Monica

An online Jewish community I'm fond of has some unanswered questions that came out of Pesach this year. Can you answer any of them, dear readers?

• Why do we designate specific matzot for seder rituals? We break the middle matzah; we eat first from the top one and use the bottom one specifically for the Hillel sandwich. Why? What's the symbolism? (I'm aware of the interpretation that the three matzot symbolize the three "groups" of Jews -- kohein, levi, yisrael -- but that doesn't explain these positional associations.)

• If your house is always kosher for Pesach, do you have to search for chameitz? That is, is the command to search for chameitz, period, or is it to search for any chameitz that might be in your house, and if you know there isn't any you skip it?

• Why does making matzah require specific intent but building a sukkah doesn't? When making matzah (today I learned), it's not enough to follow the rules for production; you have to have the specific intent of making matzah for Pesach, or apparently it doesn't count. This "intent" rule applies to some other commandments too. But it doesn't apply to building a sukkah; you can even use a "found sukkah", something that happens to fulfill all the requirements that you didn't build yourself, to fulfill the obligation. Why the difference?

I tried searching for answers for these but was not successful. I have readers who know way more than I do (and who can read Hebrew sources better than I can). Can you help?

Last night I watched the recording of a JLI class that had been given for free earlier in the day (but I had a work meeting at the time). The class is Leaving our personal slavery: 10 lessons from Passover for the whole year. taught by Sara Esther Crispe. I don't know anything about the teacher; I went there because I've taken several JLI courses (in the classroom, not online).

What follows are basically my running notes as I listened (and occasionally backed up to hear something again, so I guess it's just as well I missed the livestream). Some of this might sound a little pithy or trite summarized here; I encourage you to listen to the talk (44 minutes) before drawing a negative conclusion just based on my notes.

In English the book is called Exodus, but in Hebrew it's Sh'mot, Names. To leave something which enslaves you, you need to know who you are. Slavery is dehumanizing, taking away your name, reducing people to numbers. When someone tries to strip our identity, that is the foundation of enslaved reality - we have no voice, nobody is going to believe us.

Nobody escapes Mitzrayim (Egypt); we all are there at some point in our lives -- not having freedom of movement, expression, thought. Egypt is something we all go through. It's part of our journey. The same God who put us there takes us out.

It's not "what can I do to escape Egypt", but "what will I learn from the Egypt I'm in?". How do I discover who I am so I can be free?

10 lessons:

1 - Knowing your name is essential.

2 - What doesn't kill you makes you stronger -- we can allow what beats us down to paralyze us, or we can let it push us to grow. We're so constricted that we're forced to break out because there's nowhere else to go.

3 - Passion can overcome fear; if we believe strongly enough we won't even see the potential barriers. (Miriam confronting her parents in their separation -- uncomfortable, but she was right, she was passionate, she spoke up and got them back together and they had Moshe.)

4 - Learn to be flexible and switch roles. Miriam parenting her parents; Yochevet as nursemaid to her son; Miriam as negotiator w/Paro's daughter to save Moshe's life. Story of her friend pumping milk to save another child after hers died -- of all the things she could have done, who would have thought that would be her biggest impact?

5 - We are never stuck; we can reinvent ourselves when truly committed. The rabbis say Bat Paro (daughter of Paro) intended to convert to Judaism; Bat Paro became Bat Ya. Paro = peh ra, evil mouth. She comes from that and transforms her life to become metaphorical daughter of God (and raises Moshe who will redeem Yisrael).

6 - Nothing is out of reach if we want it desperately enough, but we'll never know until we try. Batya saw the child's life needed to be saved and she reached out even though he was too far away and miraculously succeeded. People lift cars off of victims. If you think about it, it won't happen. When we see something needs to be done, we believe limitations won't get in the way and miracles can happen. (Nachon ben Aminadav -- innovator, persistent believer.)

7 - True acts of kindness we do are never forgotten, even if we're not aware of their impact. Moshe got his name from Batya, not his mother -- it's the name that sticks, the name God uses. Act of kindness from Batya has lasting effect. We don't know the impact when we smile at a stranger, speak to someone, offer a kind word...

8 - Only when we see the possibility of what can be do we recognize how badly our situation needs to change. We had to hit rock bottom in Mitzrayim before we realized how difficult it was. Nowhere to go but up. Everything's been stripped away; what can we leave behind, where should we focus, where can we make an impact? Time to refocus and rethink. What matters?

9 - When presented w/opportunity to do the right thing, don't let insecurity stand in your way. If opportunity came your way, you're meant to step up. Be humble but don't let it prevent you from acting. Moshe's humility at bush: "why me?". Humility isn't thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less. If you can do something, doesn't matter if someone else could do it better -- you're here; do it.

10 - We can say we're not strong/good enough, but we can't say God isn't; we're never alone. Moshe - I'm slow of speech, and everything's going to depend on speech (negotiation) -- but God says "who makes a man's mouth? isn't it me? I will teach you what you should say".

If we're put in a situation, if we have the ability to influence, there's a reason. We have to be willing to switch roles, do what's needed, know our deeds are lasting and impactful, remember where abilities and opportunities come from.

"Do not tell God how big your problems are; tell your problems how big your God is" -- we might not be able to deal with our problems, but God can. We are never alone. "When I sit in darkness, God is my light."

• 4 parsnips (from three bases :-) )
• 6 Fuji apples
• 4 large-to-huge blue potatoes (nominal 2 pounds)
• 2 green meat radishes, one huge
• bunch Swiss chard (half pound)
• head lettuce
• bag salanova (mixed salad greens)
• bunch red pac choi

(The small share omitted the apples and potatoes, got watermelon radish instead of green meat radish, and got kale instead of chard.)

That's a lot of greens. I know pac choi and chard are both good for sauteing; I have a vague memory that chard works well in a greens-based soup too. Salads are obvious (and I've been making salad for lunch more often lately). Last night I roasted the last of last week's blue potatoes, sliced thin and sprinkled with fresh rosemary and sea salt, and then finished them under the broiler to get nice crunchy crisp bits. That definitely worked, so I'll be doing that again. (I also roasted some parsnips last night.) I might try shredding and pan-frying parsnips (hash-browns style); it seems like that would be nice. Some will also go into a vegetable soup soon (maybe with some greens?).

Halacha tangent: I knew last week that this week's share would not include anything that's problematic during Pesach (when there are restrictions on even owning certain foods), but I found myself wondering how it would have worked otherwise. It depends on when you legally become the owner of the food. In advance, when I paid for the share? When I physically acquire the share each week? So I asked on Mi Yodeya; let's see if I get good answers. (There are some useful leads in a couple comments, and a lot of comments from somebody who didn't like the way I asked the question.)

As I have for a few years, I hosted a Pesach seder this year with the goal of lots of discussion. We had a great group of people this year and it was a big success.

We had eight people, several of whom brought other haggadot to share things from. People asked questions (for which we sometimes pulled reference books off the shelves) and we had lots of great conversation. We also sang lots, which makes me happy. We went for a bit over six hours (including the meal).

I heard some new-to-me melodies, which I haven't necessarily retained but I know whom to ask. Chad Gadya with sound effects -- I'm just sayin'. We sang most of Hallel and I taught a melody for part of the first psalm, which we normally read in English because we didn't have a melody. (So I wrote one, a few years ago. I have a melody for the whole psalm, but I didn't have transliteration available for this psalm and some people needed it, so I didn't want to impose.)

I chose the haggadah I did, despite some archaic language, because not only does it include transliterations of key phrases, but those transliterations are in Sefardi-style Hebrew instead of Ashkenazi. (Sefardi is what comes naturally to me and is used in my congregation.). But there's some stuff that's not transliterated that we sing as a group, so I made a supplementary page with those transliterations. But I need to update it with a couple things for next year, including Psalm 113 so we can sing it.

I made this charoset recipe and it was very successful. It more closely resembled mortar than anything I've ever had based on apples and walnuts, and it was tasty enough that there were almost no leftovers. (I almost halved the recipe because, hey, we were only going to be 8-10 people, but I'm glad I didn't.) I left out the walnuts and increased the almonds and pistachios accordingly, by the way. (I like almonds and pistachios more than I like walnuts.)

I had a couple people coming who don't eat meat (but do eat fish), so rather than making "fake" chicken soup that contains no actual chicken broth, I went looking for interesting alternatives. A search for ginger soup (which I know is a thing and, mmm, ginger) led me to this recipe for green soup with ginger. This took a while to make, and you should definitely use a bigger pot than you think you need so there's room for the greens before they cook down, but wow, that was good! (The recipe says sweet potatoes but shows yams in the photos. I wasn't sure which to use but the decision was made for me: the store didn't have any sweet potatoes when I went shopping. Yams work fine.)

During the first part of the seder I put out snacks (so hunger and spending time on the haggadah wouldn't be in conflict). I put out raw vegetables, dates, and almonds, and a guest brought an eggplant dip. We began the meal with hard-boiled eggs as is traditional. Besides the soup, we also had gefilte fish (brought by a guest), baked herbed chicken, roasted small potatoes, and roasted vegatables. A guest brought fruit salad for dessert, another brought candy, and we had macaroons.

I had to quickly wash the plates we used for the ritual items during the reading of the haggadah so we could use them for dessert; I need to figure out a better solution next year. (Possibly nice disposable plates for one or the other.) We didn't just use the dinner plates because we weren't sitting at the dining-room table the entire time; I learned from my friend Lee Gold the custom of starting in the living room where you have comfortable chairs/couches, so people don't feel rushed by butt-numbing furniture. We gathered around the coffee table, which required small plates. (Obviously this only works if you don't have so many people that you're using all available space for dinner tables. I have the luxury of enough room to use two seating areas, at our current size.)

Monday night I was privileged to be invited to my rabbi's seder. (I have been wanting to experience that for years.) He and his wife hosted about 25 people, a mix of family and congregants with a strong personal connection to them. In addition to the main haggadah that they always use, they had copies of another haggadah with a lot of interesting supplementary readings (A Night to Remember, edited by Noam Zion and Mishael Zion); they had chosen certain readings from this book and assigned them to different guests to read. The assignments were thoughtful, fitting the interests of the individual readers well; this was no random doling-out of parts. We some good questions and discussions during the reading of the haggadah, and more over dinner in smaller groups. It was easily the most fulfilling seder I've ever been to (and I'm not even talking about the excellent food :-) ).

And I've now seen and tasted shmurah matzah, by accident. All matzah that you can buy in the usual boxes is kosher for Pesach, but some observe an extra stringency. "Shmurah" means "guarded", and the idea is that this matzah was continuously watched by Jews from (if I understand correctly) the time the wheat seeds were planted until the time the hand-baked matzah comes out of the oven. This year the stuff cost about ten times the price of the usual matzah. My rabbi was in the store picking up a few extra bottles of wine on Monday morning and I guess they were having trouble selling it at that price: the proprietor just told him to take some, so he did (enough for the ritual three matzot at the seder). All matzah pretty much tastes like the cardboard box it comes in, but the shmurah matzah tastes like, I don't know, a different grade of cardboard.

Tuesday night I held a seder. There were some last-minute changes in attendance -- half of one couple got sick, the person who was going to drive in from New Jersey based on my posts on this journal (!) couldn't make it in the end, but someone who had initially declined was able to come after all, and the person who had emergency dental surgery that afternoon (ouch) made it and wasn't too loopy from drugs. We were eight in all -- a good size for what we were trying to do, and of course plans were flexible. After all, we say "let all who are hungry come and eat", so there's always the possibility that someone will, y'know?

We had great conversations. I asked everybody to come with questions and/or supplementary readings they wanted to share, and we did not lack for things to talk about. I had copies of Hagada Mi Yodeya? and one of A Night to Remember, someone brought copies of an "atheist" haggadah, someone brought some writings from the Velveteen Rabbi, other people brought other books whose titles I didn't note... and oh yeah, there was a copy of the Santa Cruz Haggadah (very "hippie" in feel) that provided a lot of amusement, particularly with its illustrations. We asked questions, answered many but not all of them, compared translations, talked theology and philosophy (did the exodus really happen as written in the torah? If not, does that matter?), and had a jolly time. It was almost three hours until we got to the meal! (I had pitched this seder in part as "we don't care how late it runs", but I had no idea what would actually happen.)

We did lots of singing, and (possibly for the first time in my experience) actually sang through all the verses of Echad Mi Yodeya instead of singing the first two and then jumping to the end. (It's a counting song, so each verse adds one new line and repeats the rest, but I found I enjoyed the repetition, and it gave the people who were less comfortable with rattling off the Hebrew a chance to get it.) Somebody asked why the song stops at 13 and not at some other number; this made me chuckle because one of the running "things" on Mi Yodeya is to continue the questions -- it's up to, I think, "who knows 314?" right now. But since 13 are the attributes of God, that's a pretty good place to stop.

We definitely have to do this again.

So I fell back to the Village Shul (Aish HaTorah), a place I'd been once before. This time, as last, I found them to be not too welcoming; this time I knew where to go in the building so the indifferent man standing at the entrance didn't hinder me, but nor did he respond to my greeting. At the kiddush (which was a standing-around affair this time, not a sit-down one), not a single person greeted me, even when I made eye contact. It can be hard for me to approach random people and start conversations; I greeted some and usually got responses but no one engaged. I don't know what (if anything) I was doing wrong; I think it was fairly obvious that I wasn't a regular, but I wasn't inappropriate in any way I could determine.

But all that said, I'm very glad I went for one reason: Tal.

Ok, I need to back up. T'filat Tal, aka the prayer for dew, is said exactly once during the year, on the morning of Pesach, in the musaf service. I had never heard it before. The Reform movement doesn't do musaf and didn't import that part into another part of the service (like is done with some other parts), and when we're in Toronto I don't always make it to Yom Tov services (but I insist on Shabbat). It's possible that I was at a Conservative service for Pesach once, and if so either they didn't do it or they didn't do anything special with it and I didn't notice.

So, this is either the first time I've encountered this prayer or the first time it registered. And it did in fact register. A resonant text (which I am unable to find online, help?), a beautiful and fitting melody (which I can't find a good version of online), and just the right amount of congregational engagement (a few words sung together at the end of each stanza) all came together into a heartfelt but not over-the-top prayer that felt entirely right to me. Wow.

And I think it needs all of those. As I said, the Reform movement doesn't do this text -- but let me predict how it would go down if we did. Because it's unfamiliar and people can't be assumed to be fluent, we would read (not sing) it, in English. Perhaps responsively, alternating stanzas. And it would fall completely flat, done that way. I'm not fluent and I'd never seen this text before either, but I listened to it in Hebrew while reading the English translation, and that worked. If I didn't need the translation then that'd be even better, but the text I read and the text I hear don't need to be the same language and that's just fine. Alas, mine seems to be a small-minority position in my movement, so I will probably not get the opportunity to experience this prayer in that setting, which makes me sad.

( some service anthropology )