Passover — Memories, History and Freedom
Passover, or Pesach – as it is in Hebrew, is coming. It is an eight day festival that starts on Saturday night this year. It is probably the Jewish festival that holds the most particular memories for me, and not always the fondest ones that the minor festivals of Purim and Chanukah have – but this is personal.
The story of Passover is of challenging oppression and subjugation. It is also remembering what it takes to fight, the cost of the struggles. The minorities within majority cultures who become the scapegoats and targets for hatred and discrimination but also it is, for me, about the costs of fight.
Pass over, the English name for Pesach, refers to the passing over the Jewish houses when the tenth plague, the slaughtering of the first born sons in Egypt, took place. Sometimes, and maybe this is a lesson for today, the fight for liberation has costs. The Hebrew word, Pesach, is also used to describe the paschal lamb — the lamb that was sacrificed and whose blood was used to mark the doors of the Jewish slaves so the angel of death would know not to strike them. It is also, I suspect, the root of much of the blood libel that has haunted Jewish people through millennia since biblical days. My understanding is that blood libels were commonly linked to Passover or Pesach. Possibly because it is one of the times when we have distinct ritual practices
I want to take a brief journey through some of my memories with the ghosts of Pesach past but first a very brief explainer with the proviso that I am no scholar of these matters so this is based on personal experiences.
For me and the community I grew up in, Pesach was always The Big One. Yes, High Holydays, where we spent all day in synagogue and sent each other Happy New Year cards, yes Purim and Chanukah which were joyful. Shabbat was special through the year and there Sukkot, when we eat in the garden was also a bit of a relief after the High Holydays, but Pesach, that was it. That was the most different one. That was the family one.
This was the ‘travelling across the country to be with family’. This is the one with the big round-the-table family meals (the Seder nights). This is the one where everything we did as a family to prepare and during the festival was different. This is the one that unites Jewish people – in my mind – like no other. Where people who didn’t have anywhere to go would be invited in exactly the way that Christians don’t want to see anyone eating Christmas dinner alone. In many ways, I’d say while we can’t really draw comparisons to other festivals, it is the most analogous to Christmas for me. It’s the being together part, it’s the making sure people aren’t alone (unless they want to be) one. It’s the big meal with the parts and traditions that exist communally but also within different families.
No one (who didn’t want it) would not be invited to a Seder celebration with a family. Many synagogues might have communal Seders — at least for one of the nights (the second) as well to saving on the preparations (or the arguments about whose turn it was to host) and to accommodate those without other plans but we didn’t do that in my family. We did it ourselves. With all those memories of songs, meals, laughter, tears, lots of wine, lots of arguments, lots of debate, lots of ‘but when do we fiiinniiiiish’.
Pesach is one of the three ‘Pilgrim’ festivals we have during the year — the others are Shavuot (Pentecost) and Sukkot (Tabernacles). Historically when Jewish people lived in the lands of Israel and Judea when there was a temple, they would go to the temple and make a variety of sacrifices at these times which is why they are called Pilgrim festivals. For us, it means there are certain prayers that are said, like every occasion, there are always certain prayers to be said. It is also the coming of the Spring. It is the point at which our traditional prayers for rain, through the winter (which start at Sukkot), change to prayers for dew which keep us through the warmer months. It links us to the changing festivals and, particularly (which is why it doesn’t change in the southern hemisphere) to the festivals are they are experienced in Israel.
The festival itself recalls the Exodus story. The freeing of the slaves in Egypt, the plagues and miracles which led to the journey across the Red Sea. No bread, flour or grain that has leavened (risen) product is allowed to be eaten or in the houses of Jewish people during the eight days of the holiday. This probably covers a lot more than one might imagine in terms of what is allowed and what is not. I won’t go into the details of what is permitted and what isn’t yet, mostly because it becomes quite complex, quite quickly, not least because there are (as with every sentence of every Jewish religious text) different interpretations too. Although if you are interested, the Kashrut Division of the London Beth Din (Jewish court) has a FAQ about what is and isn’t kosher for Pesach and a special website to check on the go — so Truffle will be happy to know which cat food is ok, and which isn’t.
The reason for this change in diet is that the Jewish slaves in Egypt fled without time to wait for the bread to rise so this is a recollection of those times. Suffice to say if you work or socialise among Jewish people at this time, they may be more sensitive about what they eat or don’t eat, more ‘bringing lunch to work’ kind of things, less ‘let’s all go out for a coffee’.
We eat Matzo. We eat matzo meal. We eat matzo balls in soup. Matzo/Matzah is a kind of cracker. It can be eaten other times of the year, but we never did (with the exceptions of matzo balls which are always, always acceptable) We eat macaroons (I always associate macaroons with Pesach and never ate them any other time of the year!). In my house, it was honestly the only time of year we would have soft drinks because the big ‘Pesach shop’ when you hauled yourself to the nearest kosher supermarket, dodging distant cousins you hadn’t seen all year, and people you didn’t really like at synagogue but couldn’t navigate around, meant that ‘treats’ were always added to the basket. Opening up the haul of Pesach food was always fun on day one or two of the festival — by day five I invariably craved bread.
In the week before Pesach, we clean the house – from top to bottom- in an attempt to eradicate every possible crumb of ‘chametz’ (this is the word for things you aren’t able to eat or own on Pesach). There are specific ceremonies around this — I remember the hunting of the ‘chametz’ where we followed with a candle and a feather, culminating in burning crumbs, symbolically. Traditionally, the chametz (because you might have missed crumbs or you might have put some things aside in a sealed cupboard which can’t be touched) needs to be sold to someone who isn’t Jewish for the duration of the festival (and is bought back straight afterwards). This is usually arranged communally. This selling is usually for a nominal amount but it fulfils the duty of not owning anything that is not allowed to be eaten during the festival. It’s usually done by the Rabbi of a community on behalf of all members.
Over the next week, I’ll write some more about the seder night specifically, as there are lots of traditions and rituals associated with it, about some of the songs and food we eat, about some of my own memories and about the lessons that we are taught about liberation and freedom, which are signified by the celebration of Pesach, still have so much to teach us.
Traditionally we would wish each other Chag Sameach (happy holiday — a generic greeting for all festivals), Chag Pesach Sameach (Happy Pesach if you want to be more specific) — but English is fine too to wish each other a Happy Pesach. It’s nice when people remember and sometimes the Hebrew pronunciations can be a bit tricky.
If you work with Jewish people, be aware that some of the practices around levels of observance vary, that some people who you might not consider ‘religious’ might observe some things they don’t at other times. Be aware of scheduling events on the first and last days of Pesach if you want to be inclusive, and not being surprised if people choose not to join you for a coffee or a meal (although less so in lockdown)
The underlying stories we tell are of divine intervention in salvation, but whatever you believe, the existence of Jewish people, still practising these traditions is something of a feat of determinedness in the face of hate and countless attempts at annihilation. The fact that I can walk into a seder in London, New Orleans, Sydney, Tel Aviv, Rome, Delhi, Hong Kong or Durban and follow what is going on, is something of a testament of a survivability whatever or however one believes. It’s a time when we also remember those who don’t sit around our table, the ghosts of those who did not get away or flee to safety in time. The footsteps of those who could not run. The echoes of the shouts of those who didn’t run quickly enough. This is what surrounds our cry, at the end of the Seder meal of ‘Next year, in Jerusalem’. It is about experience of exile and marginalisation that has led to our numbers being diminished. When I sit, this year, although it will be via Zoom (the prohibitions on meeting outside relax the day after the second seder), I think of those who are not able to flee persecution by the state and the need to challenge the narrative of immigrant and refugee as unwelcome. Because we are a community, a people, a nation of immigrants. However long we have lived in the places we inhabit, we are always perceived as immigrants.
The story of liberation and the value of communal consciousness is one that travels far beyond Jewish people and the fight cannot be for one group alone. In challenging the oppression of one minority group who are ‘different’, however they are different, we can fight for freedom for us all. It is my Jewishness that instils my need, my necessity to fight for social justice, to challenge those who marginalise groups that do not ‘fit’ majority narratives. It is the values that I grew up within and around that mean we need to fight for those whose voices cannot be raised and shout alongside those whose voices are.
With our history, which the festivals mark but particularly with this one, it becomes an obligation and a reminder of need to challenge hatred, discrimination and fight for equality or the ‘freedom’ we refer to so often in the festival, for all.
If you are interested in learning more there are some links here, here and here.
