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Nisan, Passover, and the Ties that Bind

March 11, 2013 By Ketzirah

atlantainterfaithpassover

My teacher, Jill Hammer, posits that Passover is an initiation ritual. A ritual where we, as individuals are initiated into a tribe year after year, century after century, millennia after millenia. Really Passover is part of an extremely long initiation ritual that begins the night before Passover and ends at Shavuot — where we are transformed by accepting the Mitzvot and the relationship with the Holy One.

This long transformative period begins at the first of Nisan, which is know as the New Year of Kings. This is one of the four new years known on the Jewish calendar. It is the marker in time where we turn our thoughts to recommitting ourselves to the Holy One individually, but more importantly as a nation of people. To be a “king” you cannot just have an individual bound to you, but a full nation of people.

Most Passover seders are fun, family events that [Read more…]

Filed Under: Community Member Blogs, Judaism & Belief, Passover Tagged With: convert to judaism, convert to judaism online, darshan yeshiva, earth based judaism, initiation, Jewish, Judaism, ketzirah, kohenet, online conversion, Passover, patrick "aleph" beaulier, patrick aleph, Pesach, punktorah, rabbi beaulier, rabbi patrick aleph beaulier, ritual

That Darn Wicked Child

April 5, 2012 By punktorah

As we stand at the edge of what is arguably the biggest night in the Jewish calendar, I wanted to share one bit of learning I picked up this weekend from a local Rabbi.

We all have people in our lives who resemble the Rasha – the wicked child of those famous 4 children who make their appearance at this time of year. Heck, at one time or another (or many) in our lives we may even BE the wicked child: the one who is completely disaffected and disconnected; who stands apart – from the seder, from the family, from Judaism itself.

Reading through the four children, we GET this bad-boy of the seder.

So (asked the Rabbi), what is he DOING there? I mean, most people who don’t buy into Passover, or the seder, or Judaism don’t show up in the first place! But there he his, sitting with his sneer next to the Chocham (the wise child) and making snide remarks under his breath.

Methinks he doth protest too much.

I used to teach a parent-child class at my synagogue, to help kids prepare to write the d’var Torah for their Bar/Bat Mitzvah. There would always be one or two kids who would make all kinds of comments – to the embarrassment of the parent seated next to them. In response to the inevitable parental apologies, I would tell that parent it was more than OK – it was my pleasure. See, the kids could only make those comments if they were listening in the first place. As long as they were listening, I knew we were on the right track.

Ditto the wicket child. He’s there. He’s listening. He’s asking questions. What do his actions tell us, versus his words?

Another point the Rabbi brought up was that the Rabbis who structured the Haggadah put those kids in order of importance. Second only to the wise child, the wicket child is considered more favored than the simple child or the one who doesn’t know what to ask. I leave it to you to ponder why.

And my final item to share, in the hopes it sparks conversation around your table tonight: Those four children could easily represent the course of American immigration and assimilation. The wise child is our grandparents, who arrived here from Europe knowing all the traditions and rules they learned in the shtetle overseas. The wicked child is the first generation American, trying hard to distance themselves from all traces of “foreign-ness”. The next generation asks their (wicked) parent “What’s is that?” to which they are told “Be quiet. Bubbie’s crazy.”

And fourth generation (third generation American) is the child who doesn’t know how to ask. Far from a tragedy, this child is open to learn the fullness of our tradition fresh and new, if only we are willing to keep modeling these strange customs and weird holidays, providing experiences to learn and discover…

…until the moment when they start asking their own questions.

Chag Sameach Pesach

Originally posted here.

 

Filed Under: Community Member Blogs, Passover, Shabbat & Holidays Tagged With: convert to judaism, convert to judaism online, darshan yeshiva, edible torah, edibletorah, online conversion, Passover, patrick "aleph" beaulier, patrick aleph, punktorah, rabbi beaulier, rabbi patrick aleph beaulier, That Darn Wicked Child, the wicked child

Nisan and Chametz

March 26, 2012 By Ketzirah

Let’s talk chametz.

Chametz (חמץ) is one of two reasons we don’t eat bread during Passover.  There’s a couple of reasons for eating unleavened bread given in the Torah, but beyond eating Matzah there is also this thing called chametz  If it were just bread there wouldn’t be all these other prohibitions on food during Passover.

I’m not going to go all technical about the laws of Pesach or chametz — there’s plenty of other sites you can find that on. Personally, what I love is how Passover practices so closely align the spiritual and the physical.  So let’s do a little more thinking about the symbolism of chametz and why it’s so important.

The simplest definition of chametz is food made from five different grains that has been allow to ferment.  Generally these grains are defined as wheat, barley, oat, spelt or rye. I have found a couple of articles that point out that spelt, rye and oats didn’t grow in biblical Israel — so they really can’t be what the Torah intended.  But we are a people who build and build on tradition, so these grains may have been substituted for Middle Eastern grains during the Diaspora.  But I digress….

What I find interesting here is the correlation between chametz and the “hamotzei” prayer over bread. Two food types have special blessings, wine and bread. With wine we say, “the fruit of the vine,” but there are lots of foods that grow on vines that we don’t use that prayer for: only grape wine and sometimes juice.  The other special food is leavened bread.

What do these two things have in common?  Divine Intervention.

Both foods are created through a partnership between G!d(dess) and humanity that goes way beyond basic cooking. If you’ve ever tried to bake bread or make wine, you totally know this to be true.  There is magick — Divine Essence made manifest — in the act of fermentation.  Why Jews picked these two types of fermentation to acknowledge — who knows?

Even the letters that make up the word chametz are a clue: חמץ.  The letter Chet (ח) is the first letter of the word Chaya — life!  The form of the letter chet, according to Inner.org,  means: “The union of God’s immanence, transcendence, and the Jewish People.”  So let’s look at the second letter, the Mem (מ). Here we have the letter that begins “mayim” — water.  Inner.org puts it very poetically by saying, it “symbolizes the fountain of the Divine Wisdom.”  Lastly we have the Tsadi Sofit (ץ).  Inner.org mostly deals with the Tzadik in its regular, not final form — I found this to be quite revelant, “the consciousness of Atzilut uniting with the source of wisdom and descending to teach Creation.”  Chametz is a substance that transforms and creates new life (ח) through contact to water (מ) and connects G!d(dess) and humanity.

This brings me to chametz and why we don’t eat it during Passover.  During Passover we fast.  Not like the fast of Yom Kippur or other fasting holidays.  We fast, we refrain from creating or ingesting food that can only be created through this incredible partnership.  We remove all traces of the Divine catalyst from our homes so we are sure it is not infected from the twelve plagues as we relive them each year.  We break the final chains from slavery by insisting on self-reliance for a week and eating only foods that can be crafted without this Divine catalyst.

So this Passover, look at that Matzah differently.  Look at the rules around clearing out the chametz differently.  When Pesach ends and you take the first bite of delicious bread — or first sip of beer — think about it.  Say the blessing.  Know that this is evidence of G!d(dess) working in our world.

————

Ketzirah is a Kohenet, Celebrant, and Artist.  She works with individuals and groups to explore, discover, and create meaningful rituals and ritual artwork to mark moments in life.

 

Filed Under: Community Member Blogs, Judaism & Belief, Passover Tagged With: bread, chametz, chometz, convert to judaism, darshan yeshiva, embodied judaism, food, ketzirah, kohenet, leaven, nisan, Passover, patrick "aleph" beaulier, patrick aleph, Pesach, punktorah, rabbi beaulier, rabbi patrick aleph beaulier

Seder Plate Sets Available at PunkTorah.org

March 22, 2012 By punktorah

We are now sold out of seder plates. Thank you so much for your support! To continue supporting PunkTorah, please click on this link to donate.

We have two unique seder plates with free shipping available at PunkTorah for our Passover Fundraiser. Click the image above to zoom in!

Each seder plate is made up of a gorgeous chocolate brown main plate and six small, robin’s egg blue dishes. Included in the set is a haggadah (haggadot type will vary) and a black, hand knitted kippah! The plate is obviously for your Passover seder, but can be separated into multiple dishes for chip/dip, tapas or other serving dish year round.

Shipping is free and 100% of the proceeds go to benefit PunkTorah.org. The seder plate set with haggadah and hand crochet kippah is only $56.99.


Filed Under: Passover Tagged With: cheap passover, cheap seder plate, convert to judaism, convert to judaism online, darshan yeshiva, inexpensive passover, inexpensive seder plate, modern seder plate, online conversion, passover sale, patrick "aleph" beaulier, patrick aleph, punktorah, rabbi beaulier, rabbi patrick aleph beaulier, seder plate

Passover: Bah, Humbug!

April 21, 2011 By punktorah

I’m with my wife at the grocery store last year when we past by a dueling row of aisles. On one side, an orgy of pastel baskets filled with chocolate eggs and toys. On the other side, the bread of affliction.

My wife turned to me and said, “see, this is why Judaism isn’t the fastest growing religion in the world. Does this look fun to you??”

And she’s right. Passover kinda sucks.

Passover has had a few cool marketing makeovers through the years including:

The Maxwell House coffee Haggadah, which you can find in piles of thirty to fifty in the attic of every Ashkenazic Jewish woman over fifty-five.

The Chocolate Seder, which I believe was introduced by the Reform movement when someone realized, “hey, the Christians have eggs, too!”

The Rugrats Passover Episode, Let My Babies Go!, which is only rivaled by the Rugrats Hanukkah episode and that episode of Hey Arnold where the school bully has his bar mitzvah.

I’ve had several friends tell me that Passover is their favorite Jewish holiday. I even had a rabbi tell me that, according to his opinion, Passover should be the start of the calendar year because apparently it was at some point until the Apple-and-Honey-Festival kicked it out.

Frankly, though, I really don’t like Passover. Matzah doesn’t thrill me. The seder isn’t that meaningful to me. Really, my favorite parts of Passover are the mad rush of Orthodox women in my neighborhood fighting through the kosher section and the corn-syrup free Coca Cola that has those yellow caps we know and love.

Is there something wrong with me that the Hillel sandwich and opening the door for the prophet Elijah just doesn’t do anything for me?

Filed Under: Community Member Blogs, Passover, Rants, Shabbat & Holidays Tagged With: chametz, chocolate seder, convert to judaism, convert to judaism online, darshan yeshiva, Humbug!, kosher coca cola, online conversion, Passover: Bah, patrick "aleph" beaulier, patrick aleph, Pesach, punktorah, rabbi beaulier, rabbi patrick aleph beaulier, rugrats passover

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