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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

Passover: Bah, Humbug!

April 21, 2011 by Patrick Beaulier

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

Passover: Where Do You Stop? (EdibleTorah)

April 12, 2011 by Patrick Beaulier

The other day I posted over at EdibleTorah about a Passover law found in Talmud – which essentially said that you can’t hope to control EVERYTHING. The specifics were that, if a weasel carried a piece of bread into your home, it wasn’t a violation of Passover kashrut. Likewise, if your dog dragged some chametz into a room where you had already cleaned, it wasn’t your responsibility.

Dogs will be dogs, weasels will be weasels.

The key point (for this conversation) was the final phrase: “There is [then] no end to the matter”

I am told that this phase, used to limit potential excesses in observant behavior, appears often in Talmud.

I find that deeply comforting.

BUT… this phrase is never used in the context of every-day (versus special Passover) kashrut. Never.

Now maybe it’s just where I am right now – struggling with whether I need a pareve (in addition to milk and meat) set of silverware. “Enough!” my mind shouts out. “Will we also need milk, meat and pareve toothpicks? Napkins? Seat cushions? Is there no end to the matter??”

I haven’t found out yet whether the lack of this phrase is

  • indicative that there is, in fact, no end to the matter. People need to go to whatever extent they can to feel that they are “in bounds” with regard to kashrut
  • a mere oversight and not significant of anything. In this case, the Talmudic intent is still that one should exercise reasonable restraint in pursuing this mitzvah.

I sincerely hope it’s the latter. Not just because I am currently feel tired and bedraggled and frazzled by the onslaught of hekshur and hagalah, of separating and then recombining my kitchen items, of kashering for everyday only to kasher for Pesach. No, that is a piece but not just because of that.

I hope reason has a place in this process because, especially at this time of year, I am painfully aware that my own Yetzer HaRa (often translated as “inclination to do evil” but more accurately as “inclination to unrestrained passions”) goads me to nit-pick every observance, to question the validity of the way I have performed it. Between my Yetzer and I, there is no “good enough” or even “good enough for this year”. My Yetzer HaRa gleefully  acknowledges “no end to the matter”, and I don’t want to be left standing without the protection of Rabbinic reason to keep myself in check.

This article comes from EdibleTorah @ NewKosher. Originally posted here.

Filed Under: Rants Tagged With: chametz, convert to judaism, convert to judaism online, darshan yeshiva, edibletorah, halachka, online conversion, Passover, Passover: Where Do You Stop? (EdibleTorah), patrick "aleph" beaulier, patrick aleph, Pesach, punktorah, rabbi beaulier, rabbi patrick aleph beaulier

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