How to Run a Traditional Jewish Household

by Blu Greenberg

  It is not that these teenagers grow up before their time; it is that they grow up learning to respond authentically to real sorrow and loss as well as to intense joy; they learn to channel these feelings in a socially constructive manner; perhaps most important of all they learn to feel things deeply. And they learn to remember.

  Earlier, I raised three questions: about Esther’s morals, Jewish connections, and the whereabouts of God in the Purim story. Mordecai answers them all, in what I believe is the most poignant passage in the entire story of Esther. When Esther demurs, Mordecai bears down very hard. He says, “Do not think in your heart that you will escape in the house of the King from all the other Jews. For if you keep your silence at this time, then relief and deliverance will arise to the Jews from another source but you, and the house of your father, will be destroyed. And who knows but that you were brought to royal estate for such a time as this?” (ESTHER 4:13-14).

  That passage is the essence of Purim. Purim is a Diaspora holiday. It is about friends, and enemies; about Jews in high places; about the bonds of kinship and community that are stronger than one’s own life.

  Purim reminds us of that which Orthodox Jews sometimes tend to forget: that no Jew can ever be written off, that a spark exists that may at some point be ignited, that a commitment to the Jewish people can be as deeply felt by one who is at the very periphery of the community as by one who is at its center.

  Jews have made it in America, no doubt about it. For some, the higher they go in status and wealth, the looser their ties. Many Jews assimilate beyond recognition. There are many committed Jews who think the assimilated ones are lost altogether. And forever.

  And yet. Esther surely was what we would today call an assimilated Jew, and look what she did. In the final peril, she risked her life to save a people with whom she had all but lost contact.

  In doing so, she gave us a second gift—the Esther fantasy. When I contemplate the fact that there are so many Jews in this era who have seemingly lost all connection with community, rather than despair I say to myself, Who knows but that this is all part of the ultimate plan. This, too, is God’s design. So when things look their very darkest for the Jewish people, I pull out the old Queen Esther fantasy, and search my mind for who in high places … Some feel Henry Kissinger did not understand the Queen Esther message. Tragically Hitler understood it very well. Before he wreaked such terrible havoc, he first eliminated every single assimilated Jew from high places.

  There was once a Jewish woman whom I had been trying to involve in some communal activities, a woman on her way up. I asked her to help a particular Jewish cause. I asked her several times, feeling inside of myself a growing and righteous indignation that I was putting myself out and she was doing nothing. But she was not to be persuaded. At one point she said to me something which made me think twice. “Just let me be now,” she said. “I can be of more help to you when I’ve made it. I can help your cause on a larger scale. …” Instantly, my mind flew to the Purim story, and I understood her words. (I must admit, however, I’m still waiting....)

  Perhaps all of this has something to do with the absence of God’s name throughout the entire Book of Esther. It tells us something about the way God works miracles—not only through extraordinary or supernatural acts but through the human initiative of ordinary mortals. And not only through the committed, visible, faithful followers, but through the assimilated and through those who are marginal to the faith community.

  That goes for political institutions as well. There are people, Jews and Christians alike, who are troubled by the fact that the reborn Israel has all the flaws of a human state. But the Purim story teaches that it is precisely in such admittedly flawed human realities that divine redemption is brought into being.

  Finally, Purim is about remembering. We are told, with one half of our brain, to remember; with the other, to blot out the name of the villain forever and ever. Remember the Amalekites (DEUT. 25:17), remember that evil Haman, remember Hitler. In the midst of my laughter at this funny costume, or that Purim joke, I remember our enemies, past and present. The names change, but not the character or intent. Haman, Antiochus, Hitler, Arafat—all bent on destroying my people. I must remember my enemies with a passion as fierce as my love for the little children masquerading this night in synagogues all over the world. Somehow, we must find a way to be strong enough to protect them.

  Purim, then, is the reality we retell, the fantasy it spawns, the antennae we must sharpen, the feelings of kinship it intensifies. A little fancier shalach manot, a little plainer—what does it really matter? I must learn to keep my eye on the ball.

  CHAPTER · 21

  PESACH (PASSOVER)

  The Rabbis of ancient times structured the celebration of Passover as a pedagogical device. And it works. Every year there comes my way a small signal or two that reminds me again that the whole thing really does work.

  My signal of a recent year: Early one morning, eighteen days before Pesach, I drove to Kennedy Airport to await Deborah, returning from seven months study in Israel. A little blond boy no more than three, wearing denim overalls and red sneakers, was running around nearby. As he ran about, flying a toy plane up and down in a wide arc, he repeatedly sang one tune to himself as little boys often do in accompaniment of their own play. It was the refrain of Dayenu, the ancient seder hymn Jews have sung for centuries on Pesach, proclaiming that this act of God’s goodness or that one would have been sufficient. … If the little boy managed to nap well on the eve of Pesach, he will have brought joy to the hearts of all the adults as he sang Dayenu with them at their seder. But if not this year, then next year, or the next.

  Another year: It was the eighth day of Pesach. Jonathan S.’s Bar Mitzvah took place that morning in shul. Afterward, we all walked to the S.’s for Kiddush. As my husband and I went into the playroom to leave our coats, we overheard a moment of child’s play that intrigued us. Seated on the rug were two children, approximately four or five, playing house. The little girl, who was masterminding their play, took “Baby” for herself, and assigned “Mommy” to her little male friend. After eight days of matzah, they must have longed for their peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, for the objects that garnered their attention were a toy toaster and a plastic slice of white bread. Baby said, “Mommy, I want this piece of bread. Is Pesach over yet?” “No, baby,” said the little boy. “Wait until … five o’clock,” and he looked at an imaginary watch. “But I want it, Mommy,” said the little girl, feigning a baby’s cry with a nasal wah, wah, wah. “It’s chametz,” said the boy mommy, “and you can’t have it.” Instantly the baby transformed herself into a normal five-year-old, straightened her spine, and said to her friend reasonably, “But it’s not real bread. I can have it. Now say yes.” The boy was stymied for a moment and then reached a bit further into his imagination for the answer. “Pretend it’s matzah and say, ‘I want this matzah,’ and I’ll say yes.”

  There they were, two babes, products of Free to Be and a three-thousand-year-old Sinaitic injunction!

  Part 1—History

  When Joseph, the regent of Egypt, invited his eleven brothers to leave famine-blighted Canaan and bring their father to settle in Egypt, he made them an offer they could not refuse: the best land, good connections, plenty of food, and a respected and protected position even though they were—and would continue to be—outsiders. So they came, settled, multiplied, prospered, and undoubtedly felt quite secure.

  Within a few centuries after Joseph’s death, however, there arose new rulers who did not remember Joseph. They made the lives of the Hebrews unbearable, tightening the noose inch by inch, setting them up by accusing them of being a fifth column, and, ultimately, reducing them to abject slavery.

  One of the universal characteristics of slaves is to surrender hope. The Hebrews, under those latter-day Pharaohs, were no exception. How much hope can you possibly have if you are forbidden to have children? How can you dream of redemption if the monumental
struggle to survive occupies your every thought? How much human dignity can you maintain if the master demands a daily quota of stones for his pyramids, but doesn’t supply you with the raw materials? How can you think that God loves you, descendant of Abraham, if the Egyptians drown your infant sons?

  But then, just when things looked bleakest, God calls on Moses to resist the mighty Pharaoh on behalf of this band of miserable slaves. Nor is that all he was called to do. Moses’ mission was to shape up the band of slaves, to lead them out of Egypt to freedom, to bring them to the land promised to Abraham.

  Pesach, then, is the universal story of redemption, of human dignity, of hope, of freedom. But Pesach is also the particular story of God’s special love and special choosing of His people Israel. God and not Moses is the redeemer; Moses is but the heroic messenger. Any other way and the Exodus would have been merely a soothing political memory, a kind but fleeting moment in the history of a particular people.

  It is this multifaceted message of Pesach that has made it the central holiday of the Jewish people, and the ultimate paradigm for people of all faiths.

  Ordinary people busy with their present lives cannot keep these themes in mind all of the time. To compensate, tradition has served up a hundred and one reminders:

  Every single day in the Shacharit service, the whole story is told, including Moses’ song at the Red Sea.

  The first of the Ten Commandments links monotheism to that act of saving: “I am the Lord your God Who took you out of the land of Egypt from the house of bondage” (EXOD. 20:2).

  Shabbat, a day of freedom, is the perpetual counterbalance to the ancient enslavement in Egypt. The Friday-night Kiddush sounds this theme.

  Scores of laws that require an ethical sensitivity and benevolence are placed in their proper frame: “... because you were a stranger in the land of Egypt, and I took you out” … therefore, be kind to strangers, orphans, the disenfranchised, the misfits, the downtrodden.

  In tzitzit, mezuzah, in certain laws of kashrut, and also in laws pertaining to the harvest, we are reminded of our great good fortune in the Exodus.

  So uppermost must the memory of the Exodus be in our minds that the Talmud tells us that every Jew in every generation should feel as if he or she went out of Egypt with Moses. And in order that the matter not become a dull reflex, once each year the event is compressed, intensified, and reexperienced, so as to reenergize our Exodus batteries for the entire year. On Pesach it is possible to achieve that sensation of the pain of slavery, the hasty departure of refugees who couldn’t wait for the dough to rise, the exhilaration at the defeat of the enemy, the exultation of newfound freedom, and the abiding knowledge that God does love us and singled us out—ourselves, our ancestors, and our children’s children.

  How do you experience an event such as this? How do you get into a slave-to-freeman’s skin? Through the use of concrete symbols, through a detailed, graphic, blow-by-blow telling of the story. Why, I always wonder, did the ancient Rabbis go to such extremes in setting forth the mode of preparation and celebration? Merely to put us in the right frame of mind? Yes, but strike “merely,” for it is no small achievement to internalize so completely an event that happened three thousand years ago.

  Part 2—Setting the Stage

  The Torah refers to the festival of Pesach by the name of Chag Hamatzot, the Festival of Unleavened Bread. Matzah is considered lechem oni, the bread of affliction. It is the hard, dry, rough bread that slaves eat, instead of the soft, rich bread of the freeman. But matzah is also lechem cherut, the bread of freedom, for it is the bread the Jews baked as they prepared for a hasty exit, with no time to allow for the dough to ferment and rise. (It also happens to be a more sensible fare with which to travel; a pound of matzah takes up half the space of a pound of bread, is twice as filling, and never spoils.) Thus, in typical Jewish dialectical fashion, the bread of slavery and the bread of freedom are one and the same. And in that there is a most important lesson: the difference between slavery and freedom is not necessarily creature comforts, but rather a relative mastery over one’s fate. In slavery, they ate the hard, broken crusts which the master allowed them. In the Exodus, the Jews voluntarily accepted a most Spartan regimen as they set out on their tenuous journey—because they had before them a vision of liberation.*

  The basic principle of Pesach observance is this: Seven days shall you eat unleavened bread … (EXOD. 12:15). Seven days shall there be no leavened products found in your homes for whoever eats chametz, that person shall be cut off from the congregation (EXOD. 12:19).

  Thus, chametz is not to be seen, eaten, enjoyed, or profited from on Pesach. Banish all chametz, including anything that contains even the slightest measure of chametz. Unlike the regular laws of kashrut, when one measure of forbidden foods in sixty is considered so negligible as to have no effect on the rest of the substance, on Pesach even the slightest measure of chametz in an item renders the total item unfit.

  There are two approaches with regard to the elimination of chametz on Pesach: (1) To clean out, destroy, remove, and renounce all chametz. This is known as biur (burning) and bitul (renouncing) chametz. (2) Since total elimination would constitute an economic hardship for most people, the Rabbis instituted a procedure of mechirat chametz: sale of title to the chametz in one’s possession.

  What is chametz? Contrary to popular belief, chametz is not the five grains of wheat, rye, barley, oats, and spelt. Rather, chametz is the leavened product that results when any of these five grains come into contact with water for more than a minimum of eighteen minutes. Thus, all breads, pastas, cakes, cookies, and dry cereals are considered pure chametz.

  One could reasonably ask why matzah is permitted. After all, it is baked with flour and water. But matzah baked for Pesach is carefully watched to make sure that no water touches the flour beforehand. When water is added to the flour it is quickly kneaded into dough and baked within eighteen minutes, so that no leavening process can take place. That is why only the matzah sold at Pesach time is marked KOSHER FOR PASSOVER. Year-round matzah is not supervised the same way, and could possibly be chametz.

  In addition to the five major grains, Ashkenazic Jews (of European origin) do not eat rice, corn, beans, peas, and peanuts, or any derivatives thereof. Flour could be ground of these vegetables and the breads baked from them would look like breads of pure chametz, which might confuse the populace. So the Ashkenazic rabbis barred their use altogether on Pesach. Sephardim, on the other hand, never instituted such a ban and therefore, have always served at the seder wonderful exotic side dishes made of these products.

  Preparation: For Men Only

  CLEANING

  Cleaning for Pesach is the most thorough spring cleaning imaginable. Every corner is vacuumed, every shelf is scrubbed, every drawer cleaned out. Furniture is moved, mattresses are overturned, pockets of garments are turned inside out and shaken clean. What we are looking for are any possible hiding places of chametz. While it seems a bit excessive to some, I am always surprised at how much chametz a good cleaning uncovers. My husband empties out his travel bag—full of tiny pretzel crumbs. J.J. finds his old book bag in a bottom drawer and in it, horror of horrors, is a peanut butter sandwich, hardened like a piece of petrified rock. And once we have started to clean for Pesach, some of us go overboard. Every curtain gets washed and ironed, the rugs are shampooed. At Pesach time, I recall the scene of my father, who like most men of his generation was not big on housecleaning, taking each and every book off the shelves of his extensive library, dusting each book individually, shaking out its leaves, washing the bookshelves … Pesach cleaning becomes a combination of classical New England spring cleaning and the relentless ritual search for chametz. This is why, in many well-organized households, Pesach cleaning begins right after Purim. As Lucy L., who works full time, says each year on her way out of shul after the Megillah reading, “Well, tomorrow I’ve got to get started on Pesach.”

  The office and the car also must be cleane
d thoroughly. In removing the car seats and vacuuming beneath them, one will often find enough change to have made the intensive search for chametz worthwhile.

  Only in America. One year, on the night before Pesach, Yitz and I went to make a shiva call. The oldest son of the deceased, a newly barristered twenty-three-year-old, was seated on his hard wooden mourner’s stool and was surrounded by a half-dozen young lawyers and secretaries—friends from the law firm Nathan had just joined. At one point I overheard Nathan instruct his office mate, Tom, how to clean out his desk, getting rid of any food, wiping the desk top and drawers with a damp cloth, cleaning out the corners well. I realized that Nathan would not be getting up from shiva until just before Pesach, so Tom, his WASP colleague, would have to do his Pesach cleaning. As I sat there, feeling great love for this country, I thought of my grandparents at age twenty-three, in Poland and Russia, afraid to walk near a church at Eastertime, remaining indoors with shades drawn on Good Friday—to avoid a beating at the hands of some hateful Tomas.

  In our house, we do the bedrooms first, beginning three weeks before Pesach. After a room is thoroughly cleaned, no more snacks may be eaten there. When the children were very young, I used to start Pesach cleaning only a week in advance, bringing in two cleaning people a day for the final two days. Anything else was a hopeless waste. I would allow no food upstairs (except baby bottles). After dinner, I would shake out the cuffs of their pants for crumbs. But the final inspection would always turn up something.

  Even though food is never taken into the bathroom, one must clean thoroughly there as well, for certain pharmaceutical products, such as vitamins in a grain base, are considered chametz and have to be stored away. Each year, a responsible organization such as the or a local synagogue will publish a list of what is or is not permissible. Many toiletries and druggist items, even those that may contain chametz products, such as grain alcohol, are not necessarily disqualified from possession or benefit. These items fall into the category of nifsal me’achilat kelev—unfit even for animal consumption and, therefore, the special laws of chametz prohibiting any benefit or use do not apply.