March 2013

With all the preparations for the Pesach seder, you would think that once we celebrated our departure from Egypt we could relax and enjoy a good meal while the children search for the afikoman. And that is true for the first night. But by the second night, we are again enjoined to set our eyes on the future-forty-nine days in the future, in fact, when we arrive with the Israelites at the foot of Mount Sinai to receive the Torah.

The mechanism to connect the Exodus with the giving of the Torah is a simple one-counting the days. In Leviticus 23:15-16 we are commanded to bring an omer, “a measure of grain” and then to count seven weeks, a total of fifty days from the second day of Pesach (as the Rabbis interpret these verses). In fact, this counting provides the name for the holiday for the giving of the Torah, Shavuot, meaning “weeks.” So important is this counting that we thank God for commanding us to do it, saying a blessing before we mention the number each night until Shavuot. The process is called S’firat HaOmer, the Counting of the Omer.

S’firah is the Hebrew word for counting, which the mystics of the Kabbalah identified with the name for each of the manifestations of God in the world. There are ten s’firot, but only the lower seven are accessible to human beings. Seven weeks, seven s’firot-that couldn’t be a coincidence, the kabbalists believed. So they transformed the mechanical counting of days into an enumeration of the Godly qualities which, they argued, Jews needed to incorporate before they were worthy to receive the Torah. The s’firah period is thus a period of tikkun, “correction,” of the raw selves that were exploded out of Egypt into the pure n’shamot, “souls” who deserved to be given the mitzvot of the Torah.

What are these seven s’firot, these seven qualities? The first is Chesed, love; the second is its opposite, G’vurah, strength or restraint; the third is Tiferet, glory, or Rachamim, compassion. If love and restraint are opposites, compassion resolves the tension-compassion is based on love, but not unconditional love; it is a love that is combined with a certain restraint or objectivity. The remainder of the lower s’firot are Netzach, endurance; Hod, splendor; Yesod, physical rootedness; and Malchut, awareness of the dominion of God. These also form triads, echoing the balance of opposites and their resolution. The kabbalists divided the seven weeks into the seven s’firot, encouraging us to concentrate on “fixing” the lack of love in our lives during the first week of the Omer, the lack of restraint during the second week, the lack of compassion in the third week, and so on.

As though this were not enough to concentrate on, they divided the seven days of each week into s’firot as well, so that on the first day of the first week we are to work on the love within love; the second day of the first week on the restraint within love; the third day of the first week the compassion within love, and so on. On the first day of the second week we are to work on the love within restraint; the second day the restraint within restraint, and so on. That’s a lot to work on in seven weeks!

Most prayer books, including Mishkan T’filah (p. 570), include a script for the blessings and the counting of each day. One can also purchase artistic S’firat HaOmer calendars-or you can make one yourself (it is not easy to remember to do the counting every night!). There is no official text, however, for contemplating the s’firot, though some are starting to write contemporary texts. In the absence of these, one might begin a discussion with the family members gathered around the seder table on the second night of Pesach when the counting begins, if you hold a seder on that night. Each person might be asked to reflect on a different s’firah; on nights where two s’firot are being considered, two people might have a dialogue as to how their qualities relate to each other.

This period of tikkun, “correction” of the self, culminates with Tikkun Leil Shavuot, an all-night study session on the first night of Shavuot, which traditionally draws on selections from all the books of the Hebrew Bible, as well as selections from the Talmud and the Zohar. Modern tikkunim are more heterodox in their selection of study materials, and many do not last all night. The common understanding of this rite ties it to the inability of the Israelites to stay awake the night before the Torah was given; by spending the night in study till dawn we try to correct for the weakness of our weary ancestors who were, after all, only three months removed from slavery.

There is another dimension to the period of the S’firat HaOmer, a quasi-historical one. There is a widespread custom not to cut one’s hair or hold weddings or other communal celebrations during this period. Many people tie these semi-mourning customs to the tradition of a plague that is said to have befallen Rabbi Akiba’s students during the second century CE, which was lifted on the thirty-third day of the Omer, Lag BaOmer. Numbers in Hebrew are often abbreviated using the individual Hebrew letters from alef to tet for the numbers one through nine, and letters from yod through tzadi for the tens (twenty through ninety). The remaining letters in the alphabet represent the hundreds. Thus thirty-three in Hebrew combines the letters lamed (thirty) and gimel (three), and if you put them together they spell Lag. Mourning restrictions are traditionally lifted on Lag BaOmer, which is therefore observed as a joyous day in Israel with the lighting of bonfires.

The Omer period reminds us of many truths: that freedom needs to be balanced by laws, by Torah; that the period leading up to the giving of the Torah offers us an opportunity to internalize the mitzvot of Torah, and its teachings; and that above all, by counting the days, we remember to make our days count, as a reminder that we count, and that God counts on us.

Rabbi Richard N. Levy is Rabbi of Campus Synagogue and Director of Spiritual Growth at the Los Angeles Campus of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. He is the author of A Vision of Holiness: The Future of Reform Judaism (URJ Press).

With all the preparations for the Pesach seder, you would think that once we celebrated our departure from Egypt we could relax and enjoy a good meal while the children search for the afikoman. And that is true for the first night. But by the second night, we are again enjoined to set our eyes on the future-forty-nine days in the future, in fact, when we arrive with the Israelites at the foot of Mount Sinai to receive the Torah.

The mechanism to connect the Exodus with the giving of the Torah is a simple one-counting the days. In Leviticus 23:15-16 we are commanded to bring an omer, “a measure of grain” and then to count seven weeks, a total of fifty days from the second day of Pesach (as the Rabbis interpret these verses). In fact, this counting provides the name for the holiday for the giving of the Torah, Shavuot, meaning “weeks.” So important is this counting that we thank God for commanding us to do it, saying a blessing before we mention the number each night until Shavuot. The process is called S’firat HaOmer, the Counting of the Omer.

S’firah is the Hebrew word for counting, which the mystics of the Kabbalah identified with the name for each of the manifestations of God in the world. There are ten s’firot, but only the lower seven are accessible to human beings. Seven weeks, seven s’firot-that couldn’t be a coincidence, the kabbalists believed. So they transformed the mechanical counting of days into an enumeration of the Godly qualities which, they argued, Jews needed to incorporate before they were worthy to receive the Torah. The s’firah period is thus a period of tikkun, “correction,” of the raw selves that were exploded out of Egypt into the pure n’shamot, “souls” who deserved to be given the mitzvot of the Torah.

What are these seven s’firot, these seven qualities? The first is Chesed, love; the second is its opposite, G’vurah, strength or restraint; the third is Tiferet, glory, or Rachamim, compassion. If love and restraint are opposites, compassion resolves the tension-compassion is based on love, but not unconditional love; it is a love that is combined with a certain restraint or objectivity. The remainder of the lower s’firot are Netzach, endurance; Hod, splendor; Yesod, physical rootedness; and Malchut, awareness of the dominion of God. These also form triads, echoing the balance of opposites and their resolution. The kabbalists divided the seven weeks into the seven s’firot, encouraging us to concentrate on “fixing” the lack of love in our lives during the first week of the Omer, the lack of restraint during the second week, the lack of compassion in the third week, and so on.

As though this were not enough to concentrate on, they divided the seven days of each week into s’firot as well, so that on the first day of the first week we are to work on the love within love; the second day of the first week on the restraint within love; the third day of the first week the compassion within love, and so on. On the first day of the second week we are to work on the love within restraint; the second day the restraint within restraint, and so on. That’s a lot to work on in seven weeks!

Most prayer books, including Mishkan T’filah (p. 570), include a script for the blessings and the counting of each day. One can also purchase artistic S’firat HaOmer calendars-or you can make one yourself (it is not easy to remember to do the counting every night!). There is no official text, however, for contemplating the s’firot, though some are starting to write contemporary texts. In the absence of these, one might begin a discussion with the family members gathered around the seder table on the second night of Pesach when the counting begins, if you hold a seder on that night. Each person might be asked to reflect on a different s’firah; on nights where two s’firot are being considered, two people might have a dialogue as to how their qualities relate to each other.

This period of tikkun, “correction” of the self, culminates with Tikkun Leil Shavuot, an all-night study session on the first night of Shavuot, which traditionally draws on selections from all the books of the Hebrew Bible, as well as selections from the Talmud and the Zohar. Modern tikkunim are more heterodox in their selection of study materials, and many do not last all night. The common understanding of this rite ties it to the inability of the Israelites to stay awake the night before the Torah was given; by spending the night in study till dawn we try to correct for the weakness of our weary ancestors who were, after all, only three months removed from slavery.

There is another dimension to the period of the S’firat HaOmer, a quasi-historical one. There is a widespread custom not to cut one’s hair or hold weddings or other communal celebrations during this period. Many people tie these semi-mourning customs to the tradition of a plague that is said to have befallen Rabbi Akiba’s students during the second century CE, which was lifted on the thirty-third day of the Omer, Lag BaOmer. Numbers in Hebrew are often abbreviated using the individual Hebrew letters from alef to tet for the numbers one through nine, and letters from yod through tzadi for the tens (twenty through ninety). The remaining letters in the alphabet represent the hundreds. Thus thirty-three in Hebrew combines the letters lamed (thirty) and gimel (three), and if you put them together they spell Lag. Mourning restrictions are traditionally lifted on Lag BaOmer, which is therefore observed as a joyous day in Israel with the lighting of bonfires.

The Omer period reminds us of many truths: that freedom needs to be balanced by laws, by Torah; that the period leading up to the giving of the Torah offers us an opportunity to internalize the mitzvot of Torah, and its teachings; and that above all, by counting the days, we remember to make our days count, as a reminder that we count, and that God counts on us.

Rabbi Richard N. Levy is Rabbi of Campus Synagogue and Director of Spiritual Growth at the Los Angeles Campus of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. He is the author of A Vision of Holiness: The Future of Reform Judaism (URJ Press).

Is it by your wisdom that the hawk grows pinions, spreads his wings to the south? Does the eagle soar at your command, building his nest high, dwelling in the rock, lodging upon the fastness of a jutting rock? (Job 39:26-28)

Yesterday as I took my morning walk around Shorashim, I was preoccupied with the pressures of the coming day–the grant request due, the lesson to teach, the study tour to prepare. After passing several of my neighbors walking their dogs, bringing in their newspapers, etc., I became conscious that they were all looking up at the sky and smiling. And indeed, there was a majestic sight overhead: the annual migration of storks from Africa to Europe was passing through. Flock after flock of the large, black and white birds made their way up the Hilazon Valley and disappeared over the ridge to the north-east. In the twenty minutes it took me to make my circuit, there was no gap in this air-train. Storks don’t fly in neat formations like geese, but alternately spiral slowly upwards like a plume of smoke, riding thermal currents, and then glide forward. The sight of this plume of birds slowly rising high into the sky, the huge birds becoming specks gleaming in the sun, is a stunning feature of the season around here, and occasionally causes gaper’s block on the highways.

My zoologist son–in–law tells me that songbirds migrate across the Mediterranean – apparently they can fly faster – but large birds like storks have to stay over land. This means that coming up from Africa they pass over Egypt, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, and Turkey enroute to their summer homes (I hope the blizzards in Europe are over by the time they get there this year). In 1993, after the Oslo Accord and the signing of a peace treaty between Israel and Jordan, the tabloids ran front page maps of the “new Middle East,” showing the driving times to various points in the region and in Europe, to which we’d soon be able to drive, along the storks’ route. After years of living on an isolated island reachable only by sea or air, there was excited anticipation of a normalization of our geography. That was then; this is now. Today, 20 years later, it’s still only the storks that can make the trip overland from Africa to Europe.

We now have a new minister of education, from a different party than the last one. Once again, I suppose, there will be a discussion of reprinting the geography books to show the eastern border of Israel in accord with the ideology of the minister’s party. It can be expensive to live in a country that can’t decide where its own borders are. The ongoing debate that has divided us, often bitterly, over the past century, over “What is a Jewish state?” has gotten no closer to resolution as a result of the recent election. Similarly, we still cannot even have a civil discussion of what would seem to be a more basic question: “Where, exactly, is the Jewish state?”

Storks know geography differently from us. They have been making the same trip for millennia, following the air currents along valleys and over mountains, oblivious to the lines we draw on our maps indicating human ownership and jurisdiction – and even to the physical fences and walls (no matter how high) we build to fortify those lines. We, being we, of course know things that storks can’t possibly know about geography. But it seems to me that they probably know things we can’t know; about freedom, for example. I wonder if they’re laughing at us from up there.

Is it by your wisdom that the hawk grows pinions, spreads his wings to the south? Does the eagle soar at your command, building his nest high, dwelling in the rock, lodging upon the fastness of a jutting rock? (Job 39:26-28)

Yesterday as I took my morning walk around Shorashim, I was preoccupied with the pressures of the coming day–the grant request due, the lesson to teach, the study tour to prepare. After passing several of my neighbors walking their dogs, bringing in their newspapers, etc., I became conscious that they were all looking up at the sky and smiling. And indeed, there was a majestic sight overhead: the annual migration of storks from Africa to Europe was passing through. Flock after flock of the large, black and white birds made their way up the Hilazon Valley and disappeared over the ridge to the north-east. In the twenty minutes it took me to make my circuit, there was no gap in this air-train. Storks don’t fly in neat formations like geese, but alternately spiral slowly upwards like a plume of smoke, riding thermal currents, and then glide forward. The sight of this plume of birds slowly rising high into the sky, the huge birds becoming specks gleaming in the sun, is a stunning feature of the season around here, and occasionally causes gaper’s block on the highways.

My zoologist son–in–law tells me that songbirds migrate across the Mediterranean – apparently they can fly faster – but large birds like storks have to stay over land. This means that coming up from Africa they pass over Egypt, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, and Turkey enroute to their summer homes (I hope the blizzards in Europe are over by the time they get there this year). In 1993, after the Oslo Accord and the signing of a peace treaty between Israel and Jordan, the tabloids ran front page maps of the “new Middle East,” showing the driving times to various points in the region and in Europe, to which we’d soon be able to drive, along the storks’ route. After years of living on an isolated island reachable only by sea or air, there was excited anticipation of a normalization of our geography. That was then; this is now. Today, 20 years later, it’s still only the storks that can make the trip overland from Africa to Europe.

We now have a new minister of education, from a different party than the last one. Once again, I suppose, there will be a discussion of reprinting the geography books to show the eastern border of Israel in accord with the ideology of the minister’s party. It can be expensive to live in a country that can’t decide where its own borders are. The ongoing debate that has divided us, often bitterly, over the past century, over “What is a Jewish state?” has gotten no closer to resolution as a result of the recent election. Similarly, we still cannot even have a civil discussion of what would seem to be a more basic question: “Where, exactly, is the Jewish state?”

Storks know geography differently from us. They have been making the same trip for millennia, following the air currents along valleys and over mountains, oblivious to the lines we draw on our maps indicating human ownership and jurisdiction – and even to the physical fences and walls (no matter how high) we build to fortify those lines. We, being we, of course know things that storks can’t possibly know about geography. But it seems to me that they probably know things we can’t know; about freedom, for example. I wonder if they’re laughing at us from up there.

My parents raised my brothers and me to have a strong identity as Reform Jews. We were clear about our Jewish ancestry. We fully embraced our connection to and responsibility toward synagogue life. We appreciated all the rituals we celebrated as a Jewish family. At the same time, though, they taught us to not be afraid of “the other”–those of different races, ethnic backgrounds and, especially, different religions. In fact, our respect and appreciation for the “the other” helped to strengthen our identity as Jews. So when it came time for celebrating Pesach, our seder was a perfect reflection of that philosophy.

My father led the seder and, while he was definitely a “non-believer,” he managed to highlight the important traditions and the need for us to tell the story and remember the Exodus. We did it, however, “Mishkin–style!”

We used the old Chase and Sanborn Haggadah. My father “loved” all the “thees and thous” but his absolute favorite was the verse from Hallel–”Ye mountains, that ye skip like rams; Ye hills, like young sheep?” As kids we laughed, as adults we added our own humorous commentary and, in our own homes today, even though we use totally different Haggadot, my brothers and I find ways to insert that quote somewhere in our own seders.

I now have the copies of those Haggadot. And every year, as I prepare to lead my own family seder, I look back at the “ancient” Haggadah and marvel at how my father did his own bit of “outreach,” always including everyone at the seder–Jew and non-Jew alike–because making the connection for anyone at the table was far more important than the blood line.

The night before the seder he would sit in his favorite chair, his copy of the haggadah in hand, and would assign parts for everyone–scratching out the names from the last year and inserting the new names. Year after year he added the names of the non-Jewish girlfriends my cousins would bring with them, making sure that they would be comfortable with the parts to which they were assigned. No one was to be embarrassed by their lack of knowledge–and all they remember was that “Uncle Al” was so accepting and welcoming. He added his own unique humor to the seder but never watered down the importance of the ritual lest it lose its integrity. He made the Jewish experience one that was welcoming for all. No one–Jew or non-Jew–left feeling like a stranger or an “other.”

A seder in our home wasn’t a seder unless there were a few Jesuit priests present. We were as close to the Jesuits as we were to the rabbi in town. I will never forget the image of Father Jack Fahey–wearing both his priest’s collar and a green yarmulke. But our seder connection with the Jesuits did not stop there. One year our family was invited to lead a seder at Gonzaga Retreat House, for 100 nuns and all of the Jesuits who lived there–and to do it on Maundy Thursday, also known as Holy Thursday, during Easter week. It was the ultimate in sharing of personal religious customs and working to break down the barriers between Jews and Christians. The local paper put us on the front page, with a picture of my father–the man who would fall asleep in Temple–wearing a yarmulke and holding the Chase and Sanborn Haggadah, all while standing in front of a crucifix. And the nuns kept going back into the kitchen for more charoset–which they thought was “Waldorf salad!”

My parents taught us not to be afraid of the “other.” Instead we could celebrate our Jewish identity to the fullest while inviting “others” to participate. We invited guests into our sukkah (OK, it was for a Republican Party Kaffee Klatch!), and shared in our Hanukkah celebration while also playing Santa Claus for our Gentile friends in town. And, of course, we led our famous Maundy Thursday seder–just another of the Mishkin family Jewish traditions!

Dr. Madelyn Mishkin Katz is associate dean at HUC, Jack H. Skirball Campus, Los Angeles, California.

My parents raised my brothers and me to have a strong identity as Reform Jews. We were clear about our Jewish ancestry. We fully embraced our connection to and responsibility toward synagogue life. We appreciated all the rituals we celebrated as a Jewish family. At the same time, though, they taught us to not be afraid of “the other”–those of different races, ethnic backgrounds and, especially, different religions. In fact, our respect and appreciation for the “the other” helped to strengthen our identity as Jews. So when it came time for celebrating Pesach, our seder was a perfect reflection of that philosophy.

My father led the seder and, while he was definitely a “non-believer,” he managed to highlight the important traditions and the need for us to tell the story and remember the Exodus. We did it, however, “Mishkin–style!”

We used the old Chase and Sanborn Haggadah. My father “loved” all the “thees and thous” but his absolute favorite was the verse from Hallel–”Ye mountains, that ye skip like rams; Ye hills, like young sheep?” As kids we laughed, as adults we added our own humorous commentary and, in our own homes today, even though we use totally different Haggadot, my brothers and I find ways to insert that quote somewhere in our own seders.

I now have the copies of those Haggadot. And every year, as I prepare to lead my own family seder, I look back at the “ancient” Haggadah and marvel at how my father did his own bit of “outreach,” always including everyone at the seder–Jew and non-Jew alike–because making the connection for anyone at the table was far more important than the blood line.

The night before the seder he would sit in his favorite chair, his copy of the haggadah in hand, and would assign parts for everyone–scratching out the names from the last year and inserting the new names. Year after year he added the names of the non-Jewish girlfriends my cousins would bring with them, making sure that they would be comfortable with the parts to which they were assigned. No one was to be embarrassed by their lack of knowledge–and all they remember was that “Uncle Al” was so accepting and welcoming. He added his own unique humor to the seder but never watered down the importance of the ritual lest it lose its integrity. He made the Jewish experience one that was welcoming for all. No one–Jew or non-Jew–left feeling like a stranger or an “other.”

A seder in our home wasn’t a seder unless there were a few Jesuit priests present. We were as close to the Jesuits as we were to the rabbi in town. I will never forget the image of Father Jack Fahey–wearing both his priest’s collar and a green yarmulke. But our seder connection with the Jesuits did not stop there. One year our family was invited to lead a seder at Gonzaga Retreat House, for 100 nuns and all of the Jesuits who lived there–and to do it on Maundy Thursday, also known as Holy Thursday, during Easter week. It was the ultimate in sharing of personal religious customs and working to break down the barriers between Jews and Christians. The local paper put us on the front page, with a picture of my father–the man who would fall asleep in Temple–wearing a yarmulke and holding the Chase and Sanborn Haggadah, all while standing in front of a crucifix. And the nuns kept going back into the kitchen for more charoset–which they thought was “Waldorf salad!”

My parents taught us not to be afraid of the “other.” Instead we could celebrate our Jewish identity to the fullest while inviting “others” to participate. We invited guests into our sukkah (OK, it was for a Republican Party Kaffee Klatch!), and shared in our Hanukkah celebration while also playing Santa Claus for our Gentile friends in town. And, of course, we led our famous Maundy Thursday seder–just another of the Mishkin family Jewish traditions!

Dr. Madelyn Mishkin Katz is associate dean at HUC, Jack H. Skirball Campus, Los Angeles, California.

The day after the Passover, that very day, they ate some of the produce of the land: unleavened bread and roasted grain. The manna stopped the day after they ate this food from the land; there was no longer any manna for the Israelites, but that year they ate the produce of Canaan. (Joshua 5:11-12)

The Lord said to Moses, “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘When you enter the land I am going to give you and you reap its harvest, bring to the priest a sheaf of the first grain you harvest…You must not eat any bread, or roasted or new grain, until the very day you bring this offering to your God. This is to be a lasting ordinance for the generations to come, wherever you live. (Leviticus 23:9-11, 14)

Coalition or not, nuclear threat or not, the nation of Israel is currently preoccupied with Pesach cleaning. Last week our newspaper came with a glossy advertising supplement, a thick booklet consisting of a catalogue of all the cleaning compounds and materials produced by a major manufacturer. This is serious business, carried out not just with detergent and cleanser, but with lye and blowtorches and large cauldrons of boiling water. I’m not sure which holiday leads in casualties: Purim (drunkenness, cap guns, costume injuries) or Pesach (cuts, inhalation of fumes, burns, and falls from ladders). This obsession is not limited to the Orthodox, though most of the funny stories about excess relate to them; the instinct to clean out and refresh before Pesach seems to be a general Jewish trait, leading to a kind of national hysteria, even as we laugh at each other and ourselves while doing it.

It turns out that this national cleanup has a legitimate biblical origin. In ancient Israel, Pesach marked the beginning of the grain harvest. This occasion, a time of gratitude and celebration, was observed by the bringing of an offering of the first sheaves to the priest, and a ritual liturgy with additional sacrifices. Until this offering was brought, it was forbidden to eat any of the new crop. Hence, the great cleanup of Pesach, according to this description, meant using up – and getting rid of any residue – of last year’s crop, making way for the new grain and its products which could be consumed from Pesach onward. (In the food service industry this is FIFO – first in, first out). The holiday was an agricultural/seasonal New Year – a reset and restart connecting what we ate to the transition of the seasons and to God’s beneficence in allowing us to bring in a harvest of new grain.

And on a historical level, the description of the first Pesach in the land, in Joshua chapter 5, contains a similar theme: a dietary transition – in this case, from the miraculous, God-given mannah to the bread brought forth from the earth by our own labors. On Pesach the old diet ended (and since we know that mannah had a very short shelf-life, getting rid of the old was not a big deal) and a new one began.

So a great clean-out and a week of matzah remind us that wherever and however we live, we are linked to our ancient agricultural roots in the land. And speaking of roots: our family has discovered, since living in the Galilee, the “roasted grain” referred to in the Bible and made it part of our culinary repertoire: a staple in the local Arab diet is frika, wheat grains that have been toasted and cracked, yielding a kind of burgul with a slightly toasty/smoky flavor. We have to cross the highway to the supermarket in the Arab village to buy it.

The day after the Passover, that very day, they ate some of the produce of the land: unleavened bread and roasted grain. The manna stopped the day after they ate this food from the land; there was no longer any manna for the Israelites, but that year they ate the produce of Canaan. (Joshua 5:11-12)

The Lord said to Moses, “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘When you enter the land I am going to give you and you reap its harvest, bring to the priest a sheaf of the first grain you harvest…You must not eat any bread, or roasted or new grain, until the very day you bring this offering to your God. This is to be a lasting ordinance for the generations to come, wherever you live. (Leviticus 23:9-11, 14)

Coalition or not, nuclear threat or not, the nation of Israel is currently preoccupied with Pesach cleaning. Last week our newspaper came with a glossy advertising supplement, a thick booklet consisting of a catalogue of all the cleaning compounds and materials produced by a major manufacturer. This is serious business, carried out not just with detergent and cleanser, but with lye and blowtorches and large cauldrons of boiling water. I’m not sure which holiday leads in casualties: Purim (drunkenness, cap guns, costume injuries) or Pesach (cuts, inhalation of fumes, burns, and falls from ladders). This obsession is not limited to the Orthodox, though most of the funny stories about excess relate to them; the instinct to clean out and refresh before Pesach seems to be a general Jewish trait, leading to a kind of national hysteria, even as we laugh at each other and ourselves while doing it.

It turns out that this national cleanup has a legitimate biblical origin. In ancient Israel, Pesach marked the beginning of the grain harvest. This occasion, a time of gratitude and celebration, was observed by the bringing of an offering of the first sheaves to the priest, and a ritual liturgy with additional sacrifices. Until this offering was brought, it was forbidden to eat any of the new crop. Hence, the great cleanup of Pesach, according to this description, meant using up – and getting rid of any residue – of last year’s crop, making way for the new grain and its products which could be consumed from Pesach onward. (In the food service industry this is FIFO – first in, first out). The holiday was an agricultural/seasonal New Year – a reset and restart connecting what we ate to the transition of the seasons and to God’s beneficence in allowing us to bring in a harvest of new grain.

And on a historical level, the description of the first Pesach in the land, in Joshua chapter 5, contains a similar theme: a dietary transition – in this case, from the miraculous, God-given mannah to the bread brought forth from the earth by our own labors. On Pesach the old diet ended (and since we know that mannah had a very short shelf-life, getting rid of the old was not a big deal) and a new one began.

So a great clean-out and a week of matzah remind us that wherever and however we live, we are linked to our ancient agricultural roots in the land. And speaking of roots: our family has discovered, since living in the Galilee, the “roasted grain” referred to in the Bible and made it part of our culinary repertoire: a staple in the local Arab diet is frika, wheat grains that have been toasted and cracked, yielding a kind of burgul with a slightly toasty/smoky flavor. We have to cross the highway to the supermarket in the Arab village to buy it.