The Tea Derek? Why a blog about Judaism and Tea?

During my year studying in Japan, I joined the Sado-bu (Tea club).  In those months of learning bits of the tea ritual, I thought and wondered a great deal. 

There was something inside the tea bowl.  Something more than the dark moss-green of the tea, though that was part of it.  Something beyond the vivid white-green foam whisked atop the liquid, though the foam was part of it.  There was a universe inside the bowl—though I couldn’t explain what that meant. I drank secrets every day with the tea, but I could never determine their taste or texture.

Tea is for doing, not for explaining, but I spent hours trying unsuccessfully to put Tea into words. 

When I took up a more methodical study of Tea back home in the West, my Jewish studies brain embraced the ritual.  I started drashing.  As time passed, my understanding of Tea began to emerge in Jewish terms. And Judaism took on characteristics of Tea.

Spring is coming!

This week in tea class, one of my classmates brought in a seasonal sweet that she had made.  She called it shitamo'e, or budding grasses, because it looks like the beginning of spring underneath the snow.

Isn't it lovely?

Counterintuitively, because it is late February we performed a particular temae that is meant to keep things feeling warm during a very cold part of winter.  However, while walking around the neighborhood where I work the other day, I saw my own shitamo'e, in the form of the first daffodil shoots of the season.

The koan by Cohen

Koans are an element of Zen Buddhism. They are little ideas, often no more than a line, that don't particularly make sense.

Some examples of common koans are, "What did your face look like before your ancestors were born?" and "If you see the Buddha on the road, kill him."

Moon viewing

Right now we’re in the middle of the lunar Hebrew month. Months start with new moons, so being in the middle means a full moon. Tonight when I stepped outside of around 8:00, the moon was luminescing huge in the sky, framed by veil-thin clouds.

Chanoyu is deeply entrenched in seasonality. Chanoyu draws its practitioners into the present through careful attention to what is in bloom, what is starting to change, and which flavors are in season.