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This year at Cheder, teachers had a great idea. Our children would prepare their very own Pesach – kit! To make haroset, kids had to grate apples and mix them with them with raisins and grape juice – we didn’t want them going back home intoxicated with wine haroset! And guess what – they even made their own Matzah! At the end, there was dough on hairs, on floors, on tables, and on the most unimaginable of places. T-shirs were tie-dyed with grape juice, and everything was pleasantly sticky. To me this was a key learning exercise. In today’s fast-paced, results-oriented consumer society where time is the most valuable commodity, we tend to focus on results and forget about process. We demand perfect, plastic, standardised and sterilised end-products to be consumed immediately. We seem to ignore all the steps to produce what we want and what we need, and simultaneously the producers become invisible, whether those chained to sweat shops or enclosed in the back room of our bakery.
For baking the matza, we asked children to make a simple dough, hoping they wouldn’t be tempted to pinch bits of it and go home with a tummy ache (which I always do). They then had to follow a key condition –the dough had to be baked within 18 minutes of coming in contact with water, the time it takes to begin fermenting and rise according to the rabbis in the Talmud. I picture in my mind old bearded rabbis in long robes and turban making dough and hovering over with a stop watch and ruler to arrive at such scientific conclusions.
In any case, some uncertainty and anxiety loomed around the Cheder. Was this the real McCoy? Matzah is supposed to look like a mega-cracker, and this was more like Naan bread from the local take-away. I had to reassure them. In the olden days, matzah actually did look just like naan bread. If it was baked within 18 minutes – it was kosher. The ancient rules say that as long as when you break the bread you don’t see strings of uncooked dough – it is the matzoest of matzah. So that’s what matzah was always like – naan bread. Proof of this is Hillel’s anecdote from the Hagadah: haya korcham ve’ochlam, literally, he would take the paschal lamb, the bitter herbs, i.e. lettuce, and wrap them with the matzah. If you’ve struggled like me to make the Hillel sandwich, and more so if you expect to wrap the bitter herbs in our modern pieces of cardboard, you’ll realise that this isn’t the matzah Hillel was talking about. His matzah for the wrap was soft, and by stuffing it with lamb and lettuce he invented the first shawarma. We are thus sure that in the old days matzah was soft, but to keep it fresh it had to be done every day – even during the holiday. The rabbis in Ashkenazi countries therefore worried about making matzah on Pesach itself, out of fear that any left-over dough would leaven. So they decided before the holiday to make flat hard matzah that would last for a life time, and crush your teeth as you ate it. Nonetheless, Oriental Jews today continue to eat soft matzah and thanks to the freezer they don’t need to make it daily. And guess what – you can even buy it frozen at Od Yosef Hai Synagogue in Hendon. Imagine an indigestion-free Pesach!
In any case, our whole matzah experience at Cheder made me reflect. The matzah made at Cheder was not what we would normally expect. We tend to have pre-conceived notions of what is right and what is wrong, what is proper and what is not. We expect our end-results to be shaped in particular ways, and we feel cheated what they’re not. Soft matzah teaches us to think outside the box, both metaphorically and literally. In spite of our entrenched ideas, there are myriads of ways of doing things which can ultimately achieve infinite number of possible solutions. Our boxed matzah is square, rigid, and at the same time extremely brittle – a pain if you’re trying to find whole ones to use for the seder! Soft matzah, on the other had is malleable, it knows that it must bend and flex so as not to be broken. In spite of the great relevance to our lives that this concepts can have, they can guide us when dealing with problems of a wider scope.
Holding by these two concepts, accepting alternative solutions and knowing when to be flexible, can greatly ameliorate our lives. The Rabbis say that our ancestor Abraham once looked up at the stars, and was disappointed because the astral spheres forebode that he would never have children. God then spoke to him and said: Tze mihaitztaninut shelcha – Go out of the box! Abraham was infertile, but he nonetheless managed to have children. In this case, Abraham’s solution came via miracle. Today, we don’t usually rely on miracles, but in any case God’s message is important. We need to go out of the box, to think differently and open ourselves up to new possibilities, to new ways of being. Sometimes new solutions will require us to change, to be flexible and adapt to new circumstances, but perhaps this is the only way to overcome many of the difficulties which taint us.
For thousands of years our people have longed for Jerusalem. Traditionally we have remembered our beloved city and its destruction during all our celebrations, at weddings through the breaking of the wall, when we consecrate a new house by leaving a small section un-plastered. During Tisha B’Av we’ve mourned for her as if she was a deceased relative, and when in Pesach we say: “L’shana Habah Birushalayim”, Next Year in Jerusalem - the city has encapsulated all our longings for freedom and the end of our persecution. Jerusalem has therefore been since time immemorial at the core of our collective being – in the blood that pumps through our veins. In 1967, our dream of Jerusalem turned into reality: our city was once again whole, and through her we were whole as well. This special moment was captured in David Rubinger’s iconic photo for Life Magazine of three Israeli paratroopers entering the Western Wall, and celebrated in song by the likes of Naomi Shemer. Nevertheless, Jerusalem hasn’t stopped weeping for her children, for her children are both the Children of Israel and the Children of Ishmael. Yerushalayim, the City of Peace, has sadly not been able to live up to her name.
Aaqil Ahmed, the Head of BBC’s religion and ethics, asked last week at a seder organised by the Reform Movement whether in Pesach, the Festival of Freedom, we remember the “plight of those people today who suffer oppression at the hands of the Israelis”. A question that takes us out of the box. In our own Liberal Haggadah, we conclude the seder by saying: Le Shana Habah Birushalayim, Next Year in Jerusalem, followed by Leshana Habah Kol Chai Nigaal, Next Year all of Humanity Will be Freed. Our longing for Jerusalem is immediately followed by a longing of liberty for all. Our love of Jerusalem must be meted by identification with all those who suffer.
Jerusalem today has become a hot topic, especially in the past few days. Netanyahu continues with unwavering determination to build tens of thousands of houses in East Jerusalem. He won’t to stop under any circumstances. Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat is intent in carrying on demolitions of Arab houses in East Jerusalem, makes it almost impossible for Arabs to get housing permissions, and is about to wipe out large parts of Silwan. They have effectively suffocated any hopes of peace. In the past few days, our position on Jerusalem has alienated our closest friends and allies – turning us into the pariah of the international community. In the diplomatic world, we are compared to Apartheid South Africa, and at times, as proud I am of Israel and to be an Israeli citizen, sometimes I prefer not to disclose that fact. In our difficult history, we were always marginalised because of groundless hatred. Today, we marginalise ourselves through our actions. We are like boxed matzah, fixed, stern, unmoved. Yet that makes us brittle and vulnerable too. Like soft matzah, we must recognise that sometimes we need to give way, to be flexible in recognition of the needs of others. We need to go beyond the box. Motivational and business coaches say that to think outside the box, sometimes you need to consider absurd possibilities. Perhaps it is about time we did.
LeShana Haba Birushalayim – Next Year in Jerusalem.
Leshana Haba Kol Chai Nigaal. Next Year all of Humanity Shall be Redeemed.
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