It wasn’t until I read this week’s Torah reading that I finally figured out what the lentil soup incident was all about. Call me dense, but although I’d first heard the story too many decades ago to count, the meaning didn’t click until just now.

Although this is a recipe column the story isn’t really about food though it must have been a pretty tasty soup that Jacob was cooking up. The story is about the Big Question, whether there is a life beyond the grave.

In case your memory needs refreshing, the story opens with Esau returning home hungry and tired after a busy day hunting (some commentators say that hunting is a code word for raping married women) to find his twin brother standing over the fire cooking red lentil soup

. “Give me some,” Esau demands

.Jacob offers him a swap. “I’ll give you the soup if you give me your birthright.” That is a highly unusual business proposition but Esau readily agrees.

“What do I need a birthright for anyway since I’m going to die anyway,” he says. That proves what Jacob had suspected all along, that his brother didn’t value the birthright, which is the family fortune but rather the responsibility to conduct the Divine service and that he (Jacob) was doing the right thing getting him off the job.

Jacob didn’t make lentil soup because lentils were on sale at Safeway that week. Lentils which are round and endless symbolize the life cycle and eternity. Along with hard boiled eggs, they are the Jewish food of mourning—Jacob was preparing the soup for his father Isaac who had just buried grandfather Abraham. The soup was a statement about eternity which Esau rejected.

Although there is no tradition to eat lentil soup this week there’s no reason not too. Lentil soup is a wonderful winter warm up, relatively low in calories, high in excellent quality protein, B vitamins and iron and –who knows, it might get you talking about the meaning of life and the Torah portion

Here’s the recipe

Saute together one medium onion, two cloves of garlic and two celery stalks in 2 tablespoons in oil.

Add two carrots, two zucchinis, one potato or any other vegetable you’ve got lying around.

Add eight cups of chicken, vegetable or beef stock

1 lb red lentils

Optional 250 grams tomato sauce

Ground black pepper to taste

Cook together for two hours on low flame. Enjoy.

. .