Eat Pray Love
Expressions of faith through food.
When world-renowned Sikh spiritual leader, Hari Nam Singh Khalsa enters someone’s home for dinner, the table is not set. There are no table cloths, centre pieces or juicy steak to be seen. Instead, when Khalsa enters someone’s home, a white sheet is laid on the floor. It’s where he’ll eat his simple meal with the hosting family.
Khalsa is a spiritual leader and is acknowledged as a prominent figure in the Sikh religious community, especially in Canada. He is the host and producer of "Insight Into Sikhism" which has been on the air for over 10 years and is the author of “Wisdom Shared” and "Aquarian Consciousness: 2013 & Beyond”. Although he is well established and is a respected leader in the Sikh community, he still dines with simplicity.
Toronto’s food scene has portrayed itself to be extravagant and cultured, and while many are diving into the food frenzy, some remain reserved.
For people of faith, food is much more than a pastime or a cute photo for Instagram. Food has always been, and still is, an important element in religious discourse. Its meanings run back thousands of years and is still prevalent to the daily lives of so many. In the case of Khalsa, food is symbolic of main Sikh values and morals.
“Traditionally we (Sikhs) are vegetarians,” he says. The gurus of the Sikh faith wanted to a have very simple way of eating, in a natural way, and vegetarianism is a light food and nutritious.”
Although simple eating is important in the Sikh faith, there is also an emphasis on equality and service.
Every gurdwara (Sikh temple) has a ‘langar’ where all people are welcome to a free meal. Langar, meaning kitchen, was introduced by the 3rd Guru, Guru Amar Das. He believed that everyone should be fed, no matter who they are. Langar is still a practice that is still seen in Sikh temples, even in Toronto says Khalsa.
“In any Sikh temple or Sikh gurdwara that you go to, anybody can be fed. Many people from outside come just to eat, even homeless people,” he said. “In Amritsar, at the Golden Temple, I think they feed, on an average day, 30 000 people or more, and on holidays 100,000 a day. Millions of people a year are fed and that’s just part of the concept of Sikhism.”
In the Sikh faith, food is a means of welcoming everyone, serving others and promoting equality, it is why in some homes Khalsa visits, he is given a seat on the floor. It is a sign of respect.
“It is customary to eat on the floor,” he says. “Guru Amar Das, who really implemented the langar program, said that no matter who you are, that everybody is equal, so everybody should sit on the floor together without discrimination. A woman, a man, a child or whether you are the richest person or you are the poorest person, you sat side by said with each other because everyone is equal in the eyes of God.”
Langar was introduced in between 1552–1574 and is still carried out to this day. Judaism is another faith with a rich religious history where food, according to Rabbi Elyse Goldstein, plays a very central role in their religious identity.
“We have foods for every holiday and the foods are connected to the land of Israel and the whole agricultural cycle,” she said. “From the beginning of the Bible, from the book of Genesis, when God tells Adam and Eve to not eat from the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, we sort of feel like food is one way of our spirituality of getting connected with the divine.”
Goldstein is a Rabbi at City Shul, a Reform synagogue in downtown Toronto. She founded Kolel: The Adult Centre for Liberal Jewish Learning in 1991; she was its director and principal teacher for 20 years. Kolel was also recognized worldwide as a leading institution in the field of Jewish adult education. Although Goldstein had been an educator of the faith for 20 years, she cannot “speak to kosher” because she is so against eating meat.
The laws of kashrut, in Judaism, is a fundamental law that is observed by many. The law is intricate and prohibits eating such things like pork and fish according to the laws from their spiritual text, the Torah. It promotes the idea of “eating consciously”, and according to Goldstein, it can be done through a variety of ways.
“There are so many doorways to being Jewish,” she says. “We wish that people would eat consciously and we think eating kosher is the conscious way of eating. I’ve been a vegetarian for religious and ethical reasons so if someone says ‘I’m not keeping kosher but I’m a vegetarian,’ then I would say you are following kosher, you are following the disciplines.”
Rabbi Emma Gottlieb, a Rabbi at City Shul as well, speaks on kosher foods, and the kashrut system and says people observe kashrut for various reasons, one including identity.
“It can be a strong statement of identity or people hood, a way of doing what Jews do because that’s what we do,” she says.
Everyday food is an expression of people’s faith, their values, and their identity. Foods can tie into particular rituals, ceremonies and traditions, but the meaning of food can run much deeper to the different people who make up the ethnic spaces in Toronto. Whether it’s religious, ethical, or the enjoyment one has in eating food or simply serving it, it’s a similar tie that all Torontonians carry on from their ancestors and still carry out today.
