Does anyone think our ancestors, upon leaving Egypt, ate the matzas we pay twenty bucks a pound for?
My brother's friend has a great point about the "zecher l'mikdash k'Hillel" of the Haggadah. We eat a leaf of lettuce (or a bush, if you hold of the Chazon Ish's Shiur) on a cracker with some horseradish. And we proclaim "zecher l'mikdash k'Hillel, kein asu Hillel b'zman sh'beish hamikdash kayam..."
Meanwhile, Hillel was a Sfardi. He didn't eat no darn crackers. There was a beis hamikdash, so there was the korban pesach. So he was eating a shwarma laffa with charif. And we sit here saying zecher l'mikdash k'Hillel. Sheesh.
So why DO we eat those crackers?
Because people went off the rails. Just in case, if some of the dough might have risen, and we might be oiver on a d'oiraisah of chometz on pesach, maybe we should cook them so thoroughly that there can be no ch'shash of chometz. So now we have crackers.
[Of course, this has since spread to the new thing about eating matza in bags to make sure no crumbs fall on the table, which might be specks of spots in the matza that have yeast still on it, and if then water or other liquids fall on them, they would turn to chometz. I am not going to comment on that, because I think my description is comment enough.]
Perhaps Pesach and its freedom are about being able to make choices and decisions that matter, instead of choosing to further run off the rails and reservation.
Choices, those which shape who we are (as individuals and as a nation), are the ultimate freedom we have. The "ein ben chorin elah mi sh'osek ba'Torah" MEANS being able to make these choices, being able to think and debate amongst different options and opportunities and choose the one that is who you are and who you are becoming. It means nothing is sacred as much as everything is - and the choice itself IS what makes it sacred.
It is this freedom we celebrate, we revisit each year, and we reconnect with every Pesach.
Hopefully, this Pesach will be one that we can all become truly free - free from those who seek to harm us, free from those things that we are slaves to (be they addictions, dependencies, or debts of money or spirit), but most of all - free from ourselves, our ridiculous tendencies to enslave ourselves.
Proof that Hillel did NOT eat shwarma:
ReplyDeleteShwarma is chometz. Do you think Hillel ate chometz? Of course not! Obviously, he didn't eat shwarma...
In all seriousness, you are correct. When Judaism went from being a nationality-religion to being a religion based on legislated law, following the letter of the law took on more of an emphasis than what the law is meant to represent. It's a natural process of religious evolution that requires a concerted effort to not be drawn into.
Either way, the way we make matza is not likely to go back to what it was. Personally, I wouldn't find meaning in eating laffa on pesach- there is something about the current incarnation of matza that makes it so...pesach.
But we do need to ask ourselves how far we are willing to take stringencies before they become meaningless.
Yeah, there is something about meat, potatoes, and matza that is inherently pesach.
ReplyDeleteTo clarify, I dont know if we SHOULD go back to the matzos of old - why abrogate a thousand years of Jewish evolution? I only meant to bring up the point that we have gone off the rails, and continue to travel at breakneck speed off of them, with no realization that the track was heading somewhere else.
And in regards to following stringencies until they become meaningless, there is an amazing article/paper by Moshe Koppel called "Judasim as a First Language" (http://www.azure.org.il/article.php?id=588) that has a brilliant point about that concept. I loved it :)
I came up with that bit about koriech too. Although I envisioned it as lamb with lettuce and maybe some horseradish too, as romaine lettuce is more preferable as maror. Of course I believe that what they ate was basically a laffah, here's the problem though, and it's not halachic but logistic: If you've ever had a plain bread you'll notice that they go stale very fast. My leftover Fairway baguette (which is supposed to be only water, flour, yeast, and salt) from yesterday was already quite hard today. There were no freezers for storage as the sellers of soft matzah instruct today. Hence the development of crackers.
ReplyDeleteRegarding the comments above, that it's not "Pesach" without hard matzah or whatever, I want to point out that while that's how you may feel it has no bearing on anything. There are many people for whom it's not Pesach without Manischewitz or brisket with tzimmes, but that meaning is only for them and doesn't change things for everyone else.
The source of baking matzot "rekikin" is a Rema in Shulchan Aruch (460:4), and he makes no reference to said logistical issue. He says it is because "they do not rise quickly."
DeleteEven if you are right, it is certainly not the case today. We all own fridges. And I daresay you are probably not going to eat laffa matza, nor even bring it into your house on Pesach. So there is the "hmmm, maybe it is chametz" thing there in some fashion.
And lastly, the sentimental comments about crackers being pesach are exactly that - sentimental. I dont think it was intended to be any sort of definition for Pesach any more than trips to Hershey Park.
Oh - who the heck would mix brisket and tzimmes?? ;)
I think AH got a little confused, the freezer issue is not that they will get stale, its that BEACAUSE they would get stale people would bake them on Pesach where the slightest water will make them Chametz. Now that we can bake them before we can begin to be able to rely on BETAL B'SHISHIM to say they are "mostly" not Chametz which can not be used on Pesach itself. Either way it is still a very complicated presedure to bake them properly and can only be done if your sure you'll do it propperlly
ReplyDeleteSo not "off the rails" but trying to keep our 2,000 yr tradition of no chometz on Pesach
ReplyDelete