God to rebuild the Temple.

graphic Hebrew
Next comes the tkhine for the act itself:

This tkhine contains several themes: the desire to perform mizvot properly, the continued association of hallah with receiving adequate nourishment, the desire for forgiveness of sins. Perhaps most interesting, though, is the sense that by taking hallah, the woman is continuing the ancient system of sacrifices and tithes. In this tkhine, she identifies with those ancient Israelites who brought sin offerings and gave tithes to the poor and the Levites.

This identification is taken even further in the tkhine for candle lighting:

In its humble, tender tone, in its simplicity, this tkhine shows us how women could sanctify the most ordinary household chores. It also reminds us that women's spirituality was far from monolithic. While one woman was moved by envisioning herself as a participant in the ancient Temple worship, another found holiness in her own kitchen.