Eating My Emotions on Rosh Hashanah

How my festive meal helped me deal with festering emotions 

There’s a Rosh Hashanah tradition that I had never seen until I came to Israel.

It relies on puns. The festive meal opens with a series of special foods that contain ordinary ingredients—like pumpkin, or leeks, or dates– whose Hebrew or Aramaic names can be punned into verbs. And many of the verbs are used as curses we wish upon our enemies. Like May our enemies be smashed.  May our enemies be cast out. May our enemies fail. And so on.

The first time I heard this ritual I was put off. THAT’S no way to think about things. THAT’S not the path to peaceful coexistence and stability.

But this year, when I heard these curses, I actually felt comforted by them. There was something authentic and honest about expressing my unfiltered feelings about Hamas and Hezbollah. It was pleasant to contemplate their failure while eating something yummy.

I’m worried. I’ve changed in ways I don’t like. The earlier iteration of Me didn’t really have enemies and didn’t hate anybody in particular or wish them harm. In fact, I felt a duty to try to be considerate of others–“the rest is commentary.”

October 7 changed all that. And the execution of 6 hostages last month made October 7 feels like yesterday.

I realize that I should feel sympathy for the civilians who are trapped by their situation. I close my eyes and try to imagine their suffering and I try to care. But I’m so angry, that part of  my mind shuts down—the part that feels compassion.

Heaven help me. I have become hardened. Sometimes the anger is palpable. It lodges in my chest.  It makes my heart pound and my breathing shallow. My jaw clenches and I grind my teeth.

Last year my aunt died gently of old age. (I’m not changing the subject. This will make sense in a bit—I hope.)

She was the last of her generation. This Rosh Hashanah is the first my cousins are without her. They told me that though they miss her, they felt her presence by using her recipes for their family Rosh Hashanah meal. Her kugel, her brisket, her tsimmes. “She was right there, with us.”

Food. Eating. More than a physical necessity. A way to celebrate and at the same time, a way to manage tough feelings and realities. For my cousins, a process for grieving—for overcoming the separation of death. And for me, this year, it’s a process for handling rage against Hamas and Hezbollah.

I may be learning something about the origin of eating disorders.

And also about the way rituals operate to help us manage feelings and situations. They are a way for us to think about things despite our helplessness to change reality.

Maybe by eating a tasty little pancake the size of a daisy that has an ingredient whose name I can connect to my hatred– maybe then I’ll be able to control these waves of rage. Or at least hold them without letting them monopolize my judgement and make me act like a hate-crazed monster.

If things go well, perhaps this ritual enactment of rage will give me the space  to re-sensitize my heart and rekindle my humanity.

Or maybe it will just legitimize my anger and give me the fuel to power through this situation without caring about the suffering it causes.

Staying human in Israel is keeping me busy.