{"id":45509,"date":"2018-10-26T16:00:21","date_gmt":"2018-10-26T22:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/?p=45509"},"modified":"2018-10-26T16:00:21","modified_gmt":"2018-10-26T22:00:21","slug":"off-the-pulpit-eat-quietly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/off-the-pulpit-eat-quietly\/","title":{"rendered":"Off the Pulpit: Eat Quietly???"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Recently in Japan I had lunch at a Zen Temple (the all-vegetarian cuisine was outstanding). My friends and I were seated next to one another. One of the adepts explained that we were not across from each other to discourage conversation. People were supposed to concentrate wordlessly on their food.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Wolpe_edt.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-35320 size-thumbnail lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Wolpe_edt-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Wolpe_edt-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Wolpe_edt-350x350.jpg 350w\" data-sizes=\"(max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 150px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 150\/150;\" \/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-35320 size-thumbnail\" src=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Wolpe_edt-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Wolpe_edt-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Wolpe_edt-350x350.jpg 350w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/><\/noscript><\/a>I thought of my family\u2019s Shabbes table, or indeed any table, weekday or Shabbat, breakfast, lunch or dinner. The only silence was due to my mother\u2019s unaccountably insisting that we not talk when our mouths were full of food. Otherwise, it was a circus of volubility: jokes, questions, emphatic answers, smug corrections, resigned admissions, stories, stories, and stories. The idea that we should be quiet during the meal would have met with raucous laughter. It would have been as incomprehensible as not whispering to one another in shul.<\/p>\n<p>Judaism has a place for silence, of course, an honored one. But far more of the tradition seeks to capture the world in a web of words. The Rabbis tell us that a table should always be adorned with words of Torah. In the spirit of my tradition I leaned over to the Japanese woman sitting next to me and said, \u201cIn that case, I\u2019d make a lousy monk.\u201d<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" data-src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" class=\"lazyload\" \/><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/noscript><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"Tumblr\",\"Email\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"Off%20the%20Pulpit%3A%20Eat%20Quietly%3F%3F%3F\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[8790,8795,8788,9145,9688],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45509"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45509"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45509\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45510,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45509\/revisions\/45510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}