Questionable Taste  

Toameha, the quiet act of tasting Shabbos food before candlelighting, has long lived in the background of Jewish life. Never performed dramatically or loudly, it was done at the stove, with the clock ticking down and the challahs rising on the counter. But that humble practice has recently become the subject of intense debate in frum circles — and for good reason.

Much of this attention was sparked by powerful and painful remarks delivered by Rav Yaakov Bender shlita, rosh yeshivah of Yeshivah Darchei Torah, during a visit to the Toronto shul in which I grew up. Rav Bender decried what he described as a growing culture of alcohol consumption. This has already caused numerous tragedies that began with seemingly harmless Friday-afternoon decisions.

Rav Bender focused on contemporary toameha gatherings — events that, in many places, have evolved far beyond a taste at the pot, into social affairs marked by heavy consumption of food and drink. His conclusion was forceful: Practices that normalize this culture should be eliminated.

In the aftermath of these remarks, some people were, understandably, asking questions. What, then, is toameha? Isn’t it itself a mitzvah — or at least a long-standing minhag? And if so, how are we to understand calls to eliminate it?