Passover

Re-living Redemption

According to Leviticus 23:6, Pesach, or Passover, lasts seven days. In order to make sure that they celebrated the holiday at the correct time, Jews living outside the Land of Israel added an extra day at the beginning of the festival, thereby making Passover eight days Today Jews living in Israel and most Reform Jews celebrate Passover for seven days. Even though we don't live in the Land of Israel, our calendar is now fixed. We don't rely on the Sanhedrin to announce the New Moon of Nisan, so rationally there is no reason to add the extra day of Passover, but traditionally Jews living outside the Land of Israel continue to celebrate the festival for eight days. Like Sukkot, Pesach is one of the few times when Reform Jews and traditional Jews have different calendars for holidays.

The primary mitzvah associated with Pesach, or Passover, is the prohibition against owning or eating anything containing leaven or yeast during the holiday. Our sages took this commandment one step further and ordained that during Passover there should be no eating of any grain that might have risen (except previously prepared matzah). In Ashkenazic communities that prohibition includes rice and legumes, since both could be used as a fermenting agent. Potatoes, however were permitted because they were the primary food staple. In Sephardic communities, rice was permitted for the same reason.

All matzah for the holiday has to be specially prepared. To ensure that no person accidentally has leaven or yeast, it became the custom to sell all foods to gentile for a symbolic price of a dollar, thus guaranteeing that we no longer own any leaven.

The laws concerning Passover were so complex that it became a tradition for the Rabbi to lecture the congregation about all of the Passover details on the Shabbat before Pesach. That Shabbat is called "Shabbat HaGadol, the Great Shabbat." Some scholars associate the name "Shabbat HaGadol" with its ritual importance. Some note that the Haftarah portion for that Shabbat, Malachi Chapter 3, contained the phrase "the great and awesome day of Adonai," thus providing the day with its title.

The sages instituted a ritual for the night before Passover. Using a candle and a feather (as a broom), the family makes a final search for leaven. Traditionally, a parent has hidden some pieces of bread wrapped in a small bags so that the search is successful. The next morning these packets, along with all leftover chametz are burned. A special prayer is recited in which we announce that all leaven which might still be accidentally in our house should be viewed by God as non-leaven.

Passover is the classic example of how we creatively took foods and customs from surrounding peoples and made them special, Jewish symbols. Our primary association with Passover is the Exodus from Egypt. We had been slaves, cruelly oppressed by the Egyptians. God, striking Egypt with the Ten Plagues, forced Pharaoh to release us. After letting us go, Pharaoh changed his mind again and pursued us. At the Sea of Reeds, Pharaoh and his army were drowned while we were saved. We were commanded to relive this redemption every year, through the festival of Passover.

Originally, Passover was an agricultural holiday celebrating the BARLEY HARVEST AND THE LAMBING SEASON. The ancient Canaanites had a festival at this season which included eating flat barley cakes, a year-old lamb, and special, sharp herbs. They offered a year-old lamb as a sign of trust that the gods would provide more lambs during the next year. By offering a year-old lamb, they hoped to get more lambs back. We took those same agricultural foods and imbued them with special historical meaning for our people. The original foods became particularistic symbols of our redemption from slavery.

The Torah tells us that the flat barley cakes, now called matzah, remind us of the bread our Hebrew ancestors baked hurriedly when they left Egypt. We are told that the dough, not given time to rise, baked flat. In all likelihood the Torah took a food from the Canaanites and made it into a reminder of our own history.

During the Seder, three pieces of matzah are used. We use two pieces as a reminder of the double portion of manna we received in the desert on Shabbat and holidays. The third piece is used to identify the "bread of affliction" and to serve as the afikoman. A tradition identifies the three pieces of matzah with Aaron, Miriam, and Moses.

Another tradition identifies them with the three classes of Jews: Kohen (the priests), Levi (the Levites) and Israel (the rest of us).

In all likelihood, our tradition took the Canaanite custom of offering a lamb at this season and made it Jewish. The Torah tells us that prior to the last plague, God commanded all the Hebrews to sacrifice and eat lamb. We were then commanded to dip hyssop (a sweet-smelling, leafy green plant) into the blood and splash it on the doors of our dwellings, so that the Divine would pass over our houses. When the first born of Egypt were struck dead, the blood on the doors of the Hebrews saved us.

We are told that the lamb which we ritually ate each year served as a reminder of the blood we put on our doors in Egypt so God would pass over our homes. No mention is made of the lambing season or the earlier Canaanite festival. The agricultural food became historical symbols.

When the Temple was destroyed in 70 C.E. our rabbis ordered that we could not eat roast lamb on Pesach. We've kept the lamb bone as a symbol of the first lamb eaten in Egypt and of the traditional seder meal eaten in the Temple precints. Some traditional Jews are so cautious about the prohibition againt eating lamb on Pesach that they place roasted chicken neck on the seder plate instead of a lamb shank. When the Temple still existed, there used to be an additional sacrifice on Pesach, called the chagigah. Since we no longer have sacrificial worship, we roast an egg as a reminder of that offering.

The sharp herbs called maror remind us how bitter our lives were in Egypt. We usually use horseradish as maror.

The Torah commands us to take the three major symbolic foods, lamb, matzah, and maror, and eat them together as physical reminders of our Exodus from Egypt. We thus took the three foods that were consumed by the Canaanites in their yearly spring festival and made them Jewish.

We are commanded to tell our children the story of our escape from Egypt every year and to relive that redemptive experience. Our sages provided us with the method for re-living redemption: a ritual meal, a seder.

The Hebrew word seder means order. It is not a service; it is a meal with a purpose. Our sages organized the seder into fourteen specific steps, thus creating an ordered meal. On the seder table is a plate containing the foods that symbolize our slavery and our redemption and relive that experience. The first four ritual symbols have already been explained: matzah, a roasted lamb bone, maror, a roasted egg. There are a number of other symbols on the seder plate: charoset, salt water, and parsley.

Our sages created the seder in the style of a Roman feast, and the three additional seder plate foods originated with Roman customs. At Roman meals everyone lounged on couches while they ate: the sages ordered that on Pesach everyone should lounge. At Roman feasts guest were given greens dipped in a sharp dip, usually vinegar, sometimes salt water. Our sages took that appetizer and made it Jewish. The greens (usually parsley) became a reminder of spring, the season of redemption. The salt water became a symbol of the tears we shed in Egypt.

At feasts, Roman guest were frequently offered a sweet dip made of either ground dates and wine or apples, nuts and honey all mixed with vinegar and flour. This was eaten before the main meal. Our sages used the same food, charoset, and made it into a historical symbol. According to the Torah, the Hebrew slaves built garrison cities. Charoset reminds us of the mortar they used. The charoset contains wine, and traditionally we dip maror, bitter herbs, and chazeret, a bitter lettuce, into this mixture. It has been suggested that this dipping of greens into red wine might serve as a subtle reminder of splashing red blood on our doorposts with the green hyssop.

Roman feasts tended to end with orgiastic entertainment, called the epicomios. Our sages were against this immoral behavior, so they ordered that the afikoman, the final entertainment, be a piece of matzah. The ritual must end with that piece.

The sages wanted to show that we were free on Pesach, so they insisted that every Jew drink four glasses of wine. In Exodus 6, God promised that the Divine will do five things for the Hebrews. Four of them are: I will bring you out, I will save you, I will redeem you, I will take you to be My people. Our sages ordained one glass of wine for each of these fulfilled promises. Thus wine, instead of being the Roman way of getting drunk, became a symbol of God's promises and redemption.

It is probably not coincidental that the number four appears frequently in the seder; we drink four glass of wine, we ask four questions, and there are descriptions of four kinds of children.

Since Pesach celebrated our redemption from Egypt, our sages viewed the Pesach season as a good time for the final redemption, the arrival of the Messiah. According to our tradition, the Messiah would be announced by Elijah the prophet. Therefore Jews wait eagerly for Eiljah announce the Final Redemption. His arrive would mean that we could, finally, celebrate the fulfilled fifth promise made by God in Exodus 6: I will bring you into the land. We therefore leave a full glass of wine on the table hoping to be able to drink it. We call it Elijah's Cup. At times when Jews believed that the Messiah had arrived or was about to arrive, they would drink this fifth glass, Elijah's cup.

The seder ends with the words, "Next year in Jerusalem." Our sages emphasized that this does not refer to the physical Jerusalem in Israel; rather it refers to the Final Jerusalem created by the coming of the Messiah. Therefore, even Jews living in Israel say either, "Next year in Jerusalem," or "Next year in the rebuilt Jerusalem."

Since the major Pesach commandment is to tell our children about our Exodus from Egypt, the book used at the seder, the ritual meal, is called the Telling, the Haggadah.

During the Middle Ages the Rabbis began writing down the Telling. This provided an opportunity for Jewish artists to use their creativity and create beautiful Haggadot (plural of Haggadah). The written Haggadah also ensured that the order of the seder became somewhat standardized. Although many traditional Jews concentrate on simply reading the Haggadah as it is written, it was intended to serve as a springboard for discussions, lessons, and additional learning among the guests. We encourage people to ask questions and dig further into the text, and its meanings for us today. We are told in the Haggadah that it is praiseworthy to lengthen the Telling until all present understand the complete meaning of Pesach and redemption.

PASSOVER PREPARATION

Besides the Seder and the telling of our Exodus from Egypt, there is another primary element in the entire Passover season: The holiday, which lasts seven days, includes a prohibition against owning, seeing, or consuming leavened goods. The Rabbis order that this include all wheat, barley, rice (unless you're Sephardic), corn, and legumes.

This admittedly limits the kinds of foods to be traditionally consumed during Passover. Moreover, the edict to rid the house of all such materials has led to major clean-ups during the weeks prior to Passover. Dishes, pots, pans, stoves, oven, closets, cupboards, all are cleansed and rid of the dreaded leaven, called chametz. In many houses, different dishes, pots, pans, and utensils are used lest some chamatez accidentally be left on the already-cleaned dishes.

The night before Passover, the rabbis instituted a ritual (again, aimed at children) where the head of the family symbolically hides pieces of chametz wrapped in small bags. Using a candle and a feather (as a broom), the family finds each of these packets and gathers them in. The next morning, these packets, along with all left-over chametz, are BURNED.

Two legal fictions:
1) If you happen to own a great deal of perfectly good chametz and don't wish to burn it, you may sell it to a non-Jew and place it in the non-Jew's home. At the end of Passover, you may then buy the produce back.

Did you own any chametz during the Passover?

No.

2) After the burning of chametz on the morning before the Seder, there is a traditional statement which basically says that God should, as of that moment, make any chametz on your property or in your house non-existent. You did your best to follow the mitzvah, the commandment, but, should there be anything left, let it not exist. God takes care of the rest chametz.

Compared to preparing the house, which can be a pain in the neck (albeit a mitzvah...), the actual preparation for a Seder is remarkably simple. We tend to think of it as a lot of work, but it's easier than most dinner parties. It USED to be difficult because it was much harder to make acceptable-for-Passover foods Today, with all of the wonderful new Passover products on the market, it's a snap.

Everyone has his/her own way of preparing for Passover. However, the BASICS are as follow:

1) Prepare the house as you would for any dinner party.

2) Prepare the Table as you would for any dinner party.

3) Have one central Seder Plate which contains:

Three whole pieces of matzah
Some bitter herb (I always like to use a whole horseradish root. It looks bitter...)
A hard boiled egg which you then broil so it looks burned on the outside (DON'T PEEL IT ...)
A roasted lamb shank (some people use chicken necks, but the shank is classier).
A nice bouquet of parsley
A nice portion of Charoset (recipes below….)

4) Make a salad plate for each guest containing:

at least 2 small pieces of matzah (cracker size)
some bitter herb (I still like the whole root, peeled and sliced...)
a piece of parsley
a nice portion of Charoset (recipes below….)

5) Have enough cups of salt water around so everyone can reach it easily.

6) Make sure you have wine glasses for everyone and enough wine for four cups each.

7) Figure an hour and 20 minutes of Seder time before dinner. Therefore, try to make foods which can remain on low heat in the oven without drying out OR think about quick stir-frying foods which can be prepared on the spot. Prepare most of the stir-fry food first and then pop them all together...

8) DON'T RUSH THE SEDER!!!! The nicest Seders have lots of schmoos time and added questions and answers.

Charoset Recipes

Everyone has Passover recipes, and it would be chutzpadick of me to give paltry versions here. However, there is one symbolic food, charoset, which needs preparing. Charoset, you will recall, symbolizes the mortar used by the Hebrews while we were building cities for Pharaoh. (We worked pharaociously for him...)

EVERYONE has his\her own recipe for charoset at the Seder. Eastern European and German Jews tend to make Charoset from FINELY CHOPPED apples, nuts, and wine. If you are in a hurry, you can MACHINE PROCESS the nuts, but they come out a bit too fine for my liking. You can grate the apples and get satisfactory results as well. Use wine to taste. Northern German Jews leave the apples and nuts in large pieces.

Sephardic and Oriental Jews made charoset from ground raisins, dates, and a bit of orange peel. This mixture is then cooked in red wine until it becomes wonderfully thick and liquidy. The mixture looks and feels like cement, but it tastes wonderful.

Some Turkish communities add ground hot pepper to this very sweet mixture, thus reminding us of the bitterness of the mortar.

If you would like to try the Sephardic mixture, I recommend for the sake of your marriage that you make your normal Charoset as well...

Once everything is prepared, enjoy the Seder. Seders work best where everyone takes a turn at reading and everyone discusses the reading. REMEMBER TO USE PILLOWS FOR LOUNGING. If you find that position uncomfortable, enlist one person to lounge and everyone else can be comfortable...

PASSOVER IS THE RE-LIVING OF OUR EXODUS. EVERY JEW SHOULD SEE HIM\HERSELF AS PERSONALLY GETTING OUT OF EGYPT. HAVE A WONDERFUL ESCAPE!!!!

Here are the Fourteen Steps to a Seder instituted by our Sages in the Mishnah:

1. KIDDUSH: Traditionally, the first thing that is done at the Seder is the blessing over wine, using wine as the joyous reminder that we are free. The word KIDDUSH means HOLY. We show that the day is HOLY through wine. However, the first thing that we Reform Jews do at the Seder is NOT the Kiddush. Instead, we light Passover candles.

Why isn't that part of the Seder Traditionally?

Because the candles had to be lit Before Sundown. The Seder didn't begin until After the people came home from special services at the synagogue, long after sundown.

The candles were already lit so they couldn't be part of the Seder.

Since we don't light the candles until the Seder, we have a different first step.

2. WASHING OF THE HANDS: The Seder is supposed to remind us of the first Passover, when our major form of worship was sacrifice. One of the important parts of temple sacrifices was WASHING. There was a lot of washing involved with sacrifices. So, before we do anything else in the Passover celebration, we wash our hands without saying a blessing. Our sages were also concerned that a toxin called kappa might have gotten on their hands from the chazeret, their lettuce. They therefore ordered this added hand-washing.

Since most Reform Jews are not particularly excited about returning to sacrifices, and they don't worry about kappa, many skip this second step.

3. DIPPING PARSLEY: If you have forgotten the ORIGIN of parsley (not its symbolic meaning) go read about it.

It should not surprise you that the Parsley-dipping comes very early in the Seder.

. Before eating, we say the blessing "Creator of the fruit of the earth." Many communities did not use parsley; they used raw potato.

Our sages provided an added meaning to the parsley. In Hebrew, parsley is "karpas." Backwards, it would be "samech" "farech." "Farech" means "oppressive labor." The "samech" has the numerical value of 60. Parsley therefore symbolizes 60 (myriads) oppressed, the reality of our slavery in Egypt.

4. BREAKING THE MIDDLE MATZAH: There are three pieces of matza on the Seder plate. The original meaning of the three pieces was to remind us that on holidays while we were wandering in the desert, God provided us with two portions of manna. In addition, we needed to make one piece special for the specific holiday, so we need three pieces. That original meaning has slipped into disuse. We are now told traditionally, that the three pieces of matza remind us of the three families of Jews left: the Kohanim (priests), Levites (their helpers), and Israel (the rest of us). We take the middle piece of matza, break it in half, and offer it to anyone who has no food. We say, "This is the poor man's food. Let all who are hungry join us." Then we place half of it back on the seder plate; Half gets hidden; It becomes the afikoman.

Why did the Rabbis do it that way?

TO KEEP THE KIDS INTERESTED.

They tried to put things into the Seder that kids would ask about. This gave the family a chance to teach the kids by answering their questions.

5. THE TELLING: This is the major part of the Seder. It is the actual mitzvah of retelling and reliving the Passover story.

In North African Jewish homes, this central portion is introduced by having one of the family dress up like a Hebrew, knock on the door from the outside and announce that he has just gotten out of Egypt. Everyone should get ready to leave with him.

The rest of the Seder is done as though everyone is getting ready to leave. We simply tell the story.

The story-telling, however, is not done straight through. There are some mini-steps in the story-telling. These steps DO NOT COUNT AS SEPARATE STEPS OF THE SEDER. They are all part of the TELLING.

FIRST, we have the FOUR QUESTIONS. These are supposed to be questions asked by a child which the TELLER of the story is supposed to answer. LOOK AT THE QUESTIONS CAREFULLY, LOOK AT THE ANSWERS THIS PASSOVER; We never answer in the Telling TWO OF THE FOUR QUESTIONS...figure out which two...

In fact, the four questions used to be asked by the father to his son. It was a family quiz to make sure the kid knew about Passover before the TELLING. The Rabbis changed it to be a kick-off to the Seder.

NEXT, as part of the TELLING, we give a quickie answer. Kids tend to be impatient, so we tell them briefly the answer: We were slaves, Now we are free.

THEN, we have to figure out different ways to answer the questions for different kinds of kids. The rabbis talked about FOUR KINDS OF KIDS: the wise, the wicked, the simple, and the kid too young to ask. The rabbis gave four different kinds of answers, one for each kind of child.

Why four?

Because the statement, "You shall tell your child on that day" (about Passover) appears four times in the Torah.

With all that stuff done, we finally get to the actual TELLING. We get it from the Book of Deuteronomy, chapter 26, where it is used as a summary of our history; and from the Book of Joshua, chapter 24.

Why?

Because the Book of Exodus concentrates on the life and adventures of MOSES. The Haggadah emphasizes the real hero, God. Moses isn't mentioned in the Telling; not even once.

The story from Deuteronomy tells how we got into Egypt (via Joseph and company...), how our lives were miserable, and how God got us out.

Compared to everything told in the Torah and in our tradition about getting out of Egypt, it is a VERY SHORT STORY. That's because our rabbis wanted to give each family the chance to do a lot of talking about Egypt. They didn't want every Seder to be the same; They wanted each each family to personalize the Seder within the given framework. Only the BASICS are found in the Seder Haggadah.

Finally, as part of the Telling, we get ten plagues. We remember them specifically. At times in our past, we were so hurt by the non-Jewish community, that we enjoyed remembering the plagues done against Egypt. The rabbis tried to remind us that even the Egyptians were human while they suffered. So we spill one drop of wine for each of the plagues. Then we sing Dayenu.

The TELLING ends with Rabban Gamliel's statement that we have to explain three things specially with their meanings in order to have fulfilled the TELLING: Matzah, the Lamb, and the Maror (the bitter herb).

We then drink the second glass of wine.

6. WASHING THE HANDS (Part II): We're about to start eating, so we have to wash our hands (remember the Temple and all the washing...). A blessing is said about the fact that hand-washing is a mitzvah, a commandment.

7. HAMOTZI: Before eating, we say the blessing over bread, the generic blessing for all food.

8. MATZAH: So that we don't get confused, we say the blessing reminding us that eating matzah is a mitzvah. We then eat the matzah.

9. MAROR: We say a special blessing reminding ourselves that it's a mitzvah to eat MAROR.

10. SANDWICH: Hillel, a great scholar, used to take the lamb, the matzah, and the maror and combine them into a sandwich, called a KORECH. He did this because the Torah commands us to eat those three things TOGETHER.

Because, traditionally, we NO LONGER HAVE THE LAMB, the rabbis tell us to make a sandwich of matzah, maror and Charoset . We no longer have lamb because the rabbis ordained that we can only offer the lamb as a sacrifice at the Temple. With the destruction of that building in 70 CE, we ended the tradition of eating lamb with the Seder meal.

11. EAT

12. AFIKOMAN: The meal can't end without that final piece of dry matzah. To keep the kids awake and paying attention, the rabbis added the game of hiding the afikoman.

Does it have any symbolic significance?

No.

Are there specific rules about hiding and finding it?

No.

13. BLESSING AFTER EATING: After eating the afikoman, there is the blessing after eating. Traditionally, this blessing is LONG after EVERY MEAL. It's included in the Haggadah. It's not unique to Passover. If we were being traditional we would say the same blessings (with specific additions and deletions) three times a day, every day.

Right after saying it, we drink the third cup of wine.

We open the door for Elijah. THERE IS NO SINGING ABOUT ELIJAH OR MENTION OF ELIJAH'S CUP OR ANYTHING WITHIN THE TRADITIONAL SEDER. There is a paragraph asking God to clobber our enemies. We tend to sing about Eiljah rather than reading about clobbering our enemies.

14. HALLEL: Traditionally, a set of Psalms, special poems praising God, are read on the three Harvest festivals: Sukkot, Passover, and Shavout. They are included in the Seder.

15. END THE SEDER: The seder ends with happy singing. Lots of singing. Singing keeps the kids awake. Singing makes us happy. The songs have something to do with Passover, or Spring, or God, or the Messiah. Even the Goat Song (Chad Gadya) mentions the Messianic Age and the defeat of Death, which ain't bad. The seder ends with the words, NEXT YEAR IN JERUSALEM.

Are the rabbis talking about touring?

NO.

They mean, NEXT YEAR, THE TEMPLE WITH THE PASSOVER SACRIFICES IN JERUSALEM. Therefore, even people living in Jerusalem end their Seders with the words NEXT YEAR IN JERUSALEM.

The SONG OF SONGS Connection

Since Passover is irrevocably connected with Spring, it was natural that the added Book to be read on Passover should involve Spring. That book, found in the Writings section of the Bible, is the Song of Songs.

The Song of Songs is an X-rated love poem. It emphasizes how, at the beginning of spring, things come back to life including passions. These are described in wonderful detail (and, it should be pointed out, in poetic metaphors). The really exciting part of Song of Songs is that it attributes passions to both men and the woman. Women's sexuality was always recognized in the Middle East, putting Western cultures to shame.

The Song of Songs had a very difficult time making it into the Bible. The Rabbis were opposed to having a book about sex in the Holy Scriptures. Rabbi Akiva saved the day. He pointed out that the book wasn't sexual at all. It wasn't about a man and a woman. It was about the relationship between ISRAEL AND GOD. That relationship, stated Akiva, was a TRUE love affair, and the images found in the Song of Songs were completely pure descriptions of that spiritual love. The book got into the Bible, and, traditionally, we read it every Passover.