What If Tarantulas Ate Shabbat Dinner?

No crickets were eaten in the production of this entry

Don’t worry: no cricket recipes included!

On Friday, after a particularly busy class of kids who I know and who are coming a long way but who still require a whole lot of managing, I had a particularly quiet class in the room where Charlotte Tarantula lives.

The kids were as quiet as a tarantula, which is a rarity in urban subbing, and while it would get boring if it were all day, it was lovely for that class period.

Since they were already set with what they had to do (one thing about my favorite charters that really stands out if you’ve subbed in the regular district is that the teachers all have lessons in the Google Classroom or equivalent, so you almost never walk into a situation where there is no work prepared for the kids, and if for some reason there isn’t, an administrator will copy off something for the kids to work on. Education continues on days when a teacher is ill or whatever.) I got to spend some time communing with Charlotte.

“You’re so pretty,” I said to her as she chilled in her terrarium. Tarantulas are masters of chilling. They basically do that all the time if they aren’t eating.

On my way out I saw her human dad, Dr. P. Or is it Mr. P? I’m not quite sure but it’s always safer to award people a doctorate they do not have than to call someone with a PhD something other than Dr.

“I got to chat with Charlotte!” I said. “She’s so lovely. Doesn’t say much but she’s a great listener!”

He said that he had to get her some crickets this weekend. I asked if he raises or buys them. He replied that he buys them because she doesn’t eat that many. She eats only about once every two weeks.

Can you imagine if we ate only once every two weeks?

So much of human society is structured around eating rituals that it’s quite hard to imagine eating only every two weeks. My ex, who is also one of my two closest friends, and I discussed it this morning.

He thought we would all have different eating schedules so we would not eat socially. But I suggested that it might be like a biweekly Shabbat dinner, where families and friends gathered for the event that would be meal time.

How do you think we would eat if we only ate every two weeks?

Did you know that there is a difference between Old World Tarantulas and New World Tarantulas? Old Worlds are faster and much more defensive. New Worlds, from the Americas, are much more friendly and docile. One of my students told me about this and I just found this video explaining it.

I do love tarantulas. I was thinking that if I become a full time teacher I might seek permission to have a tarantula at school, but I think I would get too worried about him or her and not be able to sleep at night wondering if my tarantula was lonely. I get very, very attached, to put it mildly.

If you ask Google about tarantulas eating Shabbat dinner, here is what you get:

Based on the search results, there is no direct connection between “tarantulas eating shabbat dinner” (a Friday night Jewish ritual meal) and the search data provided.

The search results show two separate topics:

• Tarantulas eating: Videos and descriptions of pet tarantulas (like Pelinobius muticus or Mexican Red Knees) feeding on crickets, mealworms, or cockroaches, described as “dinner” or “midnight snacks”.

• Shabbat/Kosher dietary laws: Information regarding Jewish law, specifically that “creepy-crawlies” are not kosher and that religious Jews carefully check vegetables for insects to remove them.

In short: Tarantulas eat insects (not Shabbat dinner), and Jewish law forbids eating tarantulas.

Isn’t it wonderful that these days we have AI to tell us that tarantulas do not eat Shabbat dinner?

But perhaps some Jewish families might feed their tarantulas on the Shabbat, so in fact the tarantula would be eating Shabbat dinner.

With all the horror in the world, all my anxiety about life and the future, and the fact that it’s cold again after precisely two nice days, I think it’s delightful to think of a family celebrating the Shabbat with their tarantula.

Are you raising your tarantula Jewish?