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Is Passover 7 or 8 Days?

4/24/2019

 
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"Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread… You shall celebrate a sacred assembly on the first day, and a sacred assembly on the seventh day…"
– Exodus 12:15-16

From the Torah, it seems pretty clear how long Passover is supposed to be. The festival begins with one no-work day (a "sacred assembly") and ends on the seventh day with another no-work day. There is no mention at all of two days of observance at the beginning. There is no mention of an eighth day. Why, then, did so many of us grow up with two seders at the beginning of the holiday and a total of eight days of Passover?

The answer has to do with the Jewish calendar, the problem of communication over long distances in the ancient world, and the human habit of continuing established traditions even after times have changed.

The Torah says that the first Passover festival begins "In the first month [Nisan] from the fourteenth day of the month at evening" (Exodus 12:18). That would actually be at the very start of the 15th day of the month, just as the sun is setting. Since the months of the Hebrew calendar are determined by the phases of the moon, the first day of Passover should always begin on the 15th day of the lunar cycle – right around the time of the full moon. But you have probably already anticipated the problem: How do you know for sure which day was the first day of the lunar cycle? If people disagree about the date of the new moon, the whole calendar would be useless and people would celebrate the festival on different days.

The ancient Israelites solved this problem by setting up a tribunal in Jerusalem to determine the beginning of the new moon. Witnesses reported the sighting of the moon to judges and they determined the day of the new moon based on testimony. The ruling of the judges was final, and everyone agreed to abide by it.

That system worked great for a few hundred years, until Jews started spreading out over a large geographic area. When the Jewish community in Babylon (modern Iraq) wanted to know which day to start celebrating Passover, they had to hope that they would get word from Jerusalem within two weeks about which day was the first day of Nisan. It did not always work out that way. Four weeks was enough time to get the news, but two weeks was cutting it close in a world without cell phones, or even a pony express. They could not know with certainty which day the festival started. Fortunately, there were only two possible choices.

The phases of the moon last an average of 29.53 days. (Because the earth's orbit around the sun and the moon's orbit around the earth are elliptical, there are variations in the length of a lunar month.) That means that the length of each lunar month must be either 29 or 30 days. Ancient Jews in Babylonian didn't know what day would be the date of the first day of Passover, but they did know it had to be either the fifteenth day after the 29th day of the previous month, or the fifteenth day after the 30th day of the previous month.

Their solution was simple. They celebrated the festival on both dates. They would have two days of sacred assembly at the beginning of the festival and two days at the end. To do that, they had to add an eighth day. (Which was really the seventh day following the second possible first day. Have I confused you enough already?)

Of course, this system of adding days to the holiday was unnecessary if you lived close enough to Jerusalem to get the news about the judges' decision within two weeks. That is why they did not change the holiday within the Land of Israel. To this day, all Jews celebrate only one seder and only seven days of Passover in Israel.

In late antiquity, Jews stopped using direct observation of the moon to determine the calendar. They decided to switch to the more reliable system of mathematical models that predict the appearance of the moon. That is why we can say with certainty today which day Passover will begin next year, the following year, and a hundred years from now. Just do the math.

However, even with the innovation of a fixed, mathematical calendar, Jews outside of the Land of Israel continued to celebrate the extra day. They repeated all the customs of the first day on the second day, including the seder, and all the customs of the seventh day on the eighth day. By that time, it had become an ingrained observance that Jews were unwilling to change. Passover, at least outside of the Land of Israel, had been transformed into an eight-day holiday.

That is, until the beginning of the Reform Movement in the 19th century. The early Reformers said, "This nonsense has been going on for too long already! The Torah says that Passover is seven days. We're not going to celebrate it a day longer!" (or, words to that effect). This is why Reform Judaism celebrates only one seder and only seven days of the festival, both inside and outside of Israel.

There is an added complication to this system in a year like this year when Passover begins on Shabbat. To those who observe Passover for eight days, there are two Shabbats that fall during Passover this year. For those who observe seven days, there can only be one Shabbat in any Passover. On April 27, 2019, many Jews will be celebrating the eighth day of Passover and reading the Torah portion assigned to that day of the festival. However, at the congregation I serve (and many other Reform congregations), we will be resuming the regular cycle of weekly Shabbat Torah portions.

That would create a situation where Reform Jews were out of sync with orthodox and Conservative Jews outside of Israel on the weekly Torah portion. Indeed, all Jews in Israel and many Reform Jews worldwide will be out of sync with the rest of the Torah-reading world after this coming Shabbat until early August.

I don't like that. I think it is important for Reform congregations to read the same Torah portion each week that is read in nearby Conservative and orthodox congregations. So, instead of going out of sync, the congregation I serve will split next week's Torah portion (Acharei Mot) in two – reading the first half this week and the second half the following week. That choice will keep us in sync after only one week. 

You can call that decision Solomon-like. (He also liked cutting things in half). Or, you can just say that we are keeping up with the times.

​
Other Posts on This Topic:

Soul Searching
​
One Seder or Two?

Origin Story

4/17/2019

 
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Superman was sent to earth as a baby from a dying planet. Spiderman was bitten by a radioactive spider that gave him amazing powers. The ancient Romans believed their city was founded by twins who were suckled by a wolf. A Hindu legend says that the cosmos rides on the back of a giant sea turtle.

These origin stories serve, in part, to say something about the character and values of heroes, of nations, and of the world. Superman fights for the well-being of the world because he knows what it feels like when your world is destroyed. The Romans saw themselves as noble survivors because they believed themselves to be descendants of warriors who fought for survival.

Passover is the great story of the origin of the Jewish people. We celebrate the holiday by retelling the story of how we were slaves and how God saved us. We recite for our children the legend of God's plagues against our captors and how God performed miracles to make us God's own people. Our story, too, serves to tell us something about who we are, about our values, and about the world we aspire to create. 

Here are some of my thoughts this year about what our origin story is supposed to teach us about ourselves and the world:

• Isn't it odd that we see ourselves as slaves in our origin story? Most civilizations tell stories about how their founders were brave soldiers or noble kings. We tell a story about how our founders were helpless servants to mighty Pharaoh. The story describes how we complained and griped all the way to freedom. At its essence, our origin story warns us against arrogance and hard-heartedness. It reminds us that, without God's help, we are nothing. It also reminds us to have compassion for people who are oppressed and helpless. We know that experience, too.

• The traditional Haggadah makes very little mention of Moses. We do not want to tell our story as the tale of one great man and credit him for our victory. The story we tell about ourselves is that no one human being has ever been our savior. Instead, we look to God and we look to ourselves as a collective nation for our redemption. Judaism, as a religion, is highly suspicious of the human tendency to turn great people into heroes, and to turn heroes into gods. We don't want to elevate any human to the status of a god. We have seen how the Pharaohs of the world quickly turn despotic, and how those who worship false gods become passive and cruel.

• In our origin story, the final chapter of the story is never told. By the end of the Seder, the Israelites are still a ragtag mob that has just witnessed the redemption at the Sea of Reeds (or, the Red Sea). We stop the story before we can get to Mount Sinai and the Ten Commandments. There is even a self-conscious incompleteness to the story seen in the four cups of wine we drink. Each cup represents a promise that God made to us: "I will bring you out of slavery in Egypt," "I will save you from their bondage," "I will redeem you with great power," and "I will take you as My people" (Exodus 6:6-7). However, there is a fifth promise in the biblical narrative: "I will bring you to the land which I promised" (Exodus 6:8). That unfulfilled promise is represented by Elijah's Cup, the cup from which we do not drink. The symbolism of the seder reminds us that our journey is incomplete. There is much that we still have to do to make God's promises true in the world.

As you experience the seder this weekend, consider what our story says about us. Think about what our first lesson is trying to teach us. We are not Romans who live to conquer and endure. We are not superheroes endowed with magical powers. In the story we tell about ourselves, we are human and deeply flawed. We are friends to those who are powerless and suspicious of those who are powerful. We are on a journey that is far from complete, but we are asked to be a part of it and to help write the next chapter – the one that starts today.

Other Posts on This Topic:
The Great Sabbath, Elijah's Cup, and the Unkept Promise
Matzah and Chameitz

Soul Searching

4/2/2015

 
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Bedikat Chameitz, as I have described before, is one of my favorite Jewish home rituals. On the night before Passover's first seder, we hand our children a lit candle, a feather, a spoon, and a paper bag. We ask them to search the house for the pieces of bread we have hidden. It is a ritual we use to purify our home in preparation for the Festival of Our Freedom. 

My children, of course, are older now than they were the last time I wrote about this ritual. I no longer follow them around the house as they search. I am less concerned that they will burn the house down with the lit candle.

They also are more able – perhaps, even willing – to think about the spiritual aspects of searching for chameitz. This is not just a game to get children involved in the preparations for Passover. It is an opportunity to search ourselves for the puffy arrogance that chameitz represents. 

Searching for those ten pieces of bread is a ritual that we perform on the outside in order to have a meaningful moment of recognition on the inside. We all carry our egos around with us wherever we go. One of the central ideas of Passover is that the voice of Pharaoh lives within ourselves – the childish voice that cries, “I want!” and “Give me!” Real freedom requires us to let go of that voice a little bit. We unburden ourselves of our self-imposed bondage when we release ourselves from ego and embrace a soft humility that is willing to relent, to forgive, to recognize the true riches we already have, and to be at peace.

My children tonight walked through the house silently, looking for the planted pieces of bread, guided by the light of the candle, sweeping up the crumbs with the feather into the bag. They know the outer form of this ritual well by now. But, tonight, I think I saw them focussing on the inner experience, too. 

After they found the last piece of bread, we all sat around the kitchen table with just that little flame to light our faces. We quietly talked about choosing one habit, one piece of arrogance or selfishness within us that we think we can learn to do without. We talked about using Passover as a time to let go. We each decided on one thing about ourselves that we think we could improve over the course of the next week. 

The Haggadah that we will read tomorrow night says that “In each generation, we are obliged to see ourselves as if we personally had come out of bondage in Egypt.” It’s a lovely thought, but can it ever literally be true? I think it can. If we think of “Egypt,” not as a place, but as a state of mind, we can each experience the exodus personally and profoundly each year. 

With each piece of chameitz that we place in the bag, we free ourselves from bondage. With each crumb that we sweep up with the feather, we are letting go of the chains and renewing ourselves. We each leave Egypt behind when we discover the joy of being the person that we want to be.


Other Posts on This Topic:
Bedikat Chameitz
Matzah and Chameitz

This is What has Stood

4/14/2014

 
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This is what has stood for our ancestors and for us. For not just one has stood against us to wipe us out, but in every generation they have stood against us to wipe us out. Yet, the Holy One of Blessing saves us from their hands.
- Passover Haggadah

On the eve of the festival that celebrates the Season of Our Freedom, we are once again reminded that the world is far from being the place we dream it could be. At tonight's seder, we'll sing a song about how "in every generation they have stood against us," and we will think about yesterday's events in Overland Park, Kansas.

The song, though, should not be an occasion for bemoaning our lachrymose history or railing against the way the Jewish people have been (and are) victimized by antisemitism. Instead, hear the words of the song.

"This is what has stood for our ancestors and for us." In the context of the Haggadah, "this" refers to the covenant between God and the Jewish people. "This" is also our ability to stand above the fear and hatred that fills this sphere and to make our purpose about something higher. We are the people of the covenant, and that means that, no matter what others may do to us, we will persevere because of our loyalty to the belief in redemption. We were made for a world that is better than this.

We will mourn for the dead in Kansas and offer comfort to their families and to the survivors. We will aid a community that has been devastated by tragedy. And we will go on hoping for, and building, a better world. In short, we will uphold the covenant.

That, ultimately, is the power that saves us from the hands of destruction.

The Great Sabbath, Elijah's Cup, and the Unkept Promise

4/11/2014

 
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Tonight begins Shabbat HaGadol, the Shabbat before Passover whose name means, "The Great Sabbath." It is reasonable to ask why this, of all sabbaths, would have the distinction of being called "great." 

The most common explanation comes from the last verses of the special haftarah reading of this day. The prophet Malachi says, "Behold, I will send Elijah the prophet to you before the coming great and awesome day of Adonai. He shall turn the hearts of the parents to the children, and the hearts of the children to their parents, lest I come to strike the land with destruction" (Malachi 3:23-24). Traditionally, the first of these two verses is repeated after the last, so the reading in Hebrew ends with the words, "The coming great and awesome day of Adonai." 

So, if this is the reason for the name of this Shabbat, we call it "great" because it reminds us that God's redemption is not yet complete and there is still a "great and awesome" day to come. On that day, Elijah the Prophet, the herald of redemption, will "turn the hearts of the parents to the children and the hearts of the children to their parents." What does that phrase mean?

Passover is a holiday that is all about redemption. We remember how God redeemed Israel from slavery in Egypt. Yet, in the Haggadah, the rabbis constantly emphasize that the redemption we experienced at the Red Sea is only a provisional redemption. There is still an even greater redemption that we are waiting for – one in which the entire world will be redeemed. Based in part on the verse from this haftarah, the rabbis made Elijah the symbol of that promised and as-of-yet unfulfilled redemption. 

The large cup of wine that sits in the middle of our seder table is not called "Elijah's Cup," as many suppose, because the prophet will silently and invisibly come drink from it during the seder. Its meaning is far deeper than that. On an evening when we drink four cups of wine to represent the four promises that God made to the Israelites, Elijah's Cup is the fifth cup. It is the cup from which we cannot yet drink because the promise has not yet been fulfilled. 

What is that promise? It is that "the hearts of the parents will turn toward the children, and the hearts of the children will turn toward their parents." The coming redemption, the great one that we still await, is that there will be reconciliation between generations. The world will not be fully redeemed until older people, who think they have seen it all, identify with childhood's sense of wonder and are able to look at the world as the shining, new-in-every moment place that it is. The promise will not be fulfilled until children deeply appreciate the wisdom of a received tradition that instructs them in how to live a life of meaning and joy.

Is that all it takes? Yes. When the nations that have fought for generations are able to look at each other the way children look at each other, then we will be able to hold each others hands in peace. When children are taught to find love and joy in ancient traditions, not confinement and rebuke, then there will be an end to resentment and rebellion. 

The message of Elijah the prophet, in the prophecy of Malachi and in the symbolism of the seder table, is that redemption will not be delivered to us from on high, rather, it is held in the human heart. When we open to each other and see each other for the beautiful, brand new, ancient and splendid beings that we are, that is when the final promised redemption will come. 

May it be soon and in our days.


Other Posts on This Topic:
And After the Fire — a Still, Small Voice
Matzah and Chameitz

DOMA, the Supreme Court, and Love

3/27/2013

 
Is it a coincidence that today the United States Supreme Court is hearing oral arguments on the so-called "Defense of Marriage Act" (DOMA) on the same day that Jews meditate upon the divine quality of "Love within Love"? Is there some meaning to the fact that, while the justices consider the U.S. Constitution's promise of equal protection, Jews are celebrating freedom from oppression? Perhaps it is a coincidence, but you have to admit that it is a darn interesting one.
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I've written before about what the Bible has to say about the institution of marriage ("Searching for How the Bible Defines Marriage") and what Judaism teaches us about the idea of equality in marriage ("What Does the Bible Say about Marriage? What Should We Say?"). The Supreme Court, however, should not decide the constitutionality of DOMA based on the Bible or on Jewish tradition. It  should decide on the Constitution, on the law, and on the precedent of its previous decisions.

To my limited understanding, DOMA is unconstitutional as it serves no compelling public interest apart from depriving some people of a basic civil right. The Court has ruled innumerable times that government cannot deny benefits or place burdens on a group of people unless there is a compelling or overriding government objective. Gay and lesbian Americans cannot be deprived of the benefits of civil marriage for the same reason that Black Americans cannot be denied the right to vote and Jewish Americans cannot be deprived of the right to hold public office.

Yet, any student of the Constitution and the Supreme Court will tell you that decisions are not made entirely within the bubble of the legal system. There always is some reflection on the realities of society and the real experiences of being a human being that goes into deciding important cases. That is where the "coincidence" of this date on the Jewish calendar comes into the story.

Last night, as the second day of Passover began, Jews began the Counting of the Omer. This is the period in which we count the days and weeks from this holiday to the next holiday, Shavuot. There are exactly fifty days from the holiday on which we celebrate our freedom to the holiday on which we celebrate the giving of the Torah. The Jewish mystical tradition gives a separate meaning to each of the 49 days of counting before Shavuot begins. 

In this week, the first week of the Omer, the focus is on the divine quality of chesed, understood as love or lovingkindness. The first day of each week also has the focus of chesed. So, this day has the double intention of the divine quality of "love within love." We contemplate today how well we bring loving compassion into our loving relationships. We meditate on how we honor love in our lives and show our caring attention to love.

This is the way I hope the Supreme Court will bring the human dimension into its deliberations. We cannot truly be a loving society, a society that honors love, if we also are a society that denies the real experience of love to many of our citizens. We cannot claim to be a society that cares about matters of the heart, if we are cold-hearted with regard to our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters.

By the end of the day today, the Supreme Court will have heard the logical and legal arguments for and against DOMA. Let us hope that the justices also hear the call of their hearts to heed love and allow it to enter into their judgment.


Other Posts on This Topic:
The Joyful Imperative to Interpret
ObamaCare is Constitutional. Is It Talmudic?

Passover Food Obsessions

3/25/2013

 
My family, like many Jewish families, has some cherished Passover food traditions. Pictured here is one of them. Every year for seder, we make this gorgeous Jewish Italian dish called scacchi. Think of it as a vegetable lasagna without tomato sauce and with layers of matzah instead of the noodles. Since my wife and I are tragically without any Italian heritage of our own, we follow the recipe in Joan Nathan's Jewish Cooking in America (p. 402). Both the dish and the book are amazing. 
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Scacchi is a Jewish Italian Passover dish, layered like a vegetable lasagna with matzah instead of pasta.
Within our food-obsessed tradition, Passover is, by far, our most food-centric holiday. Passover is almost defined by its elaborate rules for what one is required to eat and what one is forbidden from eating. Almost every Jew has some strongly held opinions about Passover dietary rules—how much observance is enough and how much is too much.

Do you follow the tradition of removing all the chametz (leavened grain products) from your home for the duration of the holiday? Do you perform the ritual of symbolically selling your chametz to a non-Jew? Do you prohibit kitniyot (rice, corn, beans, peas and lentils) during the holiday? Do you insist on using hand-made shmurah matzah on your seder table or do you settle for the square-shaped, machine-made variety? Do you forgo tap water during Passover and drink only bottled water bearing a symbol attesting it to be "Kosher for Passover"?

Chances are, you think that at least some people who have different answers than you to these questions are either assimilationists, heretics, religious extremists, or insane. Possibly, you think they are all four.

I think that is the way things are supposed to be. Passover is a holiday that—at its core—is supposed to get us to think deeply about what we eat and even what foods we allow into our homes. Regardless of your particular practice, if you are engaged in any practice that gets you to make choices about your food, you are engaged in a festival that celebrates both the freedom to choose and the obligations that accompany all freedoms. 

Have a wonderful, joyful Passover. May the foods we eat, and the choices we make about the foods we don't eat, be a blessing to us all.

Other Posts on This Topic:
Matzah and Chameitz
One Seder or Two?

One Seder or Two?

4/8/2012

 
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I was asked this question by three separate people at last night's community seder, and probably a dozen more times throughout the year. I figure that there must be many more folks who are uncertain about it, so I thought it would be a good idea to answer the question and also offer some reflections on its meaning for contemporary Jews.

Is there one seder, or two? Is Passover seven days long, or is it eight?

In Exodus, chapter 12, the Torah says, as plain as day, that the ritual meal commemorating the exodus from Egypt—the origin of the seder—shall begin at twilight on the 14th of Nisan. It does not say anything about a meal on the evening of the 15th day, or any other. The text goes on to say:

You shall celebrate a sacred occasion on the first day, and a sacred occasion on the seventh day; no work at all shall be done on them; only what every person is to eat, that alone may be prepared for you. You shall observe the [Feast of] Unleavened Bread, for on this very day I brought your ranks out of the land of Egypt; you shall observe this day throughout the ages as an institution for all time. In the first month, from the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread until the twenty-first day of the month at evening. (Exodus 12:16-18, JPS Translation)

How did we end up with the idea that Passover is celebrated for eight days, when the Torah says seven? Where do we get seders on the first two nights, when the Torah only mentions a special meal on the first night?

The answer is that the rabbis instituted an additional day to all of the Torah-commanded festivals (except Yom Kippur) because of a problem in reckoning dates. In the early centuries of the common era, the new month was declared by the actual observation of the moon in Jerusalem. A month could not begin until the first sliver of the new moon was actually sighted and reported to the Sanhedrin (the chief rabbinic council). 

This, of course, created a problem for any community that was more than a day's travel from Jerusalem. A lunar month is approximately 29.5 days long. If you know what day the last month started, there are only two possibilities for the first day of the next month. It's either the thirtieth day after the last new moon or it's the thirty-first. But, how could people far from Jerusalem know which one to start on without a message from the Sanhedrin?

For Jewish communities in far away Babylon and Alexandria, information about the correct date could take weeks. The rabbis tried different methods to spread the news more quickly. A system of bonfires on mountain tops was instituted to announce the new month, but this system was easily foiled by opponents of the rabbis and Israel's enemies who set false fire signals. 

Eventually, the rabbis adopted a system in which communities outside the land of Israel were required to observe Torah-ordained festivals on two days—one day that would be correct if the previous month had been 29 days long, and one that would be correct if it had been 30 days long. All of the rituals associated with Rosh Hashanah, the first day of Sukkot, Sh'mini Atzeret, the first and last days of Passover, and Shavuot were repeated for a second day. This second day of the holiday for the diaspora, yom tov sheini shel galuyot, is the reason for two seders and for a total of eight days of Passover. 

In the fourth century, the rabbis switched to a calendar based on mathematical calculation of the lunar cycle instead of direct observation. This is the Hebrew calendar we still use. However, by that time, the practice of adding a second day to the holidays had been established as a permanent practice. In fact, the celebration of Rosh Hashanah as a two-day holiday had become so ingrained that it was observed even in Jerusalem, the city that knew the date of the new moon better than any other.

That's the way the holidays stayed until the Reform Movement arose in the 19th century. The early Reformers declared that the reason for the extra day of the holidays had disappeared more than a thousand years earlier, so they restored the biblical pattern of the holidays with only one day for Rosh Hashanah and seven days of Passover. However, the extra day of the festivals continues to be practiced today outside of the land of Israel by Orthodox and Conservative Jews. Inside the land of Israel, everyone observes the same holiday calendar. 

Just to make matters even more confusing, many Reform congregations in the diaspora, for a variety of reasons, now have re-adopted the practice of observing two days of Rosh Hashanah. Also, many Reform congregations (like the one I serve) offer a congregational seder on the second day of Passover to bring the community together on one of our most cherished holidays. We may say that, as Reform Jews, we do not observe the second day of Passover as a full holiday, but, for practical reasons, we do offer a second seder.

Is the diversity of calendars and holiday practices good for Judaism or is it bad? I find that to be a difficult question to answer. I certainly have seen Jews—some Reform and some Orthodox—who become indignant about those "other" Jews who don't observe the holidays the "right way." That kind of partisan and chauvinistic attitude separates one Jew from another is certainly not "good for the Jews."

On the other hand, diversity within the family of the Jewish people can also be seen as a good thing. It keeps us thinking about why we do what we do and it opens up our minds to new possibilities. Reform Judaism has become better in recent decades because it has faced the challenge represented by Orthodoxy and has responded by re-imagining rituals that were once discarded—like immersing in the mikveh and wearing a talit—and has injected new life and meaning into them. Orthodoxy, too, has become better by adopting worship practices that were innovated by Reform Judaism—like communal singing in worship services and greater roles for women. 

Whether you observed Passover this year with one seder or two, it is likely that your seder was different than the one your grandparents observed fifty years ago. That difference, in all likelihood, can be traced back to an influence inspired by the diversity of Judaism in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. 

Let a thousand seders bloom.


Other Posts on This Topic:
A Pesach Lesson from Yoga: Freedom Comes in Two Flavors
Mishpatim: The Purpose of the Torah

Hamavdil bein Kodesh l'Kodesh

4/7/2012

 
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Tonight's seder for the second night of Passover also coincides with the end of Shabbat. Traditionally, an extra paragraph is added to the blessing over the first cup of wine to make the havdalah blessing for the end of Shabbat. We do not use the usual twisted candle for havdalah; the blessing for "eish" (fire) is made over the festival candles.

The blessing ends on what sounds like an odd note. Usually, at the end of the havdalah ritual, we bless God, hamavdil bein kodesh l'chol,  "who makes distinction between sacred and ordinary." That is, we acknowledge that God makes a distinction between Shabbat, a holy day, and the ordinary days of the week. Tonight, however, when Shabbat is immediately followed by a second day of the festival, the blessing changes to hamavdil bein kodesh l'kodesh, "the One who makes distinction between sacred and sacred."

We make a blessing to acknowledge that there is a difference between the sanctity of Shabbat and the sanctity of Passover. There is something interesting and, perhaps, even profound about the idea that sanctity comes in different flavors. The blessing seems to be an secret invitation for us to discover and name all the different families, genera and species of holiness.

Is there a holiness of human beings that is different from the holiness of plants and other animals? In Jewish tradition, we make blessings for getting out of bed in the morning, for drinking a glass of water, and for using the bathroom. Do each of these everyday activities have a different type of holiness? Is the holiness of a sunrise different from the holiness of a sunset? 

Whenever I meet with people in my synagogue office, I try to recognize each person as a holy representation of the image of God. It is helpful, somehow, to recognize that each person may posses a different kind of holiness. We each are different and each bring a different aspect of divinity into the world. Blessed is the One who makes distinction between my sacredness and your sacredness.

To carry the thought a bit further, there is also this. The day I married my wife is sacred to me. The day each of my children was born is sacred to me, and each in different ways. The day each of my grandparents died, the day I first walked in the land of Israel, the day I became a rabbi, the day that I began to serve the congregation that is my spiritual home…all of these moments are sacred to me, each in its own way. 

Part of the challenge of religious living is to seek out the holiness in each moment. Each experience and each moment of our lives can be sacred in a different way. Whether it is a moment when I am laughing with my children, a moment when I am frustrated with a student, a moment when I am washing the dishes, or a moment when I am holding the hand of a person who is sick, each moment can be a holy moment in the rainbow of holy moments. 

Baruch Atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech Ha-Olam, Hamavdil bein Kodesh l'Kodesh.


Other Posts on This Topic:
Havdalah

Pesach and Opening Day

4/6/2012

 
Pesach and Opening Day

On Opening Day, the cleats are all unscuffed
And the mitts are freshly oiled.
The helmets are free of pine tar
And every bat boy's uniform is freshly pressed.
On Opening Day, all is readiness 
And nothing has been accomplished.
The standings are all even,
No wins and no losses.

Pesach begins that way, too.
All the crumbs have been swept out of the bread drawer.
The jars of gefilte fish stand in a line on the counter.
There is not a single wine stain on the white tablecloth.
All is readiness. Nothing has been accomplished.

Before this day can matter, matzah must shatter
Under too hard butter.
Before this day counts, fans must hope, 
Savor victory, 
And regret a wasted late-inning chance.

Freedom cannot be pristine.
It has to be sought, battled and won.
We stand this day on the shores,
Looking out at the impossibly wide sea,
Wondering how we will get across.
It takes that first pitch,
The first bad call and the first missed sign
To know what we are willing to lose.

When Nachshon (or Casey) puts his big toe 
Into the sea (or the batter's box),
And risks everything,
That is the moment in which we leave the world
Of pre-game perfection
And enter the world of redemption.

(Play ball!)



Other Posts on This Topic:
Why Torah is Like Baseball
Thoughts on Torah, Redemption and Spring Training
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