Tag: Passover

We are shaped by history

A few weeks ago, my husband got an email out of the blue from a distant relative in Israel. This Israeli was working on some family genealogy. He was stunned to discover that he had many U.S. relatives he never knew about. Together, my husband and this distant relative took on a big extended family project, even as COVID-19 shut down borders and isolated us in our homes.

Suddenly, my husband in Winnipeg and his dad, aunts, uncles and cousins in New Jersey were emailing, sending photos and stories to one another. They tried to iron out all the stories they’d heard and fit the puzzle pieces together. My husband’s paternal grandparents (z”l) were from Mezritch, Poland. They spent the Second World War on the run. They were in a Siberian Gulag work camp. Then, they lived in a shantytown near Tashkent, Uzbekistan. After the war, they stayed in a series of displaced persons camps in Germany before U.S. relatives found them. They arrived in the United States, with their three children, in 1950.

Discovering what may have happened to each relative 75 years ago, and documenting it, has taken on an urgency for both my husband and this “new” Israeli relative. In part, it’s because his oldest aunt, who was 9 when she came to the United States, remembered it all and discussed it with her mother in detail, over and over, as those who’ve gone through huge upheaval sometimes do. For my husband’s aunt, this childhood experience defines much of her worldview. Now, though, her mother, my husband’s grandmother, has died. His aunt is still alive, but unwell. She’s unable to recount the stories or identify the people in photos anymore. The family is racing to record as much of their family history as they can before even more of the pieces are lost forever.

In the midst of this nightly family email exchange, I read a book called Gateway to the Moon by Mary Morris. This novel makes connections between the Sephardi Jews who fled Spain after the Inquisition, the crypto-Jews of New Mexico and the history behind the family connections and modern-day Jewish practice. The author explained that the idea for the book came to her when she met someone long ago. This New Mexican seemed convinced that his family had been Jewish. Indeed, now we know through DNA analysis that many Spanish-speaking people throughout the world have Sephardi Jewish roots.

Gateway to the Moon was graphic, full of historically correct violence, and direct. It took me a long time to get through. It was powerful, but also hard to grasp the scope of the suffering faced during the Inquisition. This religious violence chased Jewish families for hundreds of years through Spain, Portugal, Mexico and beyond.

Morris does a good job of connecting people throughout history in her narrative. This was particularly powerful when a character tastes a lamb dish in Morocco, on vacation, and is instantly transported to her grandmother’s table in New Mexico. Even as their identity was hidden or forgotten, familiar recipes remained. Just the taste of that lamb stew connected the character to the family’s lost past and their Sephardi Jewish identity.

The ramifications of these huge experiences – violence, trauma, colonization, wars, genocides, terrorist attacks and pandemics – will shape us and future generations. We, as Jews, and as people, are forever shaped by these things. We’re about to celebrate Passover. It recounts a huge event in our people’s story – slavery, freedom and migration. This experience shapes us, though it happened (if it happened) long ago. As we say at the seder, Avadim hayinu: Once we were slaves in Egypt, and now we are free. We’re commanded to remember this as though we personally left Egypt.

As I write this, we’re suffering a pandemic, another huge, worldwide and scary experience. My husband and I are Gen Xers. We’ve been shaped by the Holocaust experiences of our families and friends. We were raised hearing their stories and traumas, and it was part of who they, and we, are.

Now, I pray that we, and all our families, and everyone in our community, live to think about what the ramifications of this next event will be. It will impact us all.

My family and I wish you everything good – a chag sameach, zissen Pesach – a happy holiday. Most importantly, may you enjoy it in good health.

Joanne Seiff has written regularly for CBC Manitoba and various Jewish publications. She is the author of three books, including From the Outside In: Jewish Post Columns 2015-2016, a collection of essays available for digital download or as a paperback from Amazon. Check her out on Instagram @yrnspinner or at joanneseiff.blogspot.com.

About the Passover cover art

As I always do in anticipation of needing an image for the Jewish Independent’s Passover issue, I started with an internet search. This Passover, I was led to creativejewishmom.com, which features creative projects parents can do with their kids. The Crossing the Red Sea Kid’s Craft captured my imagination. Not one to let the lack of children in my immediate vicinity stop me, I collected the materials necessary and learned to use a glue gun. Through the generosity of a few friends, I didn’t have to buy anything to make the diorama on this issue’s cover.

To capture the notion that, in every generation, we are to regard ourselves as if we personally left Egypt, I created a variety of Israelites, from Moses, Miriam and Aaron leading the group, to a Middle Eastern family from an indeterminate era to a 1920s dandy, a Mary Poppins-inspired woman in a fancy black hat and a Chassid. A teen wears headphones, a toddler wears a mouse-ear raincoat and a girl in a wheelchair negotiates the streambed with the help of a Beatnik.

 

The project took hours. The logistics of taking a photo that would fit within the parameters of the newspaper’s cover took almost as long to figure out as did the creation of the 29 Israelites, two load-carrying camels, two carts full of supplies, six waves and one streambed “staircase.” The wooden donkey near the back of the image is the only figure I did not make – JI production manager Josie Tonio McCarthy donated it to the effort; she bought the carving on a trip to Israel and we both thought it was appropriate to include, as the travelers’ destination is, of course, the Promised Land.

Wishes for a healthy and meaningful Passover, and a chag sameach.

Just a reminder: The Jewish Independent is now on a publishing hiatus. Our next issue will be April 24 or May 1, depending on the COVID-19 situation. Email [email protected] with story ideas and [email protected] for ad bookings.

Nieces enjoy new kids books

I review a lot of books for the Jewish Independent. Over the years, that has included many children’s books. I do my best in these instances but, as much as I like to let my inner child run free occasionally and as much as I’d one day like to create a children’s book or two, I’m a grown-up. What do I really know about how enjoyable the single-digit-age set will find a publication? Well, for my latest two reviews, I turned to a couple of experts for advice.

With COVID-19 causing the shutdown of schools, my youngest nieces – Fae, 8, and Charlotte, 6 – were suddenly available to be put to work. With their parents’ blessing, nay, encouragement, I scanned and emailed them two recent books published by Intergalactic Afikoman (see jewishindependent.ca/new-publisher-set-to-launch). The assignment was to read Asteroid Goldberg: Passover in Outer Space by Brianna Caplan Sayres and illustrator Merrill Rainey and Such a Library! A Yiddish Folktale Re-imagined by Jill Ross Nadler and illustrator Esther van den Berg. As my nieces were new to the reviewing world, I gave them a handful of questions to answer: What did you like about the books? What did you not like? What did you learn? Would you recommend the books to your friends?

Their mother, Deborah Weiss, sent me summaries of their answers, as well as Fae’s handwritten responses – I’d asked her to be the family’s scribe for the job.

They started with Asteroid Goldberg, which features Asteroid and her parents on their way home from Pluto for the Passover seder. When the family gets to earth’s orbit, they are not allowed to land (for an unstated reason), so they must make alternate seder plans on the fly (pun intended). A few of Jupiter’s moons for kneidl, a piece of Saturn’s rings for matzah, the Milky Way as their pantry. Who to invite? Family members close by, including Grandma Luna, who was biking on Venus, and Uncle Cosmos, who was hiking on Mars. When they come to the Mah Nishtanah, Asteroid asks, “What makes this night so different?” to which the answer is “Everything!” Caplan Sayres couldn’t have known how relevant her Passover story would be this year.

photo - Fae’s note on what her mother, Deborah (D.), thought of the book Asteroid Goldberg: Passover in Outer Space
Fae’s note on what her mother, Deborah (D.), thought of the book Asteroid Goldberg: Passover in Outer Space.

Both Fae and Charlotte loved the story and the artwork. Even though Charlotte found it a bit too long, Fae recommended it for kids 7 and under.

“I like this book because it was a rhyming book and because it had lots of play-along words,” wrote Fae, who explained to her mom that “play-along words are words with multiple meanings.”

As for lessons learned, Fae “did not learn anything.” However, her sister, who can be a pistol, said she learned that one should “never go on a rocket before Passover.”

As for their mom’s thoughts, Deb said, “I really liked this book. As we get ready for a Passover that will be very different this year, I loved reading about a family that had to change their Passover plans and still had lots of fun and found new ways to celebrate. This really resonated with me!”

Deb and the girls also enjoyed Such a Library! “I thought this was a really clever and imaginative take on a well-known folktale,” said Deb, who noted, “Both girls liked the funny text, the story and the artwork. We also liked the clever name of the librarian.”

In Such a Library!, Stevie heads to the public library to read his book – “With three brothers, two sisters and a baby at home, Stevie’s house was never quiet.” As he starts to read, though, he hears pages turning, computer keys tapping. He tiptoes to the librarian, Miss Understood, and says, “This library is too noisy.” He tells her, “It’s like a party in here.” Thinking that a party sounds like a wonderful idea, she opens a book: “Hundreds of colourful balloons flew from the pages, followed by party hats and horns.”

image - Such a Library! book coverEach time Stevie goes to Miss Understood to complain, she opens another book and the library becomes a zoo, then a circus, as the characters jump out of the pages of the books she opens and take over the library. Only once the characters are all returned to their books can Stevie enjoy reading his, to the relatively quiet sounds of the pages turning, computer keys tapping.

Such a Library! is an interpretation of the Yiddish folktale about a man who thinks that his small house is too crowded with his wife and many children. The rabbi recommends that the man also bring into the house the family’s cow, chickens, goats, geese and ducks. When the man can’t take it anymore, the rabbi tells him to kick out all the animals, after which, the small house seems quite big and spacious.

Fae would recommend Such a Library!, once again, to kids age 7 and under, while Charlotte really liked it and would recommend it to anyone.

As for what the girls learned, Deb said, quoting Charlotte, “We learned that, if you’re looking for a quiet place to read, to not to go to the library when it’s full of acrobats!”

To order either book, visit intergalacticafikoman.com/books.

Post-seder meat dishes

After eating all our wonderful family tradition seder dishes, I find it fun to try out meals that I haven’t before and that are not from my cultural background. Here are some you might want to try.

MATZAH MEAT PIE

(Egyptian-born Claudia Roden is the master of Middle Eastern food and author of 20 cookbooks. Now 84 years old, she lives in London. I met her in the 1970s, when she came to Israel and we had a wonderful visit. This is her recipe from the New York Times Passover Cookbook, adapted from The Book of Jewish Foods, which she wrote. It makes four to six servings.)

1 large chopped onion
3 tbsp vegetable oil
1 1/2 pounds ground lamb or beef
salt and pepper to taste
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp allspice
2 tbsp raisins
2 tbsp pine nuts or walnuts
1 cup warm beef stock
5-6 matzot
1 small egg, beaten

  1. Preheat oven to 375˚F. Spray a pie plate with vegetable spray.
  2. Heat two tablespoons oil in a frying pan and fry onion over medium heat for 10 minutes, until golden. Add ground meat, salt, pepper, cinnamon and allspice. Cook, stirring until meat has browned but is still moist, about 10 minutes. Add raisins.
  3. In another pan, fry the nuts in one tablespoon oil for one minute, stirring until nuts are lightly coloured. Add to meat mixture and stir.
  4. Place beef stock in a large, shallow rectangular pan. Soak matzot one at a time, pressing them gently to absorb the liquid.
  5. Press two or three softened matzot into a pie plate. Place meat mixture on top of matzot. Cover pie with remaining matzot. Brush top with beaten egg. Bake for 30 minutes or until top is golden.

KABSAH
(This recipe comes from It Tastes Too Good to be Kosher by Peter A. Weissenstein and is a Lebanese dish, good for using up leftover lamb or chicken.)

1 pound ground lamb
1 pound ground chicken
4 minced garlic cloves
salt to taste
2 medium, diced onions
1 finely diced large tomato
2 tsp cumin
4 tbsp minced parsley
oil

  1. In a bowl, combine lamb, chicken, garlic, salt, onions, tomato, cumin and parsley and blend.
  2. Heat oil in a frying pan. Spoon mixture into frying pan and fry until well heated. Serve with Israeli salad.

BRISKET MEATBALLS IN TOMATO PASSATA
(Passata is Italian for “go through,” i.e. the cooked tomato puree goes through a special machine. This Italian-influenced dish was created by Hillary Sterling for Vic’s, her New York City restaurant. It makes four servings.)

Meatballs:
1 1/2 cups crumbled, unsalted matzah
2 1/2 tbsp water
1 1/4 pounds ground brisket
1 large egg
1 tbsp olive oil
salt to taste
1 1/2 tsp ground fennel seeds (optional)
1/2 tsp crushed red pepper
pepper to taste

Passata:
1/4 cup sliced garlic
1 1/2 tbsp olive oil
1 28-ounce can crushed, drained plum tomatoes
1/8 cup fresh marjoram leaves
2 1/2 four-by-one-inch orange peel strips
salt and pepper to taste

  1. Preheat oven to 425˚F. Set a wire rack inside a large baking sheet and spray with vegetable oil.
  2. Combine crumbled matzah and water in a bowl. Add brisket, egg, oil, salt, fennel (if using), red pepper and black pepper. Mix with hands until combined. Shape into eight meatballs. Arrange meatballs on sprayed wire rack. Bake until browned, about 22 minutes.
  3. Meanwhile, in a frying pan, cook garlic and oil for passata, stirring often, a minute and a half. Add crushed tomatoes, marjoram leaves, orange peel strips, salt and red pepper. Bring to a boil then remove from heat.
  4. Transfer meatballs to tomato passata in frying pan. Garnish with crumbled matzot, fresh marjoram leaves and chile oil. Serve warm.

Sybil Kaplan is a journalist, lecturer, book reviewer and food writer in Jerusalem. She created and leads the weekly English-language Shuk Walks in Machane Yehuda, she has compiled and edited nine kosher cookbooks, and is the author of Witness to History: Ten Years as a Woman Journalist in Israel.

Importance of this tradition thing

Passover traditions like the seder connect family and friends, and remind us who we are. (photo from flickr.com)

“I know I read an article somewhere that the greatest number of suicides happen on holidays,” Naomi said to her mother.

Rebecca ignored her. “Just keep lining the shelves.”

“But it makes sense, truly it does. Why are we taking this perfectly clean kitchen apart and practically rebuilding it? Does it say anywhere in the Bible that you go straight to hell if you don’t drop with exhaustion the week before Pesach?”

“This is the way my mother did it, and her mother did it, and one day you’ll do it for your kids, too.”

“You’re kidding yourself. If you think I’d ever inflict all this work on my daughter, you’re crazy. And why doesn’t Joe have to help?”

“He will. He’ll kosher the stove and the sinks.”

“And that’s another thing. Two minutes with a blowtorch and then he’ll pour a kettle of water. Big deal. And Dad doesn’t even do that.”

“He conducts the seder.”

“Another big deal. We take the place apart, vacuum chairs and wash curtains and change over dishes, not to mention 40 kilos of kneidl and all that stuff that gives you indigestion. What am I saying, indigestion? All those eggs – you’re probably giving us a gift of coronary heart disease. Jesus!”

“Naomi, stop it.”

“I’m sick of it. I want to escape like Faye.”

Rebecca’s lips tightened. “Fagie’s coming to the seder, too.”

But Naomi was not to be sidetracked. “Fagie, what a name! No wonder she rebelled. Naomi and Joseph, they’re bad enough. But Fagie, what were you thinking of?”

“It’s a good Jewish name. I was thinking of my grandmother. If you and your sister could have known her, you’d understand. The least I could do was keep her name alive.”

The spotless refrigerator was being polished within an inch of its life. Naomi sat down and watched her mother.

“I thought Passover celebrated freedom from slavery. But every year, you become a slave and you make me one, too. If you think you’re giving me wonderful memories, forget it. As soon as I can leave home, I will. Faye told me the best thing about marriage was being able to run her house like the 20th century. Now we’re in the 21st, for chrissake.”

“I hate it when you talk like that.”

“Like what?”

“So tough. All those profanities. What happened to femininity?” she asked her daughter sadly.

“Feminism came along, only you’ve never heard of it. Dad and Joe get out of everything ’cos they’re men. You’re the biggest chauvinist ever, because you not only condone this status quo, you actually perpetuate it.”

Rebecca sighed. “You don’t understand. Neither does Fagie.”

“You bet we don’t. Here, I’ve lined the last bloody shelf. I’m going out.”

“Where?”

“Out, as in O-U-T.”

“When will you be back?”

“If I had my way, it’d be around May or June – after Pesach.” She slammed the door. Rebecca heard the car start up. Her eyes filled with tears. She was exhausted. “This is gratitude,” she thought bitterly. “Here’s Naomi, barely 18, with her own car. We were married six years before we had one.”

Fagie started her marriage with all the things that she and Sam still don’t have after 27 years. And look how she is bringing up Brendan. Brendan! What sort of name is that? No wonder Fagie and Joel hadn’t wanted to give him a brit. If she and Sam hadn’t insisted, their grandson wouldn’t even have had that. They’d treated his Hebrew name, Baruch, as some sort of joke. Well, maybe in their circles it sounded strange. But at least among the family…. Everything with Fagie was a war. If she bought the child a kippah, Fagie would get upset. If she wouldn’t eat in her daughter’s treif house, it meant another argument. What did you have children for?

She heard loud music from upstairs. The Grateful Dead. No wonder they were grateful – they can’t hear the cacophony, she surmised.

When the key turned in the lock, she didn’t have the strength even to go and say hello to Sam. He wandered into the kitchen. “It looks beautiful,” he said, patting her shoulder and taking in the sparkling clean room.

“To us, maybe.”

“What’s wrong? Fagie been getting to you?”

“Not just her. Naomi’s just as bad now.”

Sam sat down heavily. “I don’t understand it. We sent them to day school – forked out in a year more than our education cost in a lifetime. And what do they give back? Where’s Joe?”

“Can’t you hear? He’s studying. That’s his usual accompaniment.”

“Even so, he’s a good student. He’ll make us proud one day. He’s talking about medicine or law, maybe architecture….”

“We’re kidding ourselves, Sam. Even if we’re proud of him, he’ll be ashamed of us.”

“No, not Joe. Why do you say that?”

“Because we’re fighting a losing battle. The things that are important to us are hateful to them.”

Sam’s shoulders sagged. “Joe’s turning his back on our traditions, too?”

“Not yet. He’s only 14. But he will – give him a few years.”

Wearily, Rebecca made dinner. The three of them ate in near silence. Joe had a book next to his plate and didn’t seem to notice. He had already left for school next morning when Rebecca, Sam and Naomi sat down for breakfast. Naomi avoided her mother’s eyes. “I’m sorry about yesterday.”

“No, you’re not,” Rebecca answered, “you meant it.”

“I just wanted you to understand….”

“Oh, I understand. Your father and I made a decision last night. You tell her Sam.”

He cleared his throat. “Naomi, since Pesach is so distasteful to you, you can go and stay with your sister. Your mother and I are taking Joe and going away for the week. That kosher guest house in the mountains –”

“You mean no seder?”

“What for? For Fagie’s family, who barely tolerate it. For you, who finds it such a chore? You know what it says in the Zohar? It says a little hurt from kin is worse than a big hurt from a stranger. Who needs it?” He pushed his chair back abruptly and, a minute later, they heard the front door close.

Naomi pushed the food around on her plate. “I think you’re overreacting. We always have a seder.”

“We always used to have a seder. We’re not going to do it any more. I didn’t care about the work, the exhaustion, because I thought it meant something. If it doesn’t, there’s no point.”

“It meant something to you and Dad.”

“So, we’ll sit at someone else’s seder. Naomi, go to university. You’ll be late for class.”

An hour later, the telephone rang. “Mum, it’s Fagie.”

“Oh, it’s Fagie today. What happened to Faye?”

“Don’t be sarcastic Mum – it doesn’t suit you. Listen, are you home? Can I come round?”

“What for?”

“I need to talk to you.”

“I’m not babysitting if that’s what you want.”

“Brendan’s at play group. I just want to talk to you.”

“I don’t think there’s anything to talk about. But come if you want.”

Thirty minutes later, Fagie’s car drew up. Rebecca poured her a coffee and pushed it towards her.

“So?”

“It’s about the seder.”

“Naomi didn’t waste much time. What’s wrong? You don’t want your sister’s company for a week?”

“Please listen. It’s not right what you’re doing.”

“Not right? For whom?”

“For anyone. Dad will hate not conducting the seder.”

“He’ll survive.”

Fagie’s voice trembled. “Maybe we won’t.”

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know how to say this. It’s just….”

Rebecca remained silent, not attempting to help.

“It did mean something to us – me and Naomi – even Joel.”

“What did it mean?”

“It meant we were a family. It kind of bound us together. We need it. Brendan needs it. That once a year at least – to remind us who we are.”

“Who are you exactly? You can go and celebrate Easter. It’s all the same to you.”

Fagie’s voice trembled. “You’re making it hard for me. Mum, it’s true we don’t keep all the things you and Dad do. Most people don’t anymore.”

“And that makes it right?”

“Yes – no – I don’t know. It’s hard for us, to be different from our friends. But we need something. We need to know it’s there for us.”

“Not good enough. What happens when we go?”

“Maybe we’ll take it on then. When there’s no one else.”

“Why would you want to do that, if it’s not meaningful now?”

“For our children. I can’t explain. We can only give up these – traditions – because we know you still keep them. That they’re there for us to come back to. Sure, we ridicule them, but it’s like a family. We insult one another all the time because it’s easier than saying, ‘I love you and I need you.’ Do you understand me?”

Fagie was crying openly now. Rebecca didn’t trust herself to speak.

Three nights later, the candles were lit in the candelabra in Rebecca’s dining room, the flames casting shadows on the snowy white tablecloth. Sam sat at the head of the table and inspected the seder plate with its three matzot, the parsley, saltwater, horseradish, charoset, shank bone and roasted egg. He planned where to hide the afikoman, so that it would not be too hard for Brendan to find. Joe was filling the wine glasses, with the extra big one for the prophet Elijah, while Naomi handed out Haggadot. His grandson sat between Fagie and Joel, his face flushed with excitement. Sam’s eyes met his wife’s, which were moist with unshed tears, as were his.

“Baruch atah,” he began. “Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who created the fruit of the vine.”

Dvora Waysman is a Jerusalem-based author. She has written 14 books, including The Pomegranate Pendant, which was made into a movie, and her latest novella, Searching for Sarah. She can be contacted at [email protected] or through her blog dvorawaysman.com.

Pesach: a tale of two stories

“The Crossing of the Red Sea” by Nicolas Poussin, 1634. (photo from wikimedia)

We are a people with many memories, many stories, and who we are has been shaped by the stories we remember and tell.

More than any other holiday, Pesach is about remembering and passing that memory down to the next generation. Every Jew is commanded to see themselves as if they came out of Egypt, and to tell their Egypt story to their children. The telling of this story is not mediated by teachers or rabbis, nor is it told in a communal framework. The setting of the seder is one of family and immediate friends, and the responsibility is upon every one of us to decide how we convey the story.

What makes this particularly challenging is that, beyond the complicated family dynamics, a Haggadah that is deeply problematic and different sensibilities with regard to what needs to be done, we have inherited two different stories. The challenge is not merely how to tell the story, but which story to tell.

One story, which dominates much of the Haggadah, not to speak of the story as told in the Torah, focuses on Pesach as a story of exodus, of the Jewish people being freed by God from the slavery of Egypt. “I am the Lord. I will free you from the labours of the Egyptians and deliver you from their bondage. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and through extraordinary chastisements. And I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God.” (Exodus 6:6-7)

More than freedom and salvation, Pesach is a story of the election of the Jewish people, as God pours down God’s wrath on those who enslave the chosen ones and redeems us out of the hands of Egypt to be God’s chosen people. Each plague, told and magnified, is an expression of love, a gift of betrothal of God to us, an offering that bonds us to one another. “I the Lord am your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, the house of bondage: you shall have no other gods besides me.” (Exodus 20:2-3)

One of the core consequences of this election narrative under Jewish law is the sanctioned discrimination between Jew and non-Jew, between the Children of Israel and the nations of the world. Because God saved us, all of us, from the slavery of Egypt, Jews are all equal, and no Jew can take another Jew as a slave. However, those who are not the recipients of the gift of exodus, the non-Jews, can become our slaves (Leviticus 25). When we go to war, even wars of aggression, the God who took us out of Egypt will always fight on our side, because the moment of election creates an us-them dichotomy in which God is always with us (Deuteronomy 20). Idolatry is neither false nor futile. It is the worship allotted by God to the non-elected. We, the chosen people, are alone commanded to worship God. The God who saved us in Egypt is our God alone (Deuteronomy 4).

This tale of the story of Egypt finds its culmination in our traditional Haggadah, in which one of its concluding prayers is a petition to God to “Pour out your wrath on the nations that do not know you…. Pursue them with anger and destroy them from beneath the heavens of the Lord.”

There is a second story of Pesach, a story in which neither the exodus nor its accompanying plagues takes central stage, but rather the hundreds of years of our subjugation in Egypt. It is to this memory that the core symbols of the holiday – matzah, the poor person’s bread, charoset, the paste that resembles mortar, and maror, the bitter herb, which cause us to relive the experience of pain – all direct us.

It is this memory that shapes the most-repeated commandment in the Torah: “The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as one of your citizens: you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the Land of Egypt.” (Leviticus 19) The story of Egypt is not one of us-them, but of us being them, of us being members of the community of the downtrodden, and the subsequent obligation to treat all who are in need, Jew and non-Jew alike, as equal members of our society.

In an interesting twist on this story, the Ten Commandments obligate us to rest on the Sabbath, “so that your male and female slave may rest as you do. Remember that you were a slave in the Land of Egypt, and the Lord your God freed you from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm: therefore, the Lord your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day.” (Deuteronomy 5)

It is not merely that because we once were slaves we are bonded to all those in need. The redemption from Egypt is no longer exclusively the moment of election of us, but rather an expression of God’s care and compassion for all who are enslaved. Both our slavery and our salvation unite us with God, in a common mission to bring freedom and equality to our world.

It is with this idea that we begin to tell the story of Egypt in the traditional Haggadah. “This is the bread of affliction that our forefathers ate in the Land of Egypt. All who are hungry let them come and eat.” All, and not merely fellow Jews.

Pesach is a tale of two stories. Each has shaped who we are. As we tell our stories and pass them down to the next generation, it is our obligation to take responsibility for what will define us in the future and what will determine our religious and national identity. The choice is ours. As you tell the stories this year, choose wisely. Our future and the future of Israel depend on it.

Rabbi Dr. Donniel Hartman is president of the Shalom Hartman Institute and author of the 2016 book Putting God Second: How to Save Religion from Itself. Articles by Hartman and other institute scholars can be found at shalomhartman.org.

We must continue to ask

Probably every action or event has unintended consequences. The more significant the initial act, the more dramatic the consequences, for better or worse.

Significant historical events illustrate a few of these. Income tax, for example, was an outcome of the First World War, which was, like all wars of course, cataclysmic to individuals and countries.

The Depression resulted, again among many other things, in public acceptance of vast government interventions into the economy through programs like the New Deal in the United States, and similar initiatives in Canada and elsewhere.

The Second World War, one of the worst human catastrophes ever known, was accompanied by a universe of social and economic changes, including the effective nationalization of critical industries to support the war effort. That period of social upheaval – during which personnel of all races served side by side and women entered the workforce in large numbers to fill the places of men at war – contained the seeds of social revolutions to follow, including the civil rights movement and the transformation of the role of women in society. The war was also a direct antecedent to formal decolonization in the developing world.

In other words, some terrible events can result in transformative consequences. This is not to play the ethics game and ask, if we could reverse history and prevent this act, would we do so, knowing that some positive byproducts would likewise be erased. It is merely to draw attention to the consequential moment in which we find ourselves.

The terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, are perhaps the freshest parallel for most of the current generation. On that day, we understood that everything had changed but we could only imagine in what ways. Wars would soon begin that continue to this day and, closer to home, social schisms between groups, including the rise of Islamophobia, emerged.

Political debates shifted dramatically to erstwhile largely dormant issues like government surveillance, balancing collective security with individual rights, the use of enhanced interrogation – torture, that is – and the thing that affects most of us most obviously: massive changes in airport security processes.

Since then, we have seen the rise of social and economic inequality and the attendant antisemitism and xenophobia it has engendered. Such shocks to the system produce reverberating impacts, often felt by more vulnerable and marginalized groups, Jews included, and we know that the consequences of any one shock can compound the waves of others in ways expected and unexpected.

We have plenty to worry about right now, with the immediacy of the pandemic. But we should also make time to consider potential unintended outcomes from this experience.

We have seen already, as we mentioned here a very long week ago, a vast outpouring of social unity. On social media, Vancouverites are coming together in mutual support. At 7 p.m. each night, for example, many are joining together to cheer frontline healthcare workers in a small but meaningful act of solidarity and hope. Most people, with notable exceptions that are being rightly called out, are responding appropriately to the advice of experts.

But consider the small, perhaps less obvious ways this experience could impact us. When it’s all over, will we be more reticent to shake hands, to hug? Will we be more attuned to the reality that we are each a part of an inseparable collective humanity, regardless of human-created boundaries?

More substantively, might we see the early reports of decreased air pollution due to this situation continue for the weeks or months this endures and realize that substantive progress on climate change is possible if we recognize the difference between essential and non-essential carbon-consuming activities? Could the once-unimaginable international coordination we are witnessing rekindle our collective hope in unified action for any number of good causes? If we can come together against a threat to us all, could world peace be less remote a dream than we might think?

Conversely, we should be cognizant, as well, that the vast power of the state – our state, every state – to effectively shut down entire societies and economies represents a unique global event. It is done in this case, of course, for the right reasons. But could a less-than-benevolent leader, tasting this level of control, envision ways to use it for their own purposes and against the common good? Might one use coronavirus as justification to delay or cancel elections?

There are a great number of question marks in this week’s editorial. The point here is not to play Nostradamus but to remind ourselves to question. At Passover, in whatever virtual or altered form we celebrate this year, we will ask questions for which we know the answers, and have been pondering for millennia. As this unprecedented time of humankind proceeds, we should remember to continue asking. How will this experience change us? What good might come of it? How can we ameliorate the terrible things that seem to be nearing their peak? Who might be trying to exploit this situation for ill and who is modeling the best of human kindness?

For more information and updates from the B.C. Centre for Disease Control and Canada’s public health authorities, visit covid-19.bccdc.ca and canada.ca/en/public-health/services/diseases/2019-novel-coronavirus-infection/prevention-risks.html, respectively.

Spring cleaning

Crews from the office of the Rabbi of the Western Wall remove tens of thousands of written prayers from the Western Wall. (photo by Gil Zohar)

On April 10, equipped with long sticks, crews from the office of the Rabbi of the Western Wall removed tens of thousands of written prayers, which worshippers had wedged into crevices at the holy site over the previous half year. The painstaking work is done twice annually, in advance of Passover in April and Rosh Hashanah in September, to ensure space for new prayers. The notes that are removed are buried in Mount of Olives Cemetery.

The origin of the practice of placing small folded sheets of paper between the cracks of the 2,000-year-old ashlars is unclear. According to tradition, God’s female presence (Shechinah), has never left the holy site.

A retaining wall of the Temple Mount, built by King Solomon circa 960 BCE and destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE, the Kotel Maaravi (Western Wall) stands today beneath a religious plaza known in Arabic to Muslims as al-Haram ash-Sharif (the Noble Sanctuary). Jews believe the holy hill marks the navel of the world from where God began his creation 5779 years ago; the site also marks where Abraham brought his son Isaac to offer him up as a sacrifice. Muslims consider the Western Wall to be where Muhammad tethered his winged steed al-Burak when he ascended to the Seventh Heaven. And Christians believe Jesus was one of the millions of Jewish pilgrims in antiquity who came here during the festivals of Passover, Tabernacles and Pentecost.

From 1948 until 1967, when East Jerusalem was under the control of Jordan, Israelis were prohibited from visiting the site.

Gil Zohar is a journalist based in Jerusalem.

Together on path to freedom

Passover is coming! As we prepare, we think of what it means to be enslaved and to be free. Some seders focus on human rights. Others read and discuss Jewish texts about how to understand the holiday. Every year, we re-examine not only how good the foods are, but the ideas around slavery and redemption.

At one of my first Jewish events in Winnipeg, 10 years ago, I heard racist comments about indigenous Canadians. I was really upset by the incident. I was so uncomfortable that I still remember the experience in detail, even though I’ve forgotten a lot of other things over time.

I recently attended some of the lectures in an extremely worthwhile series put on by Westworth United Church called Interfaith Dialogue on Truth and Reconciliation. Each year, in the springtime during Lent, this church offers some of the best adult education programming I’ve ever attended and they welcome the entire community. The topics are thoughtful but, even more important, participants come ready to wrestle with hard intellectual and emotional ideas. I was introduced to it because Dr. Ruth Ashrafi has been a speaker as part of this programming more than once, and I’m hooked.

This year, the series was held in four different locations throughout the community, including Congregation Etz Chayim, Westworth United Church, as well as at one of the mosques and at a Buddhist Temple. It was so well attended that it filled the pews – wherever it was held.

Each session, a religious leader spoke, but he or she spoke at the lectern of a different congregation. Dr. Shahina Siddiqui spoke at Etz Chayim. Ashrafi spoke at Westworth United. It was powerful to see people of different faiths take to different pulpits. These leaders spoke, in the context of their religious traditions, on their status as Canadians or newcomers to a place with a heavy past of racism toward and discrimination and neglect of its indigenous people.

The most shattering part of the series was to hear from indigenous elders. I only attended two of the events, and heard Theodore Fontaine and Chickadee Richard speak. I cried while I listened to them. Their powerful personal, political and religious stories shook me.

These were bright, strong leaders with absolutely valid points about how they and their communities have been affected and mistreated by Canadian law and society. Their beliefs and prayers – about caring for Mother Earth, about protecting water and guarding the lives of those they love – are no different than those of other religious traditions in Canada. Yet, there are still indigenous communities who are forced to live in terrible conditions, without access to clean water and without adequate education or health care. How can people of faith accept this dichotomy? How is it that the first people in Canada don’t have access to the basic human rights that most of the rest of us enjoy?

After each set of lectures, we were sorted into random discussion groups. In the first event, we were asked to imagine what it might have been like to experience residential school and how we felt we would have reacted. What would that have been like?

All around me, I heard older Canadians mention how they didn’t know, and that their history classes didn’t teach them what had happened. They struggled with this part of Canadian history. It’s a denial that seemed familiar from German accounts of the Second World War, when people said “they didn’t know” what was happening to the Jewish people in their communities.

I could see many parallels between the stories Theodore Fontaine told, of “going to the moon” and escaping the abuse by disassociating and going somewhere else in his mind, and the novel The Painted Bird, by Jerzy Kosinski, which describes the horrors experienced by a Jewish child during the Holocaust. Trauma causes us (humans) to do many of the same things, even if our religious and ethnic identities differ.

Many of us know that the trauma of the Holocaust doesn’t go away in one or two generations. Those indigenous Canadians who were sent away from their families to residential schools, where they were abused, fed poorly and otherwise mistreated – their trauma has affected their families for generations. Jerzy Kosinski dealt with his childhood Holocaust trauma through substance abuse and, eventually, suicide. It’s no wonder that many indigenous survivors do the same.

Passover is a time of year, like the High Holidays, where we throw off wrongs and bitterness in the hope of embracing new growth and change. We can throw off the bondage of old biases or ideas that have enslaved us. Prejudice against indigenous people, their traditions and the burden of past abuses needs to be addressed – by all of us.

At the end of the lecture series, the facilitators asked variants of this question: “What will you do in the next year to address reconciliation, promote diversity and inclusion, and to make change?” My commitment was to be brave in speaking out about these issues.

Now, I’m turning over the question to you. What will you do, as a person of faith, to make change? Start by reading the 94 recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Call to Action. Write to your politicians to protect the water, the earth and the peoples who came to Canada first. Go to a powwow or a reconciliation discussion. Look others, no matter who they are, in the eye and greet them with loving kindness. In short – do more. It’s the Jewish thing to do.

Remember – we were slaves in the land of Egypt and now we’re free. Free to step up, speak up and help others along the path to equal rights, respect and freedom.

Joanne Seiff has written regularly for CBC Manitoba and various Jewish publications. She is the author of three books, including From the Outside In: Jewish Post Columns 2015-2016, a collection of essays available for digital download or as a paperback from Amazon. See more about her at joanneseiff.blogspot.com.

Balabusta preps for Pesach

Harvey’s charoset pyramid. (photo by Shelley Civkin)

As the Torah commands us, we tell the story of Passover and the Israelites’ exodus from slavery in Egypt to our children and ourselves every year, by reading from the Haggadah. Coming from a secular home, I don’t recall our family owning a single Haggadah. Instead, my father had a little black notebook in which he wrote down the story of Passover and the Jews’ exodus from Egypt. It took about five minutes for Dad to read it, and then we had our seder. It wasn’t particularly traditional, but it was meaningful nonetheless.

On the all-encompassing journey called Yiddishkeit, preparing for Passover scores about an 18/10 on the commitment scale. Between the feathers and flashlights, flourless sponge cakes and briskets, a balabusta has her work cut out for her. And then some.

As an accidental balabusta and relative neophyte to traditional Passover preparations, I want to get with the program as much as possible. I scared myself the other day though, by reading articles about what goes into getting ready for this significant holiday. One such article – called “Cook your Pesach while you sleep” – was particularly troubling. It seems to me that a Pesadik balabusta requires at least 36 hours in every day to prepare her food for the seder, a month ahead of time. She might also require a housekeeper to do all the laundry and clean the house while she’s tethered to the kitchen, cutting, peeling, blanching, baking and roasting the eight-course meals she’ll serve to her 42 guests over the two nights of Passover. Oh, and did I mention the other two minor meals she needs to organize daily for her family during the eight days of the holiday? Holy flourless kugel, Batman!

And then there’s the issue of finding and removing all the chametz from your home. Let me confess something right from the get-go: I am not an observant Jew in the strict sense of the word. I do observe certain things, like going to synagogue every Shabbat, lighting Shabbat candles, doing the odd mitzvah, and studying a little Torah. That’s about the extent of it. I refrain from eating chametz during Pesach, but I have never actually removed all the chametz from my home before the holiday. And I don’t keep kosher. However, I do eat matzah religiously during Pesach. And I kind of have a crush on shmurah matzah.

As for that age-old shmurah versus Manischewitz matzah debate … I wholeheartedly throw my vote behind shmurah. Yes, it’s expensive, but it’s so worth it. Having visited Kfar Chabad on our trip to Israel last year, we went to their shmurah matzah factory and witnessed how the matzah is made by hand. Seeing the meticulous precision with which everything is measured, timed and baked, it was a fascinating and educational experience. And did I mention its unique flavour and round shape? Sure, parts of it can be burnt, but that just enhances the taste. Once you go shmurah, you’ll never go back.

I’m the kind of accidental balabusta that, instead of making matzah ball soup, brisket, tzimmes and macaroons for Pesach, I’m inclined to make hotel reservations in Whistler and call it a day. There’s no need for me to be Jewish Wonder Woman. Gal Godot has that covered. I know, not every woman who prepares for Pesach considers herself Wonder Woman. But, given the magnitude of preparation that must get done in advance – and done to rigorous standards – I’m pretty sure that devotedly observant women qualify for that title. As for me, I’ll do the best I can to honour the traditions, prepare a welcoming and tasty seder for my family, then enjoy a plotzfest.

Preparing for Pesach can be dangerous though. A couple of years ago, I decided to forgo the store-bought chrain (horseradish) and make my own. I found a recipe, then went out and bought the fresh horseradish root. It looked innocent enough. From a distance. Nobody told me that taking a close-up whiff of newly pulverized horseradish root is akin to inhaling mustard gas. I thought I’d burned my lungs. Sure, it produced that unrivaled heat I always admire in a memorable horseradish. However, it almost knocked me out. This Pesach, I plan to simplify the process by buying horseradish. And saving my lungs for more important things … like breathing.

On the topic of food … my husband Harvey makes the ultimate Passover crowd-pleaser: a visually stunning, delicious pyramid-shaped charoset. He got the recipe decades ago from the L.A. Times. It never fails to impress guests. Here’s the recipe.

HARVEY’S CHAROSET PYRAMID

1 unpeeled pear, cored and chopped roughly
1 unpeeled apple, cored and chopped roughly
1 cup chopped walnuts
1 cup chopped almonds
1 cup chopped hazelnuts
1 cup chopped pistachios
1 cup chopped pitted dates
1 cup chopped raisins
2 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp grated fresh ginger
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
sweet wine, preferably Manischewitz (about 1/4 cup)
extra dates to decorate the plate

  1. Put all the nuts in food processor and chop, but not too finely. Place in a bowl.
  2. Put dates and raisins in food processor and chop, but not too finely. Place in separate bowl.
  3. Core and roughly chop apple and pear by hand, then put in the food processor, along with the nuts, and the raisin and date mixture. Add cinnamon, ginger, apple cider vinegar and wine. Chop till it’s all mixed together. Be careful not to overdo it – you don’t want it mushy.
  4. Remove it all from the food processor and shape it into a pyramid with a spatula. Then use a small, sharp knife to lightly make “brick” shapes in the pyramid. Refrigerate. Put whole dates around the outside before serving.

For another Passover culinary experience, check out Jamie Geller’s recipe for potato kugel cups at joyofkosher.com/recipes/potato-kugel-cups. You can YouTube it, too. If you’re not afraid of hot oil in a 425°F oven, this recipe will knock your Pesach socks off. Personally, scorching hot oil makes me a bit skittish. But the result is potato heaven.

As Pesach approaches, it’s a time to clean house, both literally and spiritually. It’s a time to remember how blessed we are in our freedom as Jews today. And it’s a time to hold close our traditions, pass along the story of our exodus from Egypt to the younger generation, and be thankful for where we are now.

So, eat the matzah and bitter herbs and drink those four cups of wine. Then go out and buy lots of Metamucil. Because you’re going to need it after eight days of matzah. But check with your rabbi first to make sure Metamucil is kosher for Pesach.

Wishing you all a meaningful and freilach Pesach.

Shelley Civkin, aka the Accidental Balabusta, is a happily retired librarian and communications officer. For 17 years, she wrote a weekly book review column for the Richmond Review, and currently writes a bi-weekly column about retirement for the Richmond News.