Chumash commentaries

After years reading the Hertz chumash commentary during the Torah reading on Shabbos, year in, year out, it was a refreshing change to be able to switch to the Etz Chayim (the chumash produced by the Conservative Movement in the States) once I started attending Assif. After a few years reading that, though, I started to get bored and looked for something else, newer, to read. The following year I read my way through the Living Torah, which I'd been given as a cheder prize and never more than dipped into. The following year I was a bit naughty and didn't read a chumash at all, but read my way through The Book of our Heritage (which goes through the Jewish year), a barmitzvah present I'd also never more than dipped into.

The year after that I read my way through the Samaritan Torah; the following year (whilst I was blogging the results of that) the commentary in the Plaut chumash (the chumash of the Reform movement).

At the time that year ended, I hadn't managed to come up with a clear plan of what to read next. I saw there was a translation of Samson Raphael Hirsch's commentary in my shul's library, and fetched that down to start. I wasn't initially intending to commit to it: there's a lot more for some of the sedras than I can read in the time available in the Torah service in shul, and I wasn't very impressed by the etymological leanings of his commentary. (It goes against what I know of Hebrew etymology from scholarly sources.) But I've learned some interesting things from it in recent weeks, so I think I'll continue with it (for such weeks as I'm at my shul, which is less this year than normal). For example:

• Why if Abraham lived in Beersheba, did Sarah die in Hebron? (The interposition of the עֲקֵידָה means I had never noticed this before.) The explanation Hirsch gives I like, though he mentions it only to reject, is that he sent her there so she wouldn't hear what he was going to do to Isaac.
• The explanation that שְׂנוּאָה, used of Leah, means "less loved", rather than "hated", mentioned in the Hertz commentary, makes more sense in the light of Hirsch's pointing out that for it to mean "hated", the text would have read וַיַּרְא ה׳ כִּי־לֵאָה שְׂנוּאָה (God saw that Leah was hated), rather than וַיַּרְא ה׳ כִּי־שְׂנוּאָה לֵאָה (God saw that the (more) hated one was Leah).
• Rashi's explanation of Jacob swearing by the "God of Abraham" but the "Fear of Isaac" that it was because Isaac was still alive never made any sense to me. Hirsch explains it as referring back to the עֲקֵידָה. Thinking of my rabbi, as the example I know of how second-generation survivors are affected by their parents' experiences, I can well credit Jacob being able to see an ambivalence in Isaac's relationship with God. Maybe that's why Jacob made a conditional vow with God in the previous week's sedra?

Whilst I was still casting around for what to read this year, Judith WinoLJoDW suggested reading Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, as it's an interpretative targum, so I think I'll read that next year

Baking: Teacakes

A while ago, liv posted about how she was going to start trying to bake, and would blog the result. I replied in a comment:

I should use this post as a kick to jumpstart my plan of trying to make teacakes: something I miss as none of the kosher bakeries around here make them. (Also something I'd like to introduce aviva_m to.)

liv replied "Ooh, home-made teacakes, that sounds an excellent idea! Do write it up if you get round to doing that, it would be really interesting to know how it goes."

My initial plan to do so got derailed into making malt bread instead; I finally got around to making teacakes a couple of weeks ago, but left it so late on a Sunday afternoon that it would have been dinner time by the time they were ready, so I bunged them in the freezer, and only got to taste them this weekend.

I followed this recipe, which was good as far as it went, but I think next time I try doing this I shall try incorporating bits from this one as well, in particular the use of orange zest.

This was actually the first time I have ever baked with yeast (barring one assisted challah-making session when I was eight); I expected problems this first time around which I would then learn from for in future. Actually the only problem was that the recipe made considerably smaller teacakes than I was expecting. I thought maybe I hadn't left them to rise enough, or the room the dough was in wasn't warm enough; does this make much of a difference? Or maybe the problem was that the yeast was three and a half months old by the time I came to use it; would this be a problem given that it's dried yeast?

At any rate, the teacakes turned out small and hard on the outside, and I thought they'd be stodgy rather than fluffy enough on the inside, but they actually had the right consistency, and were delicious toasted. The only consequence of their being small was that I ended up having twice the number I would otherwise have, eating one with honey on marge, and the other with instead the maple butter my brother gave me as a present from Montreal.