Pesach: This Kept Us Standing

 

“And this Covenant is what kept our ancestors standing, and ourselves as well: That in every generation more than one enemy has arisen against us, to annihilate us, but the Covenant of the Holy One has stood and delivered us from their hands.”

--Vehi Sheamda, Hagaddah shel Pesach

“Rashi comments that this declaration of Vehi Sheamda is the reiteration of the promise that Ha-Shem made to Avraham of "V'gam as hagoi asher ya'avdu, dan anochi..." The nation that enslaves you will also be judged by Me..." This promise, which has stood for our forefathers, stands for us as well. Anyone who comes upon us, Ha-Shem judges them and saves us from their hands.” 

--R. Yehuda Prero, The Passover Hagaddah Commentary Part I: Maggid (torah.org)

Passover time seems to take me by surprise when it comes early in the solar year. This year, it begins this Monday evening, March 25, and getting myself motivated to do the cleaning, get the chametz out, and turn the kitchen over has been difficult. With everything that is going on in our lives right now, I kept hearing that voice in my head saying: “I don’t want to do it this year. This year, I think I’ll skip it. After all, how important is that I, a little person, observe all the rituals and complete the slaving cleaning for Pesach. Surely, the Universe will not be disturbed by my decision not to participate.”

 

And then a friend sent me this beautiful rendition of Vehi Sheamda with commentary by the chief rabbi of South Africa:

 

And when I saw the translation given for the first line of the Vehi Sheamda: “And this COVENANT is what kept our ancestors standing, and ourselves . . .” I got it. Of course it matters that I clean and remove the chametz from our little house, here on the edge of the Mogollon Rim, far from the centers of power in the world.

From the point of view of those who hate us, who denigrate the beautiful heritage of Torah, it does not matter what I do. In fact, they would rather that I did nothing. They would rather that I, that we, forget the Covenant and disappear like all the other nations, becoming a footnote to a footnote in the reaches of history.

“For in every generation, more than one enemy has arisen to destroy us.” This statement is undeniably true. Never in our long and tumultuous history, have the Jewish people been ignored and been allowed to freely exercise the observance of our Covenant unopposed. Although America has become home and our greatest sanctuary, it is uncertain at best, given the hatred directed at the Land of Free and the Home of Brave, and at those of us among her people who are Jews.

And yet we persist. Out of sheer cussed stubbornness, we insist on going on existing despite the depredations of our enemies. And why do we persist? That is a miracle of the most Hebrew kind. For no natural laws have been suspended for us, and many of Jews have gone up in smoke, or have had rockets rain down upon their heads in their own lands, or have been forced from their homes in Egypt, in Yemen, in Iran—from those days at this season, to this day when we live under the threat of being bombed back to the stone age by mullahs from the stone age.

But the signs and wonders are there, and the evidence of the mighty hand of the Eternal, for those with eyes to see them. Unlike Moses, most of the world has no patience to sit and watch a bush aflame until they can see that it is not consumed. And so most human beings miss the signs and wonders that they walk past every day.

Among them, is this sign. Once again, all over the world, Jewish women retrieve the mops and brooms, fill their pails with water, and begin the ancient ritual of clearing out the chametz—the leaven—from their homes. We kneel down to sweep it away with a feather, and our men take it to burn it on the eve of Pesach. All of us, every year, are enacting the journey from slavery to freedom, from the worship of idols to the service of the Covenant, from Jerusalem destroyed to Jerusalem rebuilt.

In these humble actions, unnoticeable and unnoted, we renew for ourselves the Covenant that began when we came forth from slavery, into freedom. Passover, like all other Jewish holidays, is a reminded of the Covenant. But Passover is also the story of how we came to be who we are, Am ha-Brit, the People of the Covenant.

“But the Covenant of the Holy One has stood and delivered us from their hands.” The sign and the wonder is not something that is shown to us as we continue to survive and thrive despite the wish of the most recent of our enemies to “wipe us off the map” of the world. Rather, the sign and the wonder is us, ourselves, keeping the Covenant. We have been taught that if even a remnant of Israel keeps the Covenant, that will be the salvation of us all. And for us, salvation is not some promise of life after death, rather it is the continuation of our people. Salvation is effected in our stubborn insistence that: Od Avinu Chai! Am Yisrael Chai! Our father yet lives! The People Israel lives!

“For as much as we keep the Covenant, the Covenant keeps us.” (Machzor). As Jews, as that obstinate Remnant of Israel, that goes on surviving when most of the world would rather we were dead, the meticulous observation of the laws of Pesach, and the arcane rituals from another time are a touchstone that reminds us who we are. On the surface, I am an ordinary ranch wife, an American woman living in the rump end of flyover country, a human being among millions, whose life and death will be little known and little noticed. But when I kneel down to sweep the chametz off the hearth, I am also a daughter of the Covenant, a child of Abraham and Sarah, a companion of Moses and Miriam. I am free woman, brought forth from slavery, with signs and wonders, awesome power, a mighty arm and outstretched hand. My liberty matters.

And what I do about that matters. It matters because it preserves an identity that has existed from Sinai until now, an eternal braid of ritual and remembrance, giving my actions a meaning and reality that transcends my place and time. And so, despite the whispers of the destroyers who have dogged our steps from Egypt until now, and despite the momentary whisper of not wanting to begin, I retrieved my mop and broom, filled my pail with water, and began to clean my house, remove the chametz, and tomorrow after Shabbat, I will turn over the kitchen for Pesach.

“For in every generation, each one is obligated to regard herself as having personally come forth from Egypt . . .”

It was not easy to come forth from the house of slavery, the fleshpots of Egypt. But some things are worth fighting for. Our existence and our identity as a people nurtured on freedom comes from this Covenant.
“And THIS COVENANT is what keeps us standing . . .”

 

Technorati Tags: Times and Seasons,Passover,Jewish Identity

 

Eliyahu's Cup: Why Utopia is Always 'Not Yet'

This week is Pesach, and last Monday evening, Jews worldwide gathered to usher in the "Season of our Freedom" by participating in the annual ritual of the Seder, a meal surrounded by the telling of our redemption from slavery. And through telling the story, the Haggadah takes us each year through the journey from slavery to freedom.

The Seder has a prescribed order, and the ritual is set up to tell the story four times and in four different ways, corresponding to the four promises made by G-d during the going forth from Egypt. Each promise is linked to one of the four glasses of wine that is drunk during the Seder, and each telling is linked to a particular type of bondage. The tellings address what it means to be so enslaved, and why the Eternal demands freedom from every bondage not only for our ancestors but for us, so that the by the end of the Seder each year, we have progressed through tellings of physical and mental and spiritual servitude and into freedom.

But there is also a fifth cup representing a fifth promise: 'I will bring you into the land.' The fifth cup is set out for Eliyahu ha-Navi (Elijah the prophet), a mythic, apocalyptic figure whose coming foreshadows the coming of the Messiah. During the ritual for the fifth cup, we read From Malachi, who wrote:

"Behold, I shall send to you Eliyahu ha-Navi before (in the face of) the great and awesome day of Adonai; and he shall return the hearts of the parents to the children, and the hearts of the children to the parents lest I shall come and strike the land with cherem (war of total destruction)." (My translation: many Haggadot leave out the phrase starting with "lest" at the end of verse).

After these words are read, Eliyahu's cup is set down untasted, for this is the only promise of the Seder that is left unfilled, as Eliyahu's time is not yet. After the promise is pronounced and the cup set down still full, and the door opened for Eliyahu is shut, then the assembly joins hands and sings Eliyahu ha-Navi, expressing the unfulfilled and unfulfillable longing for the coming of Utopia, a time that is always not yet.

Human beings have been dreaming of Utopia--the perfect world--since we achieved an understanding of linear time. What was cannot be changed, and what is will pass away, and there is no going back, only forward. But with this understanding came the idea that at some point that is entirely unknown and unutterable, time could come to an end. And so after--if the word has any meaning--the world as we know it will become unknown, and what is will be static and perfect. And dead. So dreadful and so terrifying to contemplate is this vision, not only one's own death, but of total non-existence and non-order. So terrible and dreadful it is, that people substituted the idea of perfection attained while still living, Utopia, a time/place where "everywhere will be called Eden once again", according to Judy Chicago.

But perfection is the enemy of the growing and changing that is always in the living. Biological beings, full of life, can never be perfect. There is always the movement, the exchange of molecules, the division of a cell, the dying and the coming to be. Eden was, if it ever was, and can never be again. Eden was not perfect, it was full of life; it was innocent of choice and therefore, of any knowledge of good and evil. It is a restoration of innocence that is longed for in Utopian visions, that is what perfection is understood to be, in that elusive Utopia.

Utopia, is innocence imposed, and it is therefore the opposite of freedom. For freedom requires consciousness and choice, which means an understanding of life and death, of goodness and evil. Utopia is cosmic equality imposed, and is therefore the opposite of the fullness of of life and freedom. For as soon as life exists, differences among individuals are introduced and differences are inherently unequal in the cosmic sense. For human beings, choice brings the inequalities to our conscious awareness, for choice by its very definition implies different possibilities of action, which creates differences in outcomes, inherently unequal.

In the Passover Seder, we tell the story of going from the slavery of physical bondage to freedom, from the degradation of idolatry and dependence to liberty. Each step of our liberation requires choice, and differences among us evolve with our freedom. Elijah's cup goes untasted, because as much as we may long for perfection,it is goodness we are after, and goodness requires the freedom to choose. Freedom is inherent to the nature of the human being, and necessary for the fullness of life.

Eliyahu does not bring the "great and awesome", terrifying nothingness of Utopia. Instead he turns parents and their children toward one another; their differences not erased, but understood, in order to reach fullness of life and prevent total destruction.

Our Rabbis were wise, they understood the human longing for perfection, and they understood that perfection is another idolatry. Therefore, although they recognized our desire for it and accommodated it, they also understood that it is freedom that we need in order to live and live well. And they put it all in the Seder.

How is This Pesach Different?

Ma nishtana, ha-laila ha zeh, mi-kol ha-leilot!
How different is this night from all other nights!
On all other nights, we eat chametz or matzah,
but on this night only matzah.
On all other nights we eat all kinds of herbs,
but on this night, only bitter herbs--maror.
On all other nights, we do not even dip once,
but on this night, we dip twice.
On all other nights, we eat sitting up,
but on this night reclining."
--The Four Questions of the Haggadah

I have been making Pesach in my own home for more than 20 years, and with the exception of a few years, I have had a first night Seder each year as well. Over the years, I have developed a rhythm for doing the spring cleaning, and for turning the kitchen over, and for making the Seder. This rhythm has carried over from apartment to rental house, from rental house to my first house, and to two homes with the Engineering Geek.

But this Pesach is different from all of the other Pesachim I have made. All my previous moves have occurred either after Pesach--meaning that the packing and spring cleaning accommodated one another, and after the Seder, the move could begin in earnest. This year, is different. The protracted move to the Ranch was supposed to over long before the cleaning began. And although this year, I was not expecting to make a Seder, I did expect to be settled in one place. Instead, I have been wandering in the wilderness, with some of my things here, and others there, with the things that are there needed here, and the things that are here needed there.

This is most disconcerting, as I had carefully nurtured my routine for Pesach, and I took comfort in the yearly process that led me physically from Chametz to Matzah, and spiritually from slavery to freedom. Pesach seems to have snuck up on me this year, and I am not ready. Everything is changing, including my relationship to my synagogue, my proximity to other Jews, and my predictable journey to Pesach itself.

It seems that through some choices and decisions that are good in and of themselves, I have quickly made changes that I was not at all prepared to make. Although I have felt that in a very strange way, guided through this process, as if each step was bashert, the messy way that some of this is happening--and not at all as I had planned, does not feel at all familiar or at all comforting. It doesn't feel at all as I think it is supposed to be.

I am not ready for this holiday. I just barely bought my Matzah before the store was out of it. And I was beginning to feel that sense of failure, of feeling that I am--as I often am--a day late and a dollar short.

Except, I realized that today, this year, I am meant to learn that Pesach is not about me being ready for it; it is about the holiday coming whether I am ready or not. That, as often as not, the joy of freedom can be found in the midst of the chaos of change.

And I think of all of the Jewish women, from Sinai until now--who by choice or perforce--also greeted a Pesach that was different from all other Pesachim that they had made; a Pesach that they did not make but that made them see the journey from Chametz to Matzah differently.

• the women who put the dough on their backs, in order to flee the slavery of Mitzrayim in haste;
• the women who wandered in wilderness, wondering whether manna could be matzah;
• the women who prepared a Seder before crossing the Jordan;
• the women who marched, chained, to the waters of Babylon, and made their first Pesach in the first Tel Aviv;
• the women who made haroset in the quiet years of Babylon, who chopped karpas while their husbands argued the Talmud in Yavneh.
  
• the women who fled the sacking of Jerusalem, wondering what to do with the lamb now that the Temple was gone;
• the women of Lincoln, who made Seder but did not taste the Matzah, driven out as they were into another exile;
• the women of the Good Friday Pograms, who were driven from their homes during the Chol ha-Moed, in Kishinev, in Odessa, with no time to take the Matzah;
• the women who prepared the Seder in the sewers and bunkers of the Warsaw Ghetto
• the women washing the plates on the way from Jerusalem to Rome, and from Rome to Spain, and from Spain to Morocco, to Greece and to the New World;
• the women throwing Chametz into the waters of New York Harbor, --a harbor indeed!-- at the feet of the Lady Liberty.
  

Pesach is, like all of the Holy times and seasons, zichronot-- a remembrance. And each year--Halvai!--we remember differently, we experience differently, we are different. And although each year is different, some year stand out so that we say:
Ma-nishtanah--How different it is! How different is this year from all the other years!

Why?

Because, Pesach is about freeing oneself and allowing oneself to be redeemed. And when routines and way of being change, whether due to external or internal forces, we are called by the Eternal to come forth and to meet the future with all of our hearts, minds and strength of being.

Whatever that newness might be. For whether it be good in our eyes, or bad, whether we confront good or evil in the world, the Holy times separate us out from that, and give us the time to meet it with joy and purpose. For we do not control the times we are born to, but we do control what we might do with the times we are given.

In my Bat Mitzvah Torah portion, Shabbat Chol-ha-Moed Pesach, Moshe makes anew the broken covenant with the Eternal, going up the mountain once again with tablets he carved himself, asking for the the black fire of the ten words to be inscribed there anew. And Moshe worries about the enormity of the task he has been given, to take this stiff-necked people on the journey from slavery to freedom, and he says to the Eternal, there on Sinai:

Moses said to HaShem: "Look, You say to me: 'Bring this people up!' But You have not informed me whom You will send with me. And You said: 'I have known you by name and you have also found favor in My eyes.'
And now, if I have indeed found favor in Your eyes, pray let me know Your ways, so that I may know You, so that I may find favor in Your eyes; and consider that this nation is Your people."
So He said, "My Shechinah--my Presence--will go, and I will give you rest."
--Shemot 33:12 -14

This year, I am--like many Jews before me--caught unready for the great passing-over from chametz to matzah, from slavery to freedom. But ready or not, the birth waters will part, and we will once again cross over, to encounter once again the meaning of our freedom, to come face-to-face with the stark choice: shall we be slaves to Pharaoh, and all that entails, or shall we choose service to the One who cherishes our freedom?

The task is enormous. And the way ahead and all its dangers and opportunities is unknown to us. We know only one thing about what lies ahead: the Eternal Shechinah--that part of the Eternal that dwells among us--will go with us.

I am going, like my sisters before me, this year that is not like all other years; this Pesach that is so different than all other Pesachim.
I am going, unready as I am, because:
Ready or not, here comes Freedom!

The Gift of the Wicked Child

"Behold I will send you Elijah the Prophet before the coming

of the great and awesome day of the L-rd.

And he shall shall turn the hearts of the parents to their children,

and the hearts of the children to their parents;

lest I come and smite the earth with utter destruction."

--Malachi 3:23 - 24 (quoted from the Haggadah)

"Four times the Torah instructs us " and you shall tell your child on that day . . ."

From this we may infer that there are four kinds of children--

the wise, the wicked, the simple, and the one who does not know how to ask."

--Hagaddah

It's amazing that a week has passed since I last posted. Much has happened, but despite a totaled car (no one seriously hurt), cleaning for Passover, and other happenings, Pesach came and we had a beautiful Seder. It was small this year--ten people gathered around our table--and we engaged the Hagaddah (The Telling) together, having in-depth discussions at several places. This is important, for each one of us has the obligation to leave the Seder with the understanding that "in every generation each one of us must feel as if we had personally come forth from Egypt."

As always, familiar words that form the background year after year, can suddenly leap off the page as we fulfil the mitzvah to tell our children "on that day" the every absorbing story of redemption and freedom. Several passages in the Hagaddah did fair leap out at me this year, and one was the story of the Four Children and it danced in my head throughout, until late in the Seder, after the Afikomen and Birchat ha-Mazon, became linked to a passage from Malachi about the shadowly Elijah the Prophet.

"The wise child asks: 'What are the laws, precepts,

and observances that G-d has commanded us?'

In response we should explain the observances

of Passover thoroughly, the very last one of which

is after the Afikomen, we do not turn to other

kinds of entertainment."

The wise child is the easy one. This is the teacher-pleaser, the delight of every parent; the child who is interested in observing Pesach (and doing everything else) the right way the first time. This is a kid who learns from the experience of others, and so does not have to bang his head away on the hard stones of the wall of personal experience. Not much of challenge, this one!

"The wicked child asks: 'What does this service mean to you?' He says

'to you' and not 'to us', placing himself outside of the People Israel.

Therefore we should blunt his teeth, saying: 'It is because of what G-d did

for me when I went forth from Egypt'--that is for me and not for

you--for had you been there, you would not have been redeemed."

Now this child is the real challenge. For whatever reason, he is the one who does not want to be at the Seder, the one who believes that redemption from slavery does not apply to him. Which of us can say that we have never been this child? Which of us would admit that we have never thought about it in such a way? In many ways, this child is my favorite, for he has excluded himself and yet is there at the Seder nevertheless, asking questions, wanting to be part of it. This child presents us not only with a challenge, but with a gift.

To appreciate the gift of the "wicked" child, we must dig deep and realize that no one is free unless all are free--even those whose ideas and questions rock our worlds, disturbing our complacency. Liberty means that we cannot violate the rights of those who live differently and who challenge our beliefs. The "wicked" child is the one who in refusing to march to our tune, brings us to new insight into the awesome gift of freedom. The "wicked" children are those nails that stick up, begging to be hammered down. And the enslaved often do just that, destroying the precious spark of an independent mind. The 'wicked' children are already living liberty; they are outside of Mitzrayim --(the narrow places of slavery)--and are capable of teaching those who would consider their question at each year's Seder.

Many of our teachers have understood the 'wicked child' in a positive light, seeing him as the sensitive and idealistic child in search of the meaning at the core of the stories we tell. In various ways they suggest that the wicked child is really asking: Here you stand at the shores of the sea, having come through the birth waters into freedom, and yet your service is as vacuous as the slave-labor of Egypt. Where is your Kavanah (the understanding, the intention of your action)? Or is freedom really so meaningless to you that you remain enslaved in the face of miracles?

The wicked children are the challengers of slavery to unthinking routine and drugery; they insist that we open our eyes and see that with freedom, the boundaries of our world expand to the horizon and beyond, to notice that daily we walk sightless among miracles*. And that the greatest miracle of all is the human gift of freedom that challenges us to live up to our greatest abilities.

*The Jewish concept of 'miracle' does not entail the suspension of natural law. Rather, miracles are insight into the workings of natural law to further the life and happiness of those who notice them.

"The simple child asks: "What is this?"

And we say: "With a strong hand and a mighty arm,

were we redeemed from the bondage of the Egyptians."

To the person of open simplicity, give a straightforward answer."

The simple child is the young and happy child, who asks simply and trusts a simple answer. There is no need to belabor the details, nor to challenge such a child. For he did not challenge you.

"With the child unable to ask, you must begin yourself, saying:

'This is because of what G-d did for me, when I went free out of Egypt.' "

If a child does not ask, we must begin ourselves to awaken their curiousity about why we celebrate the great festival of our freedom, in order to gently lead them to wonder about why this freedom is so important.

The Four Children remind us that people deal differently with ideas, and that we all find ourselves in the four different roles during our lives, and with respect to different challenges and events. There are those who are awake and want to be told what to do; there are those who are awake and want to understand the ideas behind what we do; there are those who are just waking up and wondering what we are doing; and there are those who are still sleeping and might need to be prodded to notice what we are doing.

And still, my favorite is the "wicked" child. And maybe it's because I often find myself in the role of the wicked child. Still. At my age, I have not yet developed the desire to do what I am told simply because I am told to do it.

There is a place in the world for the wicked child.

The wicked child may not have been redeemed because he was already free.

Perhaps it is he (or she, or me) who forces the turning of the hearts of the parents, and the hearts of the child, in order to prevent utter destruction.

Hoshia'na: Deliver Us!

As I have been cleaning for Pesach, I have been pondering.
Spring cleaning and turning the kitchen over--this is my pondering time.
Sometimes memories come, bittersweet.
And always, thoughts of the great story that we are still a part of.

Tonight, I was looking for an Orpah Haza song, and came upon a Hebrew version of Deliver Us! from The Prince of Egypt. I wanted to share it here. This is the theme of Zeman Cheruteinu--the Season of our Freedom.





This is so very powerful in the Hebrew,
but here also is the English.



Orpah's beautiful voice in two languages . . .

Deliver us! Somewhere where we can be free . . .

The First of Nisan

Tonight when the sun set a new Hebrew day began,
and because it is Rosh Chodesh, the New Moon, a new month began as well.

It is the first day of the Hebrew month of Nisan, the month in which we celebrate Zeman Cheruteynu--the Season of Our Freedom. (The "ch" sounds the German "ch" in Bach).

This means that Passover begins two weeks from tonight and all the time I had thought I had for spring cleaning is dwindling down to nothing. It is time for the big push.

And like last year, I am experiencing some Pesach Denial. This year, we will be having a small and intimate Seder so it will be different than Seders of the past. This is probably a good thing--we have had many transitions in the past year in our lives--some personal, some familial, and some in our larger lives. We will have a few guests, but our family and the Professional Revolutionary will be the only Jews.

I still have my office to clean, and then the living room, pantry and the big job--turning the kitchen over for Pesach. And the Rasta-Jew must be nagged into cleaning his room and bathroom, and the Professional Revolutionary must clean up his room. And the Chametz (leavened stuff) and fermented stuff must be removed. This will be hard on the Professional Revolutionary especially, so I have decided to break him into it gently, by having him watch Manishchewitzville:



"I don't know the reason the Passover Season comes as a surprise every year.
One day it's Purim, the groggers are whirling, and it seems a week later Passover's here."

This song always puts a smile on my face.
It gets me in the mood for Pesach.

Although not overly schmaltzy, it brings up good memories--the Chem Geek Princess at two, falling asleep at the Seder table, her cheek pillowed in the "smashed" potatoes; the CGP at four, standing on a chair at the Hillel second night Seder in pink sailor-trimmed dress, singing the four questions in perfect Hebrew. The Rasta-Jew (aka the Boychick) at 15 months, putting his hand on my lap and beginning to sing "David Melech Yisrael" (David, King of Israel), because he wanted to join in on the four questions but didn't know the Hebrew; the same kid at 15 years singing the Reggae version of the four questions. In English and Hebrew.

And the last verse ends with: "But somehow the Seder always seems to turn out fine."
Hey, even after 24 years of throwing my own Seders, that's reassuring.

And this year, we added When Do We Eat? (the movie). Our Seder could never be this dysfunctional. Could it?




Passover: It's what Jews do.

Pesach: And G-d Knew . . .

This year especially, the theme of Pesach, the story of slavery and freedom is not only in my thoughts, not only in the Haggadah, but also real and alive in the world, as I watch my countrymen wake up and the Freedom Movement take shape in the face of the gathering storm.

I have written about how different parts of the Maggid--the Telling--come alive each year, and that this year was no different, except that the words that move like fire off the page had a particular intensity at this time in the saeculum.

I have been thinking about the coming forth from Egypt a great deal this winter and spring, as I have watched people react to the developing crisis in several ways. And one question burning in my mind was what is it that makes people accept slavery with a certain resigned equanimity? Last year, I talked about the slave mentality in a post, but this year a different part of the Haggadah is resounding in my mind, for I am thinking also about what is it that wakes people up from the slave mentality?

"And G-d looked upon the Israelites, and G-d knew . . ." (Shemot 1:25)

" 'And G-d knew . . .' What did G-d know?

"When the Israelites had grown accustomed to their tasks, when the Hebrews began to labor without complaint, then G-d knew that it was time to be liberated.
For the worst slavery of Egypt is when we learn to endure it.
And G-d knew . . .

"As long as there was no prospect of freedom, G-d knew the Israelites would not awaken to the bitterness of bondage. First Moses taught the taste of Freedom's hope, and only then did servitude taste bitter.
So though bitter slavery is first, and then comes liberation, the Seder teaches us to taste the Matzah of Freedom first, and only then the bitter herbs of bondage.
And G-d knew . . .

" . . . If our freedom had been given us by Pharoah, we would have been indebted to him, still subservient, within ourselves, dependent, slavish still at heart. . . .
And G-d knew . . ."
(Central Conference of American Rabbis [1994]. A Passover Haggadah [a.k.a.the Baskin Haggadah], Revised Edition. Drawings by Leonard Baskin. New York. pp. 41, 43)

Freedom, Liberty and Rights: these do not come from kings or governments.
Our founders taught "that they are endowed by [the] Creator"; they are part of the fabric of our nature as human beings.

To be free, we must live free; to have rights we must exercise them. That is why the Israelites had become innured to slavery after generations of servitude; because, according to the Haggadah, they did not have the taste of freedom in their mouths, they did not know of freedom in their hearts. The generation that cried out, finally, did so because Moses taught them the taste of freedom.

My D'rash: Moses knew. How did Moses know the taste of Freedom? For to teach, one must know. In the story in Shemot, we read that the women around him acted as free people, even under slavery. The Hebrew midwives--Shifra and Puah--delivered Moses to life, not death, acting freely, against Pharoah's command. His mother,Yocheved, hid him, and then set him free to float on the Nile. His sister Miryam guarded him, and guided Pharoah's daughter to take his own mother as a wet nurse, so that Moses took in the taste of freedom with his mother's milk. And Batyah--Pharoah's daughter--took the Hebrew child in, acting freely, nurturing the life of a child whose death had been ordered by the tyrant. Thus, Moses experienced freedom once-removed, through the actions of those who saved his life and raised him. And when he was grown, and saw the taskmaster beating a Hebrew slave near to death, Moses knew. And he killed the taskmaster, and went to the desert, the elemental cradle of Freedom, where a person must choose and choose freely, whether to live or die. So Moses experienced Freedom first hand. Moses knew . . .

Now I understand why Ronald Reagan said that if our generation gives up our freedom, it will be lost for generations. Because our children and our children's children, down to the fourth and fifth generation will live in servitude to the debt that we are making as we trade our liberty for an illusory security.

When we pass this debt on to our kids because craven politicans care more for their immediate power than their children's future, and because we did nothing to stop it, following blindly like sheep, then our children's children will not have the taste of freedom in their mouths--they will consume only the bitter herbs of slavery and the salt water of their servitude.

And G-d knows . . . we, who still know freedom, even if but distantly as it fades, even if imperfectly because we were not taught in our schools, it is we who must act freely and restore to future generations the heritage of our liberty.

And this is why so many of us will gather next week, on taxx day, to cry out. There are three boxes for the preservation of our liberty:

The ballot box.
But our non-representing representatives do not heed, though elected. They believe their power resides outside of the rights of We the People. The siren call of power seduces them to tyranny.

The soapbox.
This is the work of the Tea Parties, the Petitions for Redress, the Committees of Correspondence and the Committees of Safety. The New Continental Congress.

And . . .

Let it end at the second box. We do not want our children made indentured servants, and live in a world made dark by servitude; We do not want them to have to rise up and kill the taskmasters because they have only a dim memory of freedom passed down from the generation that handed over their birthright for a mess of pottage.


"And G-d knew . . .

"If our freedom had been given us by Paroah, we would have been indebted to him, still subservient, within ourselves depedent, still slavish at heart. We had to free ourselves!"

"And G-d knew . . ."

Dreaming of a White Pesach?

NEARLY WORDLESS SPECIAL

When Pesach comes in mid-April, we really don't expect this.

Not even at our elevation.

Dawn, April 9, 2009--15 Nisan 5769: The first day of Pesach

We had a light dusting of snow overnight. The day was cool and windy.

Shabbat morning, April 11, 2009--17 Nisan:

Rain in the night, followed by sleet and freezing rain.

Shabbat afternoon, April 11, 2009:

Very wet snow and freezing rain alternated all afternoon. We were feeling sorry for our Christian neighbors as the Saturday afternoon Easter Egg hunt in the park was called off.

Sunday morning, April 12, 2009:

We went to sleep to clearing skies.

We awoke to more snow on the ground,

and snow falling,

wet and heavy.

Sunday, late morning:

A few inches of snow on the ground, the temperature is hovering right at the freezing point here, with a cold wind blowing.

I hear it snowed in town.

Happy White Pesach to those celebrating the Festival of Unleavened Bread, as we are!

Happy White Easter to our Christian neighbors.

Spring is just around the corner. Really.

Birkat HaChama: Blessing for the Sun

This morning I was up before dawn as per usual on the morning of the night of the first Seder, but this morning was different from all other first Seder mornings.


This morning, as the Boychick and I walked the dogs and watched the sunrise, we added a special blessing to our usual blessing when the sunrises. This is the Birkat HaChama--the Blessing of the Sun. We said:


"ברוך אתה ה' אלהינו מלך העולם עושה מעשה בראשית"
"Blessed are You, LORD, our God, King of the Universe who makes the works of Creation."


This morning at dawn, tradition tells us, the sun returns to the place in the machzor gadol--the great cycle--the very place at which it was created in space. Thus, according to the Jewish calendar, this occurs on a Tuesday every twenty-eight years. As in all things Jewish, there are minority opinions, and debate.


But it is a beautiful and pleasant custom that makes this Pesach different from all other Pesachim! May we all still be riding the machzor gadol when the day comes to make this blessing again, in 2038! And let us say, Amen!

Zissen Pesach!

Back to Normal!

Ahhhhhh!

Last night, when Bruce and I returned home from scouting for land (more later), we turned the kitchen back over to ordinary time, and Pesach ended at our house.

This morning, N. was gratified to sit down to his customary oatmeal and chai breakfast, with his usual dishes and on the regular green table cloth.

I love getting ready for Pesach, and I love how clean the house is after I turn the kitchen over for the holiday. But seven days of change gets wearing, especially for N., for whom routine is a sacred ritual of its own.

So here we are--back to normal.

But the kitchen and house are a little cleaner than usual.

Pesach Reflections: You Shall Tell Your Child on That Day

Saturday Evening, April 19, 2008

14 - 15 Nisan 5768

After all the preparations, Seder day arrived.

The Seder is a Jewish teaching ritual par excellance!

We are commanded:

"You shall tell your child on that day: 'It is because of what the Eternal did for me when I went free out of Mitzrayim (Egypt)--the Narrow Places.' "

The Seder (which means "order") is modeled after a Greek Salon Dinner, except that each part of the ritual has been given Jewish meaning. It is organized in a special order that takes the participants from the degredation of slavery to Pharoah to the liberation of service to

G-d. It is done in this order so that each person who eats the Seder can say truthfully: "... when I came forth from Egypt."

The heavy work of getting the chametz out behind us,
there are only a few little things to do to prepare for the Seder meal.

Here Bruce and the CGP cavort while preparing a vegetable kugel--a pudding in the English sense--that goes well with the turkey and brisket, being slow roasted in the oven since Friday afternoon.

This is the fun part! Family members appear out of the woodwork and take over the kitchen once the kitchen turn-over is complete.

Ever the opportunist, Lily waits at the feet of the Chefs, hoping for a dropped morsel.


N. helped form the Matzah balls for the soup, but refused any pictures until he had put on his new shirt for Pesach.

Here, the kneidlakh are boiling away, causing good feelings for everyone. In the background, the dining table is also not yet dressed in its finery, covered with the daily tablecloth and the flotsam and jetsam of the Shabbat Kiddush (blessing over wine) and Pesach prep.

The family is off getting into nice clothes for the Seder.
We do nice clothes, but casual. This may be the Watch-night of Our People, but this is still New Mexico, where dressing for the Santa Fe Opera means ironing your jeans.

Now dressed, my children pause for a picture as they dress the table. We follow the Ashkenazi tradition of having a small plate at each place that has the boiled egg (a symbol of fertility--"...the more they were oppressed the more they increased..."), the parsley (a symbol of springtide--"Arise my beloved and come away, for lo, the winter is passed..."), the maror, which is bitter herbs ("...and they embittered their lives with hard labor..."), and the haroset, which is a sweet mixture of apples and nuts (a symbol of the mortar--"..hard labor of mortar and bricks and every kind of drudgery in the fields").
These ritual foods are eaten at appointed times during the Seder, and it is simpler to have them in front of each person than to pass them.


In the last half-hour before we sat down to Seder, I was, as usual, distracted, but I did manage to get a picture of the Seder plate during the Modern Interpolation after candle lighting. The Modern Interpolation is the pause for the requisite group picture.

The Seder plate has from top left: haroset (mortar), hatzeret (field lettuce), karpas (parsley), baytzah (roasted egg), maror (horseradish root), and zaroah (a roasted shankbone of lamb). These symbols actually form two triangles on the plate of three on the plate. The Mi'd'aryta--"from the Torah" symbols are the roasted lamb shank (to remind us of the Pesach lamb), the roasted egg (to remind us of the Hagigah,holiday, sacrifice in the temple), and the horseraddish (to remind us of the original Pesach sacrifice in Egypt--"...with bitter herbs they shall eat it"). The other three symbols are Mi'd'rabbanan--"from the rabbis." They are the parsley ( a symbol of spring), the field greens (another kind of bitter herb to eat with the matzah), and the haroset (that symbolizes both oppression and the sweet taste of hope for liberation).



Finally, we have another Modern Interpolation, the Orange on the Seder Plate. This, the CGP says, is mi'd'rebbetzinot--from wives of rabbis. It is the symbol of the inclusion of all Jews, not just male ones, in the liberation from Egypt and the giving of Torah.

The Story of the Orange on the Seder Plate

As told by CGP, who insists on it every year

Susannah Heschel hayah omeret (did say): The rabbi's wife said once that she, by making the Jewish home and studying the holy books and learning, and especially because she, too, had stood at Sinai, was also capable of being called to Torah on the Bimah (the platform from which Torah is chanted). The rabbi, ensconced among the talmidim (male students) scoffed:

"A woman belongs on the Bimah like an orange belongs on the Seder plate!"

The next Pesach, when the rabbi and his talmidim sat down for Seder, lo, there, amidst the symbols mi'd'aryta and the symbols mi-d'rabbanan, there was a beautiful orange! An orange on the Seder plate! And we, too, have an orange on the Seder plate. It is there, because I, too, stood at Sinai with my mother and my mother's mothers. And as my mother chants Torah from the Bimah, so do I. A woman belongs on the Bimah and an orange belongs on the Seder plate.

B'rukhat at ha-Shechinah she'asani isha. (Blessed is the Indwelling Presence of G-d, who has made me a woman).

And here we are, assembled to tell again the stories of our people, ancient and modern, on this day.

It was a smaller group than last year, and quieter, too. N. graciously took a turn at the Modern Interpolation, so that I could be in the picture.

That's me, immediately to the right of the lit candles.

Each year, we all learn something new from the ancient words and the modern, as we gather to re-member how each of us came forth from Egypt.

Pesach Reflections: From Chametz to Matzah

The last days and moments before Pesach are always a little challenging.
All the chametz (leavened goods) must be removed from the house, and the special dishes and supplies for Pesach must be brought into the house, so that cooking for Pesach can begin in a chametz-free environment. This means the chametzdikh and the Pesadikh must coexist, but not come into contact in the last few days before all the chametz is sold or banished, and Pesach living commences with the first Seder.

This year was especially tricky, being one of those years in which Pesach commences at the end of Shabbat, which means that all chametz had to be gone by mid-day Friday, but Pesach living did not begin until sunset Saturday. The usual Shabbat fare could not be eaten this year, as we had already removed and nullified the chametz, and could not own any after noon on Friday. In years like this, I close the kitchen after breakfast on Friday, as we do that really Jewish thing of having Chinese dinner out before sunset when Shabbat begins. It works.

The turnover from chametz to matzah has a spiritual dimension as well as the practical one.
Chametz is a symbol of all that is puffed up and overblown in our lives. As we remove the chametz for this week of Pesach, physically we become disoriented from the normal routine. During the transition from one to another, we have to be mindful of all those little acts that we would normally do without thought, such as reaching for the (wrong) glass. On the spiritual level, this mindfulness is meant to lead us to a renewed appreciation of the realities of our lives, those things that are really important, after we have removed our puffed-up and often unrealistic view of our lives.

For perfectionists, the commandments and customs of Pesach can be especially dangerous, for it is very easy to miss the point of the commandments and customs by focusing on doing it perfectly.
That is clearly puffed-up and unrealistic.

The Rabbis of old must have understood perfectionism very well
because they developed rituals to help those of us in its thrall.
Rituals like the search for and the nullification of chametz.

This year, the search for chametz took place on Thursday evening, because of the intervening Shabbat before the beginning of Pesach.

I hid ten pieces of chametz throughout the darkened house.

Then the pyros--excuse me, men--of the family conducted a search for it, using a candle for light, a feather to sweep up the crumbs, and a wooden spoon to place it in the bag.

Here, Bruce is lighting the candle as N. looks on, holding the other necessary implements for this important job.

The search for chametz is symbolic of the search for and removal of all that is overblown within us, all that gets in the way of reliance on G-d. Miracles and wonders and liberation cannot happen, according to our story, until we recognize the reality in front of us. Then, like Moshe standing before the burning bush, we realize that we have been walking "sightless among miracles" all along.

The warm but finite glow of the candlelight is a symbol of the light of the soul which is carried through the house, as it is written:

"The soul of a human is a lamp of G-d, searching all the innermost parts." (Proverbs 20:27)

So it is that while searching for chametz in our houses on a physical level, we are also searching our hearts and minds, preparing for our Feast of Freedom by finding and freeing ourselves of the physical and spiritual chametz in our lives, at least for this one week each year.

And although this is a truly serious venture, like most Jewish ritual practice, it has it's joyful and lighthearted moments.

The joy comes from doing these little rituals together, becoming as children again, and from seeing the children growing into an adult understanding as the years pass.

The lighthearted moments come because the ritual itself interrupts the practical focus on preparations, causing the Ba'alat Bayta (mistress of the house), who has been absorbed and distracted by Everything That Must Be Done, to change focus. That would be me. When I change my focus from the practical to the spiritual side of Pesach, I get disoriented. This year, I forgot where I hid one piece and that led to all kinds of speculation.

N: "Mom has definitely moved to Manischewitzville!"

Bruce: "And her brains must be chametz!"

Gee, thanks for your votes of confidence!

In the end, though, we found all of the chametz--because I have a pre-determined number of pieces hidden--and proceeded with the important part of the ritual for perfectioninsts.

Of course, there is no way one can really remove every crumb of chametz or every drop of fermented stuff that has ever wafted on the air currents or been spilled and ran under the baseboards. So, as with much of Jewish ritual behavior, the point is to do your best and trust that it was good enough. It is this last part that is so hard for perfectionists like yours truly.

Therefore, after the search for chametz my intrepid "chametz busters" recite a legal formula in Aramaic nullifying any chametz we may have missed:

"All chametz in my possession which I have not seen or removed or of which I am unaware is hereby nullified and ownerless as the dust of the earth."

Normally, on the day after the search for chametz, we destroy the symbolic ten pieces by burning it. Any other chametz is sold to a non-Jew over Pesach, so that we do not own any of it. We go to these extraordinary lengths, the rabbis say, because often in our lives our possessions end up "owning us."

This year, fire-danger restrictions and a high wind made that fool-hardy to the extreme, so the guys took a little hike to throw the symbolic ten pieces in the water of Tijeras Arroyo. They recited an even more widely-cast legal formula:

"All chametz in my possession, whether I have seen it or not, whether I have removed it or not, is hereby nullified and ownerless as the dust of the earth."

This formula causes the perfectionist in my soul to sit up and take notice. Once it is recited, I can stop. I have removed all the chametz I need to remove.

I spent Friday afternoon turning the kitchen over for Pesach with a free heart; thoughts of any unremoved chametz passing overhead in the monkey-mind, as passing clouds do on an otherwise sunny day.

Freed from the need to remove any more chametz, I ate a nice Chinese dinner--always kosher if eaten in a Chinese restaurant :).

Later, as we recited the Kiddish in the living room for our chametz-free Shabbat, my mind turned to the upcoming Seder.

Tomorrow, I told myself, the fun part begins.

Pesach Reflections: The Slave Mentality

Preparations:
Today, with the heavy cleaning work done, I will partially turn the kitchen over for Pesach, and begin cooking. Tonight, we will do Bedikat Chametz--the hunt for the 'last bit of Chametz" or leavening in the house, which will be burned tomorrow on the grill and a legal formula will be recited to nullify any Chametz we have not removed or sold. The sale of the congregation's Chametz (collective and personal) to a gentile will occur tomorrow morning, and we will not own even that which is stored in our houses. Everything is being done a day early, because Pesach begins at the end of Shabbat, so we will "rest" tomorrow.

The Slave Mentality

The main part of the Haggadah--The Telling--begins with Four Questions, asked by the youngest at the Seder. And there are actually four "tellings" of "l'tziat mi-Mitzrayim"--the coming forth from the Narrow Places (Egypt).

They are:
1. Avadim Chayinu--We were slaves
(this picture from the Washington Haggadah shows the Four questions, and at the bottom of the page, is Avadim (in large illuminated letters) chayinu.

2. Mitekhilah ovdeh avadah zarah--We were idol worshippers

3. Arami oved avi--My father was a wandering Aramean

4. B'khol dor'v'dor--In every generation

These four tellings each illuminate for us some aspect of the slave mentality. For it was not only our bodies that were enslaved, but our minds. We see this in Torah, when the erev rav (mixed multitude, or better, the rabble) that came forth from Egypt heard that only hard work and risk would bring them to eretz zavat chalav u'devash--the land flowing with milk and honey. They cried:

"If only we had died by the hand of the Eternal in Egypt!
There we sat by the fleshpots, where we ate our fill of bread!
For you have brought us out into this wilderness to starve this
whole congregation to death!"
(Shemot 16: 3)

and:

"If only we had died in the land of Egypt!
Or if only we might die in this wilderness!
Why is the Eternal taking us out to that land
to fall by the sword?
...It would be better for us to go back to Egypt!
...Let us head back to Egypt!"
(B'midbar 14:1-3)

and:

"Why did you make us leave Egypt to die in the wilderness?
There is no bread and no water, and we have come to loath this
miserable food..."
(B'midbar 21: 5)

As I go about the arduous and exacting process of making Pesach, I am reminded that nothing comes for free. Not even freedom.
Our ancestors coming forth from Egypt had been enslaved and degraded from the dignity of being free human beings in a multitude of ways:

Avadim hayinu l'paro b'Mitzrayim--we were slaves to Pharoah in Egypt.
Our bodies were enslaved, and we were forced to build the store cities of Pitom and Ra'amses. Our children were not our own, but taken by Pharoah to do as he pleased with them, even to throw them into the Nile.

Mitekhila ovdeh avodah zarah--we were idol worshippers. We made the creations of our hands more precious to us than our freedom. Thus the complaining in the wilderness. The wilderness is a place where the human being confronts his own power to make his life. There is no master, no 'god or government' to save us from ourselves, to do for us what we have the power to do for ourselves.

Arami oved avi--My father was a wandering Aramean; Few in number, he went down to Egypt. And there he became a great nation...and the Egyptians dealt harshly with us and opressed us; and they imposed hard labor on us. We cried out to the Eternal, the G-d of our mothers and fathers, and G-d heard us..." (Haggadah)
The rabbis asked the question: Why did it take many generations--the generations from "he went down" to "we cried out" for G-d to raise up for us Moshe Rabbinu--Moses our Teacher, and bring us out from slavery?
They say that we had to learn what handing ourselves over to serve other gods really meant.

I think we did it to ourselves.
According to our story, Joseph, as the chacellor of Pharoah, handed over the free-holdings of Egyptian to the priests of Egypt, consolidating the power of Pharoah and the priests over all of the people. He did this in order to avert a crisis, but in so doing, he created a system in which all economic power was consolidated in the hands of a few. Then as the people of Israel grew more numerous, they presented a challenge to this power, and thus had to be degraded in order to be kept from overturning this system.

And the people were content to let their freedom slip away, as they received favors for their service, until at last they were slaves in body, mind and spirit to the whims of Pharoah. This is the slave mentality. The sense that one cannot do for oneself and ones' own people. The sense that someone else must provide purpose and sustenance. In this way, power was handed over to a master, and the people of Israel became slaves.

Then, their servitude had to become harsh enough for them to remember that slavery was not their identity. They were children of those who were "avadim Adonai"--servants of the Eternal. So Moshe said, not 'Let my people go!' but, 'Ko-amar Adonai: Shelach ami v'avduvi-- Thus says the Eternal: Send forth my people that they may serve Me!'

Va-yotzei-anu Adonai mi-Mitzrayim--And the Eternal brought us forth from Egypt--the Narrow Places of narrowed lives and expectations--because we realized that we ought to be more than slaves. But even after witnessing miracles and wonders, it still took forty years--a generation died in the wilderness--to erase the slave mentality.

Slaves do not take initiative. They whine.
Slaves do not sustain their own lives in freedom. They obey orders in order to have access to the fleshpots of Egypt. Fleshpots provided by others, the price of which is liberty.
Slaves do not take risks to preserve their integrity. They worship the idols of security and safety, fearful to come into the wide and open land "flowing with milk and honey."

Avadim chayinu...we were slaves. And we sometimes still long to be slaves, so that we do not have to take the risks of making decisions for ourselves. For freedom implies responsibility for our own lives, our own decisions, our own values.

We got rid of the slave mentality at Sinai. For there we entered into a covenant freely; a covenant that bound us to G-d, who was also bound to us through the Rule of Law. No one, not the leaders, not the tribes, not the erev rav--the mixed multitude--, not even the Eternal G-d of Israel, was above this law.

Avadim chayinu...we were slaves.
Atah b'nei chorim...now we are the children of freedom.
Avadim chayinu...we were slaves.
Atah avdei ha Brit...now we are the servants of the covenant.

And this is why, in the end, we are commanded to remember our degradation in detail.

B'khol dor v'dor haya adam l'riyot ha atzmo ki'ilu hu yatza mi'Mitzrayim--in every generation, each person should remember having personally come forth from Egypt (Haggadah).

Why? Because the slave mentality is easy and unlawful. And freedom takes work and the discipline of law.

But the rewards of freedom are great. Thus, although we vacillated in the wilderness, it made us into people willing to take a stand and risk everything to remain who we were born to be:
Avdei Adonai--servants of the Eternal.

Chag Sameach Pesach!
Then we were slaves. Now we are free.

"How different this night is from all others...Why?"

"We were slaves to Pharoah in Egypt, but Adonai our G-d brought us out, with a mighty hand and outstretched arm. And if the Holy One Blessed be G-d had not taken our ancestors out of Egypt, we and our children, and our children's children would still be enslaved to Pharoah in Egypt.
Now, even if all of us were scholars, and
even if all of us were sages, and
even if all of us were elders, and
even if all of us were learned in Torah,
it would still be upon us to tell the story of the
Coming Forth From Egypt.
Moreover, whoever elaborates on the Story of the
Coming Forth from Egypt deserves praise."