April 2008

I am intrigued by the details of permitted and forbidden foods during the week of Passover. I love our Jewish tradition’s desire for precision and specificity, and this food issue allows us to see the tradition operating at full force!

The issue, of course, is that we are not to eat chametz -- any food that's made of grain and liquid that has been allowed to ferment and therefore rise. More than that, we are not to even possess in our homes any trace of leavening. The idea is that if even a drop of liquid were to mix with one of five specific grains, fermentation would spontaneously begin because of the yeast naturally found in the air.

So to be sure there is no inadvertent leavening, we get rid of (nor do we eat) everything made with wheat, rye, barley, oats or spelt (a grain popular in the Middle East). Everything.  Oatmeal, pasta, cereal, frozen pizzas, cookies, breaded fish sticks, beer and other alcohol.  Everything. 

So how come we can eat matzo made with wheat? Because the rabbis have decreed that spontaneous leavening takes more than 18 minutes to begin, so matzo and other Passover foods made with these five grains are mixed with liquid and baked in less than 18 minutes. “What about baking with matzo meal?” you might ask.  Answer:  once matzo or matzo meal has been properly made, it can be reused in cooking without considering how long it has been in contact with liquid at this point.

“So what’s the deal with rice, corn and legumes? Why can’t we eat them during Passover?”  Good question. The best answer is: “Tradition!”  We first learn about this custom from a 13th century debate in France, although it appears that the practice was already well-established. The reason for this extended prohibition is lost in the mists of time even though various authorities cite one theory or another, most of which have to do with the possibility of mistaking or mixing these “ok” foods with the five grains listed above.

As many of you know, Sephardic Jews are more relaxed than the Ashkenazi in this regard, eating legumes, corn and rice without guilt throughout Passover.

Before we get too lost in the details about Passover do’s and do not’s, let’s keep in mind what the holiday is all about. Each year we remember what it was like to be a slave, to be oppressed, to be poor and subjugated. We eat matzo which the haggadah calls “the bread of affliction.”  But it is also the bread of freedom, the hastily-baked loaves that did not have time to rise because we left Egypt in such a hurry.

We spend the week of Passover being aware--with every bite of food, with every glance in the refrigerator or cupboard--of our humble beginnings.  For a week we are reminded with each meal of our obligation to be kind to the stranger because we were strangers in Egypt.  Through our choices of what foods we eat and what foods we shun (whether our custom is Ashkenazi or Sephardic) we become participants in our people’s drama of freedom and social responsibility that began over three millennia ago. 

Therefore we sing at our seder as we munch on matzo:  “Avadim hayinu, ata, ata, b’nei chorin:  We were slaves, and now, and now, we are free!”

. L’Shalom,
Rabbi Helen