February 7, 2010

We are learning the beginning of Baba Kama which speaks of 4 avot, “parents” (meaning parent categories) of nizikin, of damages -the ox, the pit, the maaveh and the fire. 

Typically in all books of the Talmud we find an interweaving of halachic, legal sections, and agaditah, narrative sections.  In many yeshivot these narrative sections are seen as beside the point, and in some of the yeshivot I attended even skipped over entirely; viewed as irrelevant to the halachic, or legal sections of the chapter. 

The approach in Lod is just the opposite.  The narrative and legal sections must not only both be read but seen as an integrated whole.  When I asked Rabbi Samet about this he answered that this interweaving of law and narrative was the way in which chazal, our rabbis, wrote because it was their (and by extension Judaism’s?) world view.  The reason for the constant presence of agadah in what we usually see as primarily a legal book is not just to pepper the halacha with stories which would teach musar and hashkafah, ethics and Jewish thought, but because for chazal halacha and agada are one and the same. 

In fact, he said, agadah is in a way actually the main item.  Our story, an understanding of our world and the world around us is chazal’s thrust, halacha is one part of that story.  Indeed he said this is true of Tanach, the Bible, which is mostly narrative also.  When I asked about the first Rashi on the torah which seems to indicate that laws are the main purpose of the torah, and that the torah should have thus begun from the first mitzvah given to the Jewish people, Rabbi Samet answered that not only does the torah not start with law but with narrative, but in fact the torah is mostly narrative, with law interwoven. 

Indeed, he replied, this precisely is Rashi’s answer, the torah had to start from birashit (Genesis) so that people would know that God created the world and thus had the authority to give the Land of Israel to the Jewish people.  Why is this the answer?  Because the story of the Jewish people as a nation in a land IS the story and point of the Torah.  There is no bifurcation of law and story, it is one.  The law is but a part of the story.  Thus when we study Talmud we must look closely at how the rabbis phrased what they did, often it is not for legal purposes but because they are looking at a much larger narrative, that of life in general and of the Jewish people in particular.   

When I asked why it is only now that this approach has come to light, he replied that the reason we can recognize the intention of chazal is that it is we who live in their land and speak their language and thus are closest to the lives they led and the perceptive they had of the universe.  Halacha is not meant as a series of actions but as a life lived, as a national story, as the life and thought of a people and nation, halacha is part of this.  Thus each halachic concept must be seen as integrated with the agadah because it is agadah (I do not mean by this that it is not binding or not literal).

For instance, the point of labeling the “pit” as a “father “of damage has not only to do with it technically being a way to damage, for there are may ways and many “avot” of damage not listed in the Mishnah of the four Avot. The “pit” is more than a method of damage; it is an idea that plays a role in the Weltanschauung of chazal and in our vision as Jews.  When seen it this way, the answer to why Baba Kama begins with specifically these 4 “father” categories of damage when actually there are many more, becomes clear.  The rabbis were not only making a statement about the technicalities of damage but about central notions in the life of the Jewish people.  This is their program, their method and goal. 

Thus the 4 “fathers” of damage, (which the Talmud says also have “children” categories or generations), the pit, the fire, the walking and the ox, loom large in our mishna not because they are the only ways to damage but for much bigger reasons that have everything to do both with damage and with who we are as a nation.  For example the “pit” is not only a place of potential damage but just the opposite also, the source of life in the Land of Israel.  Israel is a land in which it only rains during the rainy season, there is no large Nile River to irrigate the land, as the torah says in Devarim chapter 11, it is a land irrigated by the rains.  The only way to store rain is the bor, the pit.    Each source of damage is not only a damager, but its opposite also, a source of creation and life, reflecting the fragile nature of our universe and our mission in it as Jews.  Thus are these categories quite aptly referred to as “Avot” parents with “toldot” children.

You’re having a long contentious day.  At the end of it, you need to relax, regroup, grab some perspective, get in touch with your other Inner Self, the one that’s not angsty, nerve-wracked and short-fused.  Do you:

a)  go to church/shul/mosque/Wiccan altar to pray

b)  meditate

c)  go to a good restaurant

The answer for the vast majority of people would be “c.”  And yet somehow we think of a and b as “religious” experiences while “c” is just going out to eat.

Food does what they do, for sure.

Last night—after one of those days—my wife and daughter and I drove a few blocks to try out the new Pitfire Pizza in Culver City on Washington Blvd. 

Forget the name that makes it sounds like an Italian-Kansas City concept restaurant. This place has exceptional food, wine and hospitality. 

But first I need to mention one important fact: it was free.

That’s right.  The three of us decided to try out the new place, and when we got there a handwritten sign on the door read, “Closed for Private Party. Open Tomorrow 12 pm.”

My wife—from Brooklyn—walked in anyway.  The host greetd her and explained that this was a pre-opening night try-out for friends and family.

“Well,” my wife said, a big friendly smile on her face, “we’re from the neighborhood.”

“Then come in!” The host smiled back. “Welcome.”

The place was packed, with friends, family…and us.

A large open kitchen, walls of windows onto the street, exposed beams.  What pulls focus on the large room is a wood-fired oven, sheathed in a bright red cylinder, stoked inside with flaming logs.

The menu is a shock.  You expect California Pizza Kitchen and you get Pizzeria Mozza, Oliveto, AOC—at CPK prices.  Farmer’s Market Roasted Vegetables with whipped ricotta; Burrata Pizza with Arugula; Field Mushroom Pizza with Crème Fraiche & Fontina; Tuna Lucca Panini with marinated tuna, eggs and capers.

I ordered some of this and that, along with homemade sangria and a Watermelon Lemonade, whipped out the credit card, and the cashier said, “It’s all on the house tonight.”

But here’s how good it was: I ate at Pizzeria Mozza last week and the pizza at Pitfire was more satisfying. The tuna Panini was simply better.  It was all so good I would have paid for it—and I would have paid almost half of what the same meal costs at Mozza. That doesn’t speak to Mozza’s value—it is excellent—but to Pitfire’s ambitions.  Mozza has its butterscotch budino, one of my favorite desserts in LA. Pitfire could settle for tepid tiramisu, but instead offers organic soft-serve Straus Dairy ice cream with homemade caramel sauce and Malden Sea Salt. 

I’d been to the Pitfire downtown on 2nd street, but this one is a step up in décor, spaciousness, and menu.  What happened?  I found out in The Los Angeles Times:

If you’re a fan of Pitfire Pizza’s BBQ chicken salad or their mac ‘n cheese, you should hurry and place an order before April 2. The local mini-chain with outposts in North Hollywood, downtown L.A. and Westwood (which recently acquired a beer and wine license), is changing its menu this Thursday and will eliminate both of those popular dishes. Pitfire is also getting rid of the Baked Ziti, Fiery Chicken Soup, Dixie Chicken Penne, Papardelle Pasta, Pumpkin Pizza, Folded Sausage Pizza and Folded Chicken Pizza. (The folded pizza is their approximation of a calzone.)

They’ll be replaced by approximately 15 new dishes created by chef/owners David Sanfield and Paul Hibler along with executive chef Mark Gold of Café Pinot and the Water Grill. (Gold earned three stars from Times Restaurant Critic S. Irene Virbila when he cooked at Leatherby’s Café Rouge in Costa Mesa.) The new dishes include the signature chicken salad ($9.75) featuring sous vide chicken on a bed of baby arugula topped by toasted pine nuts, pickled currants, shaved scallions and hand-torn bread crumbs tossed in a champagne vinaigrette; clam and bacon linguine featuring littleneck clams and Zoe nitrate-free bacon in a tomato broth. And a new mushroom pizza ($9.95)—with more whole mushrooms—will replace the old version, which had shaved mushrooms.

This was a gutsy move.  No Caesar Salad! No BBQ Chicken Pizza!  The menu takes locavore/gastropub/organic and injects it into a mainstream fast-casual dining format.  Plus good wines, beers and welcoming service—then again, we are “friends and family.”

The highlights were the burrata pizza, creamy burrata cooled with a mound of fresh arugula atop a nicely wood-charred crust; and the Roasted Vegetables, which were simply ideal: tender brussel sprouts, cauliflower, rapini, finger potatoes, onions and fennel, all roasted separately and laid out in wide platters as on a Venetian bar, then scooped out and served together on a plate with a dab of whipped ricotta and grilled bread.  That is breakfast, lunch and dinner.  I want it again now.

You can take your wounded soul to church or shul.  For me Pitfire was a spiritual pitstop, I left utterly rejuvenated, satiated, content.

(I’ll have pictures up tomorrow)

Pitfire Pizza Culver City

24 Washington Blvd

Los Angeles, CA 90066

For map click here.