symbolism

Shattering complacency

The existential themes of the High Holidays are meant to create a sensitivity and appreciation of the precious significance of everyday existence. (Jordan Gillard Photography)

The themes of death and the “thinness” of human existence recur in the liturgy of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur and during the entire period, beginning with the month of Elul. This is not because of a morbid desire to undermine human confidence and autonomy or to shock us into fearing God out of a sense of helplessness and sin. The existential themes of the High Holidays are meant to create a sensitivity and appreciation of the precious significance of everyday existence.

Existentialists spoke about confronting one’s mortality as a necessary condition for achieving human authenticity. Although a preoccupation with death can create nihilism and a paralyzing sense of the futility of human initiative, nevertheless, the Jewish tradition believed that the themes of human mortality and finitude could be integrated into a constructive and life-affirming vision of life.

The language of the Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur prayers, such as the explicit enumeration of the different ways that a human life can be destroyed, is not meant to terrorize us into self-negating submission. The stark, evocative imagery of the liturgy is aimed primarily at shattering complacency. The impact of this experience can be life-affirming insofar as it serves as a catalyst in a process of self-creation and moral renewal.

Focusing on human mortality and the contingencies that wreak havoc upon human lives heightens our sensitivity to the deadening effects of habit and routine. People often deceive themselves into believing that they can successfully defer living the kind of lives they consider worthwhile until some future time. While not questioning the importance of reflecting on the meaning of one’s life, they believe they can postpone dealing with this issue.

“Why become confused and troubled by the meaning of my life now? I can deal with it later, when I retire, when economic realities are more favourable, when I will be free of parental responsibilities.…” This attitude is naïve and self-deceptive because it ignores the real consequences of present patterns of behaviour and learning that can weaken and that ultimately extinguishes one’s natural capacity to live life deeply and seriously.

Another theme of Yom Kippur, teshuvah, is expressed in the call to return, to renew, to re-create one’s self, and in the appeal for divine forgiveness and atonement, in the recitation of “for the sin we have sinned …” and other confessional sections of the liturgy. The essence of teshuvah – the crucial principle without which this concept would be empty of meaning – is the belief that the past need not define the future. A person can break the causal chain of habit and defy the seeming necessity of repetition that suffocates spontaneity and the joy of life.

The call to teshuvah, therefore, is expressed not only in the plea to God for forgiveness and in the affirmation of God’s gracious love and reluctance to mete out punishment and retribution, but also, and most poignantly, in the repeated attempts at convincing the individual to believe in the possibility of change. The personal significance of Yom Kippur ultimately turns on the individual’s ability to believe that his or her life can be different. The major obstacle to teshuvah is not whether God will forgive us but whether we can forgive ourselves – whether we can believe in our own ability to change the direction of our lives, even minimally.

Teshuvah is grounded in the idea of an open future, in the belief that the possibilities for human change have not been exhausted, that the final chapters of our personal narratives have not yet been written. The sense of empowerment felt on Yom Kippur reflects an underlying faith in the power of the human will to break the fixed cycles of the past and to chart new possibilities for the future.

Many scholars who take issue with translating God’s name, ehyeh asher ehyeh, which was revealed to Moses at the burning bush as “I am that I am,” insist on emphasizing the future orientation of the verb ehyeh, “I will be.” For many, the Jewish concept of God must convey the idea of newness – of new spiritual possibilities in the future, of new ways of understanding and of relating to God. To sense the presence of God in one’s life is to believe in the possibility of radical surprise and of genuine human change.

Communal forms of worship must not be allowed to degenerate into automated, mind-numbing exercises in herd conformity. Our rabbis taught that, although Jews stood as a people at Mt. Sinai, each individual personally appropriated the word of God. We must not be intimidated by the High Holiday prayer book. Although we share a common liturgy, we must be capable of appropriating its significance in terms of our individual lives and concerns. Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur challenge us to discover the meaning of personal authenticity and self-renewal within the context of community.

Rabbi Prof. David Hartman (1931-2013) was founder of the Shalom Hartman Institute. This article was first published in September 2009. Articles by Hartman, z”l, and other institute scholars can be found at shalomhartman.org.

About this year’s Passover cover art

For the this year, Steveston, B.C., artist Merle Linde, chose to create a Haggadah cover that would look old and hand drawn. To achieve this authentic feeling, Linde used Taiwan linen paper, traditional Chinese watercolour paints and brushes.

The calligraphy letters in solid black Hebrew-like text feature peacock blue flashes, often seen in antique manuscripts. Yom Tov candles sit on candleholders that borrow their design from ancient Egyptian columns. The traditional Four Cups of Wine are inspired by a set of old silverware featuring raised grapevine leaves and grapes. And a silver seder plate holder has space for the three traditional shmura matzot, the shank bone, the burnt egg, haroset, bitter herbs, green vegetable and salt water for dipping.

Chag Pesach sameach.

Customs from around world

There are as many ways of celebrating Passover and the Pesach seder as there are Jews, and then some. Over the years, I have collected articles on different customs from around the world. Here are just some of the traditions surrounding food and the seder that I found unique.

Afghanistan

Haroset may contain walnuts, hazelnuts, almonds, pomegranates, apples, sweet wine and black pepper. The seder meal begins with arak-like liqueur, hard-boiled eggs, fruit, cucumbers, fried fish, cold omelette, lettuce and potato pancakes. The main course is meat soup with vegetables then fruit and nuts. The seder in Afghanistan was conducted with people sitting on carpets.

Belgium

Sedarim were communal in small towns, conducted according to Orthodox customs. Chickens and meat were killed according to kashrut, and live carp swam in the bathtub until it was time to make the gefilte fish.

China

Passover candy called pasla was made of minced prunes, boiled in honey with nuts dropped in. When it began to harden, it was rolled up, so there would be nuts on the inside and outside, and sliced.

Cuba

The oldest member held the seder for the entire family, with all the food home-made except for the matzah, which was imported.

Egypt

Haroset is made with raisins and dates or figs mixed with wine and chopped walnuts. Raisins were also used to make wine. For the meal, there would be fish with lemon sauce, meat casserole and matzah, as well as meat-and-leek patties.

Jews of Egyptian-descent wrap the matzot in a sack-like package, which is passed to each member of the seder. While each member holds the sack in turn, the other attendees ask him in Arabic: “Where are you coming from?” to which he replies, “From Egypt.” “What are you carrying?” they ask. “Matzot.” “Where are you going?” “Jerusalem.”

Ethiopia

Everyone made their own matzah consisting of wheat or legume flour, water and salt, baked in very thin slices and eaten almost immediately to eliminate the possibility of leavening. They also interpreted the Hebrew word hametz, to rise or leaven, to mean kept or not fresh, so they would only eat fresh produce, fresh milk and freshly slaughtered meat.

Since the Ethiopian Jewish community – believed to be either descendants of the Israelite tribe of Dan or progeny of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba – practised a pre-talmudic form of Judaism, the Ethiopian seder was a less-structured affair with an informal, festival air, more like a springtime celebration. Events were focused on those in the Torah – the slaughtering of the paschal lamb, the Ten Plagues and Exodus itself. Since arriving in Israel, many families recount their own exodus from Ethiopia as part of the seder.

Germany

Men wore kittels for the seder. Sauerkraut was part of the meal along with kloesse, a dish made of soaked matzah, eggs and fried onions, made into a big ball and cooked in boiling water. This was eaten in place of potatoes, topped with brisket gravy.

Greece

Popular seder dishes include roast leg of lamb strongly flavoured with garlic; lamb pie with the animal’s heart, liver, lungs, kidney and intestines inside; and lamb stew with artichokes, served with an egg and lemon sauce.

India

The seder meal consisted of spinach baked with eggs, fried matzah with leeks and eggs, and a pudding made of matzah, meat and eggs. The seder plate was passed around the table, and each guest held it for a minute above their heads.

Iran

The youngest member of the family conducts the seder. When the plagues are mentioned, a pinch of salt is added to the wine. During the song “Dayenu,” long-stemmed onions are put together in a bunch and one person “whips” the person next to them and then passes on the bunch of onions, to be similarly used by all the guests, until the onions make their way around the table. Often family members act out the Exodus, sometimes in costumes.

Italy

Squares of matzah, soaked in capon broth, browned in goose fat and baked in alternating layers with cooked greens or poultry giblets was a seder favourite. Other unusual Italian dishes are rib chops from lambs, ground chicken or ground beef meatballs.

In Venice, the squares were cooked in a pan with legumes such as peas, fava beans or lentils. Venice was famous for unleavened cakes in the shape of snakes, unleavened cakes stuffed with marzipan and doughnuts rolled in sugar and cinnamon.

Passover pasta in broth, boiled meat with goose salami, salad and a marzipan or matzah meal dessert and quince preserves were part of the Urbino seder.

Boiled chestnuts were used in haroset in northern Italy. Tuscan Jews made matzah and egg cakes. Ferrara Jews made matzah fritters with egg, honey, cinnamon, candied citron, pine nuts and raisins. Jews in Rome made lemon sorbet, almond cookies and wet matzah, squeezed dry and fried in olive oil then served with pine nuts, raisins and heated honey.

The table is adorned with long-stemmed green onions. During the chorus of “Dayenu,” everyone picks up their onion and “whips” the wrist of someone adjacent to them. This is meant to represent the sounds of whips of the slave masters in Egypt.

Mexico

No dairy products are used during Passover, tea is drunk instead of coffee and the seder meal is hot and spicy.

Morocco

Matzah is handmade, placed in ovens and allowed to cook for only five minutes. Tagine with lamb and almonds, prunes, saffron, cinnamon, ginger and honey is a Passover mainstay, as are truffles.

The seder plate was held over each person’s head while the others at the table recited in Arabic, “Just as G-d took us out of Egypt and split the sea for us, so may he save us today.”

Based in kabbalah, Jewish mysticism, they divided the soft doughy matzah they eat into the shapes of the Hebrew letters daled and vav; daled stands for doorposts of Israel that G-d watched over and vav is a symbol for G-d’s name.

Netherlands

Prior to a seder meal, a dish of sauerkraut or chard mashed with potatoes and accompanied by cold corned beef was served. For the seder, matzah balls in soup and roast meat or chicken was served. Haroset was nuts, raisins, apples, sweet wine, cinnamon and sugar. A second seder meal was dairy with matzah, butter, cheese, sometimes fish cakes, coffee and cake of ground nuts or mashed potatoes. Matzah pancakes with apple sauce or pareve lemon cream was also served. Tongue with meatballs was part of some people’s Passover meals.

Rhodes

Romaine lettuce was used instead of horseradish. Fish with a Greek-style lemon sauce or cooked with tomato sauce, or with rhubarb and tomatoes, is served at the seder meal.

Syria

Seder foods include lamb shanks and rice; haroset made from dried fruits, sweet wine, cinnamon and crushed walnuts; spinach-mint soup; and flourless pistachio cookies.

Tunisia

Lamb stew with leeks, spinach, peas, fennel, carrots, artichokes, turnips, cabbage, celery, potatoes and zucchini are flavoured with cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, salt, pepper, cilantro, dill and mint for Passover.

Yemen

The entire table is made into one big seder plate, with a border of parsley leaves all along the edges. The matzah resembles pita because they believe that, as long as the dough is continuously kneaded, it will not turn into hametz.

Sybil Kaplan is a Jerusalem-based journalist and author. She has edited/compiled nine kosher cookbooks and is a food writer for North American Jewish publications. She leads walks of the Jewish food market, Machaneh Yehudah, in English.

Importance of food in celebration

A round challah symbolizes a long life, or the unbroken circle of the full new year to come. (photo by Przemyslaw Wierzbowski)

On Rosh Hashanah, we are supposed to feast. Why? This is said to come from the passage in the book of Nehemiah (8:10): “Go your way, eat the fat and drink the sweet, and send portions unto him for whom nothing is prepared; for this day is holy unto our lord.”

Round, sweet challah

The most common Rosh Hashanah custom for Ashkenazi Jews is the making of sweet challah, primarily round in shape, to symbolize a long life or the unbroken circle of the full new year to come. Some people place a ladder made of dough on top of the loaf, so our prayers may ascend to heaven, or because it is decided on Rosh Hashanah “who shall be exalted and who shall be brought low.” Some place a bird made of dough on top, derived from the phrase in Isaiah: “as birds hovering so will the Lord of Hosts protect Jerusalem.”

According to John Cooper, in Eat and Be Satisfied: A Social History of Jewish Food, the tradition in disparate Jewish communities of baking fresh loaves of bread on a Friday morning has its roots in the talmudic era. The custom was ignored by medieval rabbinic commentators, he writes, but was revived by the Leket Yosher, a report compiled by Joseph ben Moses in the 1400s on the teachings and practices of his teacher, Austrian Rabbi Israel Isserlin; and by Rabbi Moses Isserles, the 16th-century Polish scholar of halachah, at the end of the Middle Ages.

According to Jewish tradition, the three Sabbath meals (Friday night, Saturday lunch and Saturday late afternoon) and two holiday meals (one at night and lunch the following day) each begin with two complete loaves of bread. This “double loaf” (lechem mishneh) commemorates the manna that fell from the heavens when the Israelites wandered in the desert after the Exodus. The manna did not fall on Sabbath or holidays; instead, a double portion would fall the day before the holiday or Sabbath.

Pomegranate blessings

photo - The pomegranate is eaten to remind us that G-d should multiply our credit of good deeds, like the seeds of the fruit — The pomegranate is eaten to remind us that G-d should multiply our credit of good deeds, like the seeds of the fruit. (photo from pxhere.com)

On the second evening of Rosh Hashanah, it is customary to eat a new fruit not yet eaten in the season and recite the Shehechiyanu, a prayer of thanksgiving for the first time something happens. It is said that, in Europe, this fruit was often grapes; in Israel today and around the diaspora, it is often the pomegranate.

The pomegranate is eaten to remind us that G-d should multiply our credit of good deeds, like the seeds of the fruit. For many Jews, pomegranates are traditional for Rosh Hashanah. Some believe the dull and leathery skinned crimson fruit may have really been the tapuach, apple, of the Garden of Eden. The word pomegranate means “grained apple.” In Hebrew, it is called rimon – also the word for a hand grenade!

Some say each pomegranate has 613 seeds for the 613 mitzvot, or good deeds, we should observe.

Symbolism of fish

The first course of the Rosh Hashanah holiday meal is often fish. Fish is symbolic of fruitfulness: “may we be fruitful and multiply like fish.” Fish is also a symbol of immortality, a good theme for the New Year, as are the ideas that we should aim to be a leader (the head) and that we hope for the best (to be at the top). Another reason for serving fish might be that the numerical value of the letters of the Hebrew word for fish, dag, is seven and Rosh Hashanah begins on the seventh month of the year.

Importance of tzimmes

Tzimmes is a stew made with or without meat and usually with prunes and carrots. It is common among Ashkenazi Jews, particularly those from Eastern Europe and Poland, and its origins date back to Medieval times. It became associated with Rosh Hashanah because the Yiddish word for carrot is mehren, which is similar to mehrn, which means to increase. The idea was to increase one’s merits at this time of year. Another explanation for eating tzimmes with carrots for Rosh Hashanah is that the German word for carrot was a pun on the Hebrew word, which meant to increase.

Tzimmes also has come into the vernacular as meaning to make a fuss or big deal. As in, they’re making such a tzimmes out of everything.

Lekach & other sweets

Among Ashkenazim, sweet desserts for Rosh Hashanah are customary, particularly lekach, or honey cake, and teiglach, the hard, doughy, honey and nut cookie. Some say the origin of the sweets comes from the passage in the book of Hosea (3:1): “love cakes of raisins.” There is also a passage in Samuel II (6:10) that talks about the multitudes of Israel, men and women, “to every one a cake of bread and a cake made in a pan and a sweet cake.”

Ezra was the fifth-century BCE religious leader who was commissioned by the Persian king to direct Jewish affairs in Judea and Nehemiah was a political leader and cup bearer of the king in the fifth century BCE. They are credited with telling the returned exiles to eat and drink sweet things.

According to Cooper’s Eat and Be Satisfied, references to honey cake were made in the 12th century by a French sage, Simcha of Vitry, author of the Machzor Vitry, and by the 12th-century German rabbi, Eleazar Judah ben Kalonymos. By the 16th century, lekach was known as a Rosh Hashanah sweet.

Among the Lubavitch Chassidim, it was customary for the rebbe to distribute lekach to his followers; others would request a piece of honey cake from one another on Erev Yom Kippur. This transaction symbolized a substitute for any charity the person might choose to receive, like the traditional kapparot ceremony, where, before Yom Kippur, one transfers their sins to a chicken.

Some Sephardi customs

Food customs differ among Jews whose ancestors came from Spain and Portugal, the Mediterranean area and primarily Muslim Arab countries. For example, whereas Ashkenazim dip apple in honey, some Sephardim traditionally serve mansanada, an apple compote, as an appetizer and dessert, according to Gil Marks (z”l) in The World of Jewish Desserts.

Just as gefilte fish became a classic dish for the Ashkenazi Jews, baked sheep’s head became a symbol – dating back to the Middle Ages – for many Sephardi Jews for Rosh Hashanah. Some groups merely serve sheep brains or tongue, or a whole fish (with head), probably for the same reason – fruitfulness and prosperity and new wishes for the New Year for knowledge or leadership.

The Talmud mentions the foods to be eaten on Rosh Hashanah as fenugreek, leeks, beets, dates and gourds, although Jewish communities interpret these differently. According to Rabbi Robert Sternberg in The Sephardic Kitchen, Sephardi Jews have a special ceremony around these and sometimes other foods, wherein each one is blessed with a prayer beginning “Yehi ratzon” (Hebrew for “May it be thy will”). The Yehi Ratzones custom involves preparing in advance and then blessing the Talmud-mentioned foods, or dishes made with the foods, as well as over the apples and honey, the fish or sheep head (some substitute a head of lettuce or of garlic) and pomegranate. In doing this, people recognize G-d’s sovereignty and hope He will hear their pleas for a good and prosperous year.

Sybil Kaplan is a Jerusalem-based journalist and author. She has edited/compiled nine kosher cookbooks and is a food writer for North American Jewish publications.

Symbols of New Year

Carrots represent the hope that Israel’s enemies will be “cut off,” or kept away. (photo by Stephen Ausmus / USARS via en.wikipedia.org)

Most Jews, religious or not, celebrate Passover, opening the holiday with a seder – fewer know that a seder is held on Rosh Hashanah, too. Being the year’s first meal, it gains higher importance in Jewish tradition and, therefore, should be special.

In the seder of Rosh Hashanah, a dedicated prayer is said, then a meal with symbolic foods is served, each food representing a different blessing for the people of Israel. Some of these foods have a unique prayer that is said prior to eating them. These foods differ slightly between communities, yet some are common, and are served on both religious and secular tables.

As some of the seder foods may stand for similar blessings, not all of them have been preserved among secular Jews. The most common traditional food served at Rosh Hashanah is an apple, dipped in honey; this custom represents a blessing for the year to be as sweet as honey. Gefilte fish is also served, usually having slightly sweet flavor, for the procreation of the people of Israel like the propagation of fish. On the gefilte fish, sliced carrots are placed, a symbol for Israel’s enemies to be “cut off.”

A fish head is displayed/served, symbolizing a blessing for the people of Israel to be the head and not the tail. This blessing has two meanings: (a) we will be the thinkers, the inventors; (b) we will gain leadership by moving forward, following our own will; not backwards, following other peoples’ will.

photo - Beets also represent the hope that Israel’s enemies will be kept away — Beets also represent the hope that Israel’s enemies will be kept away. *(photo by Jennifer Kleffner / Miles Away Farm via flickr.com)*

Sometimes, a beet or beet leaves are served for the removal of Israel’s enemies. A pomegranate is served, its many seeds symbolic of the many mitzvot that the Jewish people have and hope to continue to have.

Although linguistically not necessarily related historically, some of the foods are traditionally linked to their blessings by their Hebrew roots: the carrots placed on the gefilte fish are called gezer (pl. gzarim, root gzr) in Hebrew. The blessing of cutting off Israel’s enemies that is symbolized by the carrots makes use of the root gzr: “sheig az ru oyveynu,” “let our enemies be cut off.” The beet (leaves) is selek (root: slk); the related blessing: “she-is talku oyveynu ve-son’eynu,” “let our enemies and haters be gone,” is also represented by the same root slk, “remove.”

Other traditional foods either make use of a semantic feature of the original notion, or they have undergone a semantic shift to adapt to the holiday’s blessings. For example, we use the feature of quantity of the schools of fish for the parallel blessing: “shenifre ve-nirbe ke-dagim,” “let us procreate [literally: be fruitful and multiply] as fish.”

The fish head represents the brain, as well as the mind, which spiritually lies in the brain, and leadership, by being the head, the first in everything. This word gains a double meaning, as it appears in the name of the holiday, Rosh Hashanah, as well as in rishon, “first,” derived from rosh, “head.”

I wrote down some of these thoughts from my home shelter during the war. Let us hope to be blessed in the future with real rimonim (pomegranates’ fruit), and not rimone-yad (hand grenade). Let us bless southern Israeli fishermen to be able to continue fishing, and farmers to be able to continue selling their honey, carrots and beets, so that all of us can have a peaceful Rosh Hashanah seder. Happy New Year.

Nurit Dekel is an independent academic researcher of colloquial Israeli Hebrew, and principal linguist at NSC-Natural Speech Communication; author of Colloquial Israeli Hebrew: A Corpus-based Survey. She is based in southern Israel.