Calling on congregants to help defeat the BNP

As you will be aware there is a very real chance that the BNP will take control of the council in Barking and Dagenham this election and could even win a seat in parliament. 

Yesterday a group of Jewish volunteers, including staff from the Jewish Council for Racial Equality, the Board of Deputies, Rene Cassin and the Jewish Community Centre for London, went to Dagenham to help the Hope not Hate campaign (organised by the anti- racist organisation Searchlight) deliver anti-BNP newsletters to hundreds of households in the Borough’s Becontree Ward.

Hope not Hate need more support to ensure the BNP do not take control of Barking and Dagenham Council and it is crucial that the Jewish community join them in this battle.

·         On bank holiday Monday May 3^rd there will be another day of action in Barking and Dagenham where Hope not Hate will leaflet drop into ever y door in the borough.

·         On election day, Thursday May 6^th volunteers will also be needed to knock on doors and make phone calls to encourage people to vote.

We would be very grateful if you pass this information on to your members to take part in this vital campaign.  Any interested volunteers should contact edie[at]jcore.org.uk or Hannah[at]jcclondon.org.uk Travel information will be provided.

From Yom Hashoah to Yom Haatzmaut

This Shabbat falls in the midst of a Jewish ritual journey from Yom HaShoah to Yom Haatzmaut; from Holocaust to the Israeli State. In historical terms that journey took three years, 1945 – 1948. And now a further 72 years have passed. The State of Israel was never solely predicated on the Holocaust, rather a ‘tikvah shanot alpayim’ – the hope of a people over two millennia (lyrics from the Israel’s national anthem which, themselves, predate the Holocaust). But to the extent that, in Israel’s early years, the Holocaust served as a major driving force of Zionist commitment and support both within and without the inhabitant of the State of Israel, that connection is becoming attenuated as time passes and other genocides prick at the attention of broader society. Israel can no longer assume that a reference to the Holocaust will end any conversation about the triumphs or failings of the Zionist State.

None of that, of course, suggests that the need to stand strong in the face of anti-Semitism has gone away. The CST reports that acts of antisemitic aggression are higher than at any time since they began collecting this information. Israelis and supporters of Israel complain of increasing hostility on campuses, concert halls and elsewhere on a weekly basis. Many of these ‘new’ forms of anti-Jewish and anti-Zionist hostility are ‘justified’ with respect to the political actions of the Israeli Government, but it is an error to accept these ‘justifications’ at face value, made, as they so often are; out of context, out of ignorance or out of an unwillingness to accept that Jews have a right to a safe sovereign state at all. But, for a Zionist like myself, my love and support of Israel is challenged by my discomfort when I see her fall short, as I believe she does, particularly when trying to develop a long-term sustainable future alongside Palestinian neighbours who also feel the need for what Leo Pinsker referred to, in a Jewish context, as auto-emancipation.

In an attempt to reason out the relationship between these swirling currents of pride and discomfort I went back to Herzl’s original Zionist manifesto; The Jewish State (published 1896). The section entitled ‘Causes of Anti-Semitism’ begins by suggesting that ancient Christian theologically driven Jew-Hatred has morphed into a kind of Jew-hatred predicated on our refusal to give up our particularity while emerging from the ghetto not as forelock tugging paupers but as ‘a prodigious rival to the middle class.’ I think there remains a piece of this in contemporary anti-Israel discourse. If only Israel was prepared to be weak, if only Jews were prepared to adopt their accustomed place as powerless grateful subjects of other dominions then, surely, there would be less aggression directed towards us. But this isn’t a new direction I am recommending for our Jewish futures.

Herzl however goes on to say something else – the refusal to assimilate and/or adopt the posture of weak underlings was the underlying cause of Jew-hatred in his age, but there was a different immediate cause. ‘The immediate cause [of Jew-hatred] is our excessive production of mediocre intellectuals.’ It struck me as a most surprising and provocative sentence – and one that has important resonance for our time. I do consider much contemporary intellectual engagement with Israel is ‘mediocre.’ I want to see a more nuanced voice, supporting Israel, emerge more broadly. For me the cut and thrust of most public debate on Israel fails to rise beyond debating-chamber point scoring and I wonder if Herzl is right – that contributes to the current levels of antipathy. These are complex and cloudy waters, but we, in this special community, are uniquely equipped to sail these uneven seas. At our Yom Haatzmaut celebrations on Sunday morning I will be looking to navigate this path more clearly. I do hope you will be able to join me.

 

On Stories and Real Heros - Yom HaShoah

 

Those of you who were at the New London Synagogue communal Seder would have seen me running into a rhetorical brick wall. I was prattling on about how the Seder night inspires us to stand up to the forces of oppression in each and every generation and then I realised that Jack Kagan was among our guests.

 

Jack was twelve when the Nazi’s captured his Belorussian village. He witnessed his mother and sister being selected for execution and bid good-bye to his father deported, also to his death at the hands of the Nazis. His way of standing up to the forces of oppression was digging, with sixty or seventy fellow inmates, a 250 metre long tunnel out of the camp at Peresika into the surrounding forest. His goal wasn’t to flee, but to find the famous Bielski partisans and join them in standing up to Nazi oppression, despite the odds, despite everything.

 

‘The date was set for September 26. I felt such excitement. I knew deep down that I was going to survive and I couldn't wait to join the Bielskis. The night finally arrived. It was dark and rainy - it seemed like it was made to order. No-one was allowed into the tunnel until the leaders had broken through the surface and made sure it was safe. And then the line began to slowly move forwards. I felt no fear as I approached the tunnel, just exhilaration. When I was about half way through I heard gunfire outside. Suddenly, I was terrified that the guards would be shooting at us as we came out. But I carried on. When I finally emerged I could see the whole field alive with flying bullets. The adrenaline was so high it is hard to remember what was going through my mind. I just started running. I had to get out of the field as quickly as possible.’

 

Jack found the Bielskis, he not only survived, he triumphed in the face of bleak horror. I was playing with words. Here, sat dipping the Karpas and enjoying the Matzah was someone who knew what it meant to leave Mitzyrayim, through narrow straights and great confinement. I ran out of words mid-sentence, swallowed, mumbled something about having a great hero in our midst and stopped talking.

 

This Sunday evening, at 7:30pm, we hold our annual Yom HaShoah commemoration. Karen Pollack, director of the Holocaust Education Trust will join us and we will have the opportunity to experience Julian Dawes’ Songs of Ashes. It’s a highlight of our Synagogue year. It’s not an evening to come you because you want to. It’s an evening to come to because this is part of our narrative, part of how we tell our story. Our experience of freedom, light and joy is sharper and more genuine because we allow ourselves to encounter our national experiences of slavery, darkness and loss.

 

More information about Jack Kagan can be found at http://tinyurl.com/jackkagan

 

I hope to see all our members and many of our friends on Sunday.

 

Shabbat shalom,

 

Rabbi Jeremy

 

On This Night We Lean

Hope this is of interest.

I’m partic interested in the democratic nature of the unique democratic element of the command to lean specifically including the poor, on Pesach,

 

Happy Pesach,

 

 

Mishnah Pesachim 10:4 (as per Bavli)

They mix the second cup and the at this point the child asks the parent, and if there is no knowledge in the child, the parent teaches them –

How different this night is from all other nights.

For on all nights we eat chametz or matzah, this night only matzah

For on all nights we eat other vegetables, this night maror.

For on all nights we eat roast, boiled or stewed meat, this night roasted.

For on all nights we dip once, this night twice.

 

Mishnah Pesachim 10:4 (as per Rambam)

They mix the second cup and the at this point the child asks and reads -

How is this night different from all other nights;

For on all nights we don’t even dip once, this night twice.

For on all nights we eat chametz or matzah, this night only matzah

For on all nights we eat roast, boiled or stewed meat, this night roasted.

For on all nights we eat other vegetables, this night maror.

For on all other nights we eat either sitting or reclining, this night we all lean?

 

Ester 1:6

There were hangings of white, green and blue, fastened with cords of fine linen and purple to silver rings and pillars of marble; the beds were of gold and silver, upon a pavement of alabaster, marble, mother of pearl, and precious stones.

 

Tosefta Brachot 5:5

What is the arrangement of reclining? Where there are two cushions, the most important person reclines at the head of the first. The second is below him.

Where there are three cushions, the most important person reclines at the head of the middle, the second is above him, the third is below him.

 

Josh Kulp: The Schechter Hagadah

Reclining was customary in Greco-Roman banquets and helped distinguish normal eating from formal ‘dining.’ In the Greco-Roman world banquets were typically eaten while reclining on a triclinium, three elevated mattresses arranged in the shape of the Greek letter Pi. In front of each mattress was a table which was brought to the diner and taken away at various points in the meal. People reclined to their left, so that they could use their right hand to eat.

 

Floor Mosaic, Sephoris

 

Pesachim 108a

Leaning to the right is not reclining. Moreover he may put [food] into the windpipe before the gullet, and endanger himself.

 

Mishnah Brachot 6:6

When they sit [yoshvin] each blesses themselves. When they lean [heyseivu] one blesses for all.

Ovadiah M’Bartenura

Sitting without leaning is a sign that they are not coming together to eat.

 

Mishnah Pesachim 10:1

On the eve of Pesach … even the poor of Israel don’t eat until they are leaning[JG1]  .

 

Talmud Yerushalmi

Said Rabbi Levi, it is the way of slaves to eat standing up, but here they eat leaning to make it known that they have left servitude for freedom.

 

Exodus 13

So God led the people around [vayaasev], through the way of the wilderness of the Red Sea.

Exodus Rabba 20:18

The Rabbis have learned from this that even the poorest man in Israel must not eat without leaning for so the Holy Blessed One did for them as it says ‘So God made the people recline [vayaasev[JG2]  ].’

 

Yalkut Halachot Aramchal

HaRav Rabeinu Haim wrote that leaning to the left is spefically in their time, as they would lean on beds, now its fine with any kind of leaning. And HaRav Rabeinu Haim explained that on the contrary, the way of kings nowadays is to eat without leaning [slouching[JG3]  ?],

However since we usually eat without leaning during the year, this is now a marker of freedom.

---

 The newness is the democracy

 Tenuous

 Maharil - not freedom, on the contrary, looks like you are ill.

Contemp sensibilities - German Reform

Top Ten Tips for a Liberating Pesach

Top Ten Tips for a Liberating Pesach

i. A Bittul beats ballistic bothering.
You don’t have to drive yourself mad in an all-encompassing war of destruction waged on Chametz. The minimum standard is remove everything smaller than the size of an olive and then perform a Bittul – a nullification – “all Chametz which is in possession, which I have not seen or removed or of which I am not aware, is nullified and ownerless as the dust of the earth.”  The Bittul is done once on Sunday evening and then again on Monday late morning.

ii. Invite people to the Seder who can’t be there. 
I always like to start the Seder by inviting everyone to welcome one guest, one person who has passed away, or can’t be there, or just someone you would love to welcome to experience our story. It sets the mood and it brings the community around your personal Seder together.

iii. Prep the Seder
Don’t open the Hagadah for the first time as you sit down at the Seder table. Buy a new Hagadah, one with commentaries, spend a while flicking through, pick some aspects that mean more to you. If you are not leading, let the leader know you would like to share something at a certain point. If you need more inspiration, try the internet. Tzedek and JCORE are among many organisations that have special guides with discussion material and questions. Also try www.myjewishlearning.com

iv. Karpas is Hebrew for crudités
The desultory sprig of parsley is not what Karpas is all about. It’s a Greek custom of putting out snacks before the meal to allow the conversation to flow more easily. We make dips and put out a range of vegetables. Top tip – artichokes, perfect for dipping, noshing and accompanying schmoozing.

v. It’s about freedom
Don’t be imprisoned by the language of the Seder. At some point you need to have a discussion about the nature of freedom. What does freedom mean, what does it mean to be Jewish and free - free from what, responsible for what? What would your values be if no-one was forcing you to do otherwise? What is stopping you from pursuing those values right now?

vi. Do something daft
The Rabbis of the Talmud suggested throwing toasted nuts around the Seder table to keep the kids occupied. We put out finger-puppets, oranges, Miriam’s cup, ah, loads of stuff – anything to keep people interested and engaged.

vii. If at first you don’t succeed
I love the ability to celebrate two Sedarim. And I love the ability to have a more formal and a less formal experience. The two Sedarim shouldn’t be the same. If you will be with the same people, around the same table, with the same food, then change the questions. Pick different conversations.

viii. Allow yourself to be defined
I remember a Pesach, I must have been 14, when I had to take a packed Pesachdik lunch into school; Tupperware and Matzah crumbs. It was a tremendous moment allowing myself to be defined by my actions. I was someone who cared enough about my Jewish identity to do this, and decline doing that. Through my observance I found a deeper relationship to my own identity. And to this day I find I make the clearest statements of my engagement with my faith over Pesach, with the cleaning and shopping and everything else. And that is OK. In fact, it makes me who I am.

ix. You have captured my heart
Ah, the Song of Songs, the Biblical book, said Rabbi Akiva, that makes the whole Torah worthwhile. We’ll be singing it on Shabbat Chol Ha-Moed Pesach, together with the Song of the Sea on the seventh day, and Hallel and … these are great Synagogue services, full of melody and joy. It’s a wonderful opportunity to bring, or find, in Shul the communal public engagement with Pesach, to counterbalance the private, familial celebrations of Seder Night. (On the subject of Shul, there are, of course, double points on offer to those able to join us for weekday Yom Tov services.)

x. In every generation a person should see themselves …
Take responsibility for your own Passover journey. If you love it, be proud. If it doesn’t speak to you … take responsibility for finding a way to make this incredible story and the rich universe of rituals that surround it resonate with you. There is no-one else to blame. This is our own life we are celebrating. It would be a terrible thing to run out of the ability to acknowledge our own freedom.

Falling In Love With the Book of Leviticus / Vayikra

Vayikra el Moshe – And God called to Moses

Vayikra – And He called.

The book has a bad reputation.

 

It’s a book about sacrifices,

Its detractors treat sacrifice is a thing of little value.

We don’t tend to like relationships which make us give up things.

We prefer relationships which give us things.

We don’t like relationships which force us to change.

We would rather everything and everyone could be moulded, carved, to fit us, rather than welcome the possibility of carving away at ourselves se we fit the world around us

 

Sacrifice is important.

Being willing to give things up is the marker of humanity.

It’s only wild animals who know no sense of the value of delayed gratification.

To me there is something deeply moving in the notion of an entire book of the Bible driven by a notion of what we are supposed to give things up.

 

But there is something more.

Korban – the Hebrew word translated as sacrifice comes from the Hebrew root – to come close.

While the English term sacrifice suggests a certain asceticism – a self abnegation.

The Hebrew term suggests intimacy, relationship, closeness.

There is something almost romantic in this notion of Korban.

And if, in the lap of our modern comforts, we can’t find romance in the blood and kidneys it might be more the mere passage of time, than any failure of emotional intent on behalf of our holy texts.

 

I want to read, today, the first verse of the Parasha – the first verse of the entire book as a love letter.

Both in its own terms, and in the way in which the Rabbis have used the first verse, and matched this verse with an extraordinary Haftorah.

 

Where are we in the story?

Moses and his construction team have finished building the sanctuary, everything is placed perfectly.

But Moses can’t get in.

The book of Exodus ends with a perfectly constructed sanctuary full of the presence of the Divine and Moses outside.

 

Vayikra el Moshe – And God called to Moses

Midrash Tanhuma^[1]

The Holy Blessed One says – it’s not right that Moses should be left out of all this, standing outside, while I am standing inside, so I’ll call to him to come in as it says –

Vayikra el Moshe – And God called to Moses

Like a doorman at some fancy club, beckoning at some shivering soul on the pavement and whisking them around the barriers and past the bouncers into the VIP area.

 

Vayikra

Rashi wanting to know why this root has been used and not amar/davar/tzav suggests that it is Lashon Hivah – the language of warmth

Vayikra means come inside, see what is here, make yourself at home in my home.

 

Elsewhere the Rabbis use the notion of Vayikra  - vav yod kuf aleph

To play a game at the expense of one of their favourite knocking horses Bilaam the non-Jewish prophet who is bribed into attempting to curse Israel.

 

What’s the difference, the second century sage Rabbi Hama Bar Hanina^[2] asks, between the prophets of Israel and the prophets of the other nations?

God doesn’t reveal God’s full self to the peoples of the world, for when God calls to Bilaam

Vyikar elohim el bilaam

The translation is – God met Bilaam, but the language

Vayikar – vav yud kuf is an aleph away from the way in which God called to Moses

Vayikra has that extra aleph.

It’s a fuller willingness to encounter

I’m going to come back to this distinction between the Vayikar, lesser calling to the non-Jewish Bilaam and the Vayikra, the greater calling to Moses later.

 

Rabbi Yisaschar of Kfar Megido^[3] goes somewhere else in search of a verse that explains the deeper intent behind the word Vayikra

It’s lashon kedushah – he says, the language of holiness.

He equates our Vayikra to a verse we know well from our liturgy.

It’s the language of the administering angels of Isaiah’s greatest theophany

Vayikra zeh el zeh vamar

And the angels called out one to another

 

The Rabbis are trying to get at the way this beckoning call from God to Moses – this Vayikra – both the word and the whole apparatus that follows – is a whisper designed for a chosen lover.

God is descending from aloof aloneness – alone in the Mishcan – to engage with a mere human, Moses, drawing Moses in with lashon hiva, loving entreaties.

There is a sense, in reading this verse this way, of God bearing Godself, opening Godself up to the possibility of relationship, like a suitor in the first moments of a new relationship of intimacy

A relationship which bears, of course, the possibility of being dumped, caused pain.

We’ll come back to the pain later.

 

In Shmot Rabba^[4] Moses equates the inside of the mishkan, the place where God’s presence manifests, to the top of Mount Sinai, at the very moment of revelation.

Just as I was unable to stand on the top of the mountain in the direct presence of God’s revelation – God’s revealing – so too, thought Moses, in the minds of the Rabbis, I must be unable to enter into the Sanctuary.

God was after all quite clear in the run up to the revelation in Exodus, whoever ascended to the top of the mountain would die.

And we know, from stories yet to be told, that entering unbidden into the sanctuary of the wilderness also courts death.

So Moses waits outside.

No, says God, vayikra el Moshe, come inside.

It’s a permitted trespass into an inner sanctum.

Actually the more I think about this relational aspect of the verb Vayikra, the harder it is for me to move away from the gestalt of young suitors, at the beginning of a new relationship.

This Vayikra, this beckoning into the forbidden place is meant in the same way that a suitor might be permitted to place a first kiss on their lover.

There is a sense of danger, a risk of a slap across the face, or worse, if the invitation has been misunderstood.

 

So much for the opening line of the parasha

 

The Haftorah opens with God in full voice

 

I created this people, says God, that they should extol my praise.

But you have not called me, o Jacob.

The relationship has gone wrong.

God exposed Godself to the possibility of relationship with Jacob, with us,

And we let the entreaty go, we dumped God.

So far, this is standard Prophetic stuff,

 

But watch the Hebrew

But you have not called me, o Jacob.

Vlo oti karata yaacov

 

Karah – call – that word again.

The Rabbis place this failing of calling, vlo oti karata, as the Haftorah alongside the moment of romance when God called vayikrah to Moses in our Torah reading.

You have to admire the Rabbis.

It’s more than brave, there is a poignancy, a pain, a pathos even.

 

God calls to us, but we fail to respond.

We are not open to the possibility of relationship.

The leap of trust, the leap of faith, which God showed Moses, we don’t reciprocate.

We break the rules of relationships in formation.

The suitor flutters their eyelids at us, we are supposed to flutter our eyelids in return.

Or not.

We let the invitation drop at our feet, and look disdainfully at our prospective suitor.

Vlo oti karata yaacov

We are portrayed much like the sort of strutting buck who, as his date’s face lights up at the prospect of what might be, is already deciding that she couldn’t possibly be gorgeous enough or bright enough or whatever it is.

We are busy backing away before any possibility of true encounter becomes possible.

 

V’lo oti karata Yaacov.

And you didn’t call Me Jacob

Like a prospective suitor who left their first date promising to call the very next day.

We didn’t call.

And now we are being confronted by our failings.

And now God, in the mouth of Isaiah is castigating us for our false promises.

We are portrayed as the sort of person who behaves as if there is nothing out there, up in the cosmos or on the earth below, that makes it worth our bearing ourselves, of taking the leap of faith, the leap of trust that any true relationship demands.

 

So what kind of relationships do we enter into, these bucks who don’t, who can’t pick up the phone?

The end of the Haftorah offers an extraordinarily powerful image.

We are compared to a carpenter, a maker of idols.

 

From Verse 13 of Isaiah Chapter 44

The carpenter stretches out his ruler; he marks the wood out with a pencil; he fits it with chisels, and he marks it out with the compass, and he creates the figure of a man,

Yes, he kindles the wood, and bakes bread; or, he makes a god, and worships it.

He burns half of it in the fire; with this half of it he eats meat and is satisfied;

And with what is left of it he makes a god, his carved image; he falls down to it, and worships it, and prays to it.

 

God is not impressed

For he has shut their eyes – the Haftorah continues - that they cannot see; and their hearts, that they cannot understand.

 

In place of a true relationship, with all the danger, trespass and possibility of a true relationship.

We would rather carve a lover to suit out of a block of wood.

And we treat this newly carved lover in the same way we treat a piece of kindling, for indeed they share the same source.

If it keeps us warm, that’s good.

If it threatens us, demands too much from us, huh – we’ll lob it in the fire and try another one.

We’ve shut our eyes, says God, and built an idol we can see,

What we should have done the opposite.

We should have done the dramatically counter-intuitive, but gloriously powerful opposite.

We should open our eyes and enter into a relationship that which cannot be seen.

The call is clear if counter-intuitive, we need to open our eyes to that we cannot see,

 

We should be wary of seeing this almost two thousand year old ‘idol’ language as anything other than a most contemporary attack on our most contemporary sensibilities.

Isaiah’s symbol of the carpenter would apply today just as well.

We are all busy carving our own idols to suit our own interests.

We make gods out of those things that keep us warm, or feed our belly, or satisfy our momentary needs.

We, all too often, seek out relationships made to fit us,

Rather than leap towards relationships that cause us to change, to yield, to give up.

 

I want to come back to one of the Midrashim with which I began – the Midrash that suggested that the difference between the call to Moses and the call to Bilaam, was the difference between Vayikar and Vayikrah.

The difference is a single letter – an aleph.

 

A letter that, of course, has no sound.

The call, when it comes, the call that is so special, so pregnant with possibility of relationship, is recognisable from every other call in our existence by the sound of nothing.

We have to listen so carefully to hear that which has no sound.

We need to prime ourselves ready to fall in love, rather than swan around deaf to quiet whispers, hearing only the obvious charms of the material world.

 

The haftorah tells us to open our eyes to see that which cannot be seen.

The Midrash which makes such play of the extra aleph in the call of true romance tells us to open our ears to that which cannot be heard.

 

For this is the only way to fall in love,

To find God,

To find true relationship.

 

We find God,

We find love,

We find relationship

By trusting that which has no form,

By caring for things that cannot be measured

By opening our eyes to see that which cannot be seen, and

By opening our ears to hear that which cannot be heard.

 

This is the message of this innocuous Vayikra

This is my message to us all today.

 

Shabbat shalom

 

 

 

 

 

Aleph of a difference.

---

^[1] Yashar 1

^[2] Vay Rabbah 1:12

^[3] Ad loc

^[4] 19:3

Why oh Why oh Why

Pesach is Coming - Why oh why oh why?

This week we read a Maftir portion designed to awaken us to the arrival of Pesach. Rosh Hodesh Nissan will be marked this coming Monday night & Tuesday and the Sedarim beckon on the 14th (& 15th) of Nissan, this year falling on Monday 29th and Tuesday 30th March. I want to suggest three reasons why; why care about Chametz, why clean and shop and cook and go to shul and don’t go to work, and even why we should put up with the grumbling sense that this is all very expensive. (I will have more to say about the financial piece next week).

Pesach is an obligation. We are ‘mechuyah.’ The word shares an etymological root with words like ‘debt.’ We get to live, to breath and we therefore owe an obligation. As Jews we get to be free, we are not enslaved, we could easily be, and therefore we owe an obligation. As Jews we get Torah, a world-view which enhances the brightest moments and holds us in our darkest times, we get to inherit a tradition of beauty, might, spirit and wit, and therefore we owe an obligation. Pesach, with all its cleaning and cooking is how a Jew pays-back in deference to the incredible miracle of our existence. The place of God as obligator is, for some central, and for others peripheral. I would encourage those for whom God plays only a peripheral role as obligator to consider this difference as semantic, rather than substantial. We have so much to be grateful for, we owe this debt to whomever or whatever we consider awarded us such extraordinary bounty.

Pesach is a ritualised spring-clean. Leaven is fermented; it is part of last year’s harvest. At Pesach we forgo leaven; we use only the new harvest. Pesach is a time to clear out old stock. We check the inventory not just of our cupboards, but also of ourselves. We have the opportunity to scrub away at the accreted grime of another year and through our cleaning and observance of Kashrut we become renewed.

Chametz also represents, mystically speaking, the aspect of impurity surrounding the holy spark inside every human. Other language used, in the tradition, to approach the same idea is that of a husk, surrounding a kernel. We all need husks to protect us. We all need to get mixed-into the day-to-day world with its very real challenges (we all need to knead?). But we also need a moment to cast away the husk, to seek out and discard the Hametz and to allow the pure divine spark inside each of us to shine freely. That is the spiritual essence of Pesach.

Two weeks, two days and counting.