While watching the desserts being prepped for the Bake-Off on Friday I had a hunch about some of them, but wanted to wait until the actual crunch to have a better sense.
Turns out that 3 of the 7 desserts in the Bake-Off on Friday night involved some mix of brownie & cookie-dough. Granted they were quite different, one was graham-cracker pie-form with gooey brownie, another had an Oreo at its center, a third was in a cup along with lotus butter & a nice piece of chocolate. Still it was quite surprising to have almost half the entries in the Dessert Bake-Off involve both cookie-dough & brownie!
I’m thinking this reflects an argument in Talmud Bava Basra about gemstones in messianic future – dark stones or light stones? The resolution? Both!
Chassidic teaching sees this deeper than just gemstone color, but about the preciousness of 2 types of service: light vs. dark, blessed vs. challenged, beyond the world vs. within the world… the messianic age (like so many Chassidic ideals) is about BOTH.
Thus in a week when we read about the varied colors of the High Priest’s gemstones in Tetzaveh it is most appropriate to have almost half the desserts reflect this mix of darker brownie & lighter cookie-dough, bringing out the best of both!