Basics

I read the list of important rules Moshe gives the Israelites this week and I gotta wonder: Were these people dumb, or just really, really stupid? They don't know that you should be fair in court? that you need to pay for losses or damages? that you should not lie? Seriously? But these are such basic rules. Any child knows them.

Well, yeah. Now they do. We all live in a (more or less) civilized society. No one but a criminal will think of stealing, killing or taking bribes. We tend to take it for granted. Or, at most, consider it something that all civilized people know instinctively.

But for most of human history, this was not at all true. Usually, what happened was that the strongest person ruled and they were as nice or as horrid as their personality allowed. The peasants managed to survive by copying their rulers. Thus, if the king was a mad sadist, the rest of the country managed to be cruel and nasty to each other: steal, cheat, fight and kill.

Unfortunately, this is human nature. Power corrupts. If no one will stop you, you'll do whatever you want. Like a two year old. The only reason our society does not behave like a bunch of terrible twos is that parents, as emissaries of law and order, drill it into the kids when they are still young enough to have to obey. We mold these kids into decent human beings or the world would be run over with little Stalins.

And the only reason we have law and order and the notion of decent behavior is because, a long long long time ago, one man stood in the desert and explained that this is how G-d wants us to be. And it became so wide spread that now we take it for granted as if it is a basic instinct.

But our ancestors in the desert had no idea about such newfangled notions. They knew that the strong (Egyptians) oppress the weak (Jews) and make them do whatever the strong want them to do, to the benefit of the strong, at the expense of the weak. That's no way to run a culture, you say? Need I remind you of the many, many, human cultures that were run exactly like that? Granted, they all fail eventually, but a slave has no vision of 'eventually'.

So G-d had to teach them the basics. And thank G-d He did.

I learned how to make the following dish from my neighbor, Donna, who was into Indian flavors. It's rice, so it's basic, yet it has some twists. It comes out a rich sunny shade of yellow and the spices make it perfumed.

Of course, I made it so many times, that my kids think it's no big deal. Just basic food, ya know?


Yellow Rice


2 cups Basmati rice
2 and 2/3 cups water
1 and 1/4 tsp salt
3/4 tsp turmeric
3-4 whole cloves
1 inch long cinnamon stick
3 bay leaves
3 Tbs butter or margarine


Wash rice thoroughly and soak in 5 cups of water for about 30 minutes. Drain.
Combine rice and the rest of the ingredients, except the butter, in a pot. Bring to a boil. Cover well and cook 25 minutes over very low heat.
Turn the heat off and leave the pot unopened for another 10 minutes.
Gently mix butter in.
Remove cinnamon stick, cloves and bay leaves before serving.

Serves 4-6




And never, ever, ever, take our civilized society for granted.