The Yolk of Heaven

Image: a soft-boiled egg in a cup, the top removed. By TanteTati.

A good editor is worth her weight in pearls.

I regularly write divrei Torah for a quarterly newsletter.  I love working with this particular editor, because (1) she makes my writing better and (2) she keeps me from making a fool of myself.

This week, I sent in a d’var Torah in which I mentioned the concept Ohl HaShamayim. It means “the yoke of Heaven” and refers to the burden of Jewishness. According to Jewish teaching, before I was Jewish, I was only responsible for being a decent human being. In becoming a Jew, I took on additional responsibilities. Things that before had been “good deeds” were now requirements. I had a responsibility to wrestle with those requirements and (as a Reform Jew) to figure out how I was going to observe them.

For instance, there are responsibilities regarding the food I put in my mouth. Some Jews take the traditional approach and keep kosher by the standards that have been in place for hundreds of years. Others meet those requirements by keeping a vegan or vegetarian diet, or by asking a lot of questions about the sources of food, the treatment of animals and people in its production, and the ecological “footprint” of that food. Others observe food restrictions on Yom Kippur and during Passover. But all Jews have a responsibility to engage with the commandments concerning food.

In writing about the Ohl HaShamayim, I made a silly error: I wrote “yolk of Heaven” instead of “yoke of Heaven.” Fortunately, my editor caught the mistake and fixed it, so now I do not have egg on my face (or my shoulders.)

But I can’t get that image out of my head: The Yolk of Heaven.

Did you know that an egg itself is a giant cell, and the yolk is its nucleus?  It’s the part with the potential for life.

The yolk of the egg is the soft, creamy center, the part that is rich with fat and runny with flavor. It’s sticky and decadent and downright yummy. It’s also incredibly nutritious.

Overcooked, the yolk grows rather chalky and gray, less appetizing. A properly cooked egg is a matter of art and individual taste: a runny center within a firm white nimbus.

With a little olive oil, an egg yolk may be whipped into mayonnaise (real mayo, not the bottled stuff.) With butter, lemon juice, cream and heat, it may be teased into hollandaise sauce. With cream, sugar, and vanilla, a yolk becomes créme anglaise.

Now think about Torah, the Yolk of Heaven, Chelmon HaShamayim. It is the nucleus of the Jewish cell, the center of our existence, containing the DNA of our way of life. It is sweet but complex, rich and sticky, incredibly nutritious. Overcook it, pick it to pieces, and it will lose its flavor, but treat it with respect and it will enrich all other aspects of life.

So what do you think? Mistake or metaphor?

Take a bite and see.