Pesach's Downside

Despite the RWAC Pesach lovefest in the air, I feel it important to bring up a downside of Pesach. No, I'm not referring the cleaning aspect of the holiday, "Dust isn't Chametz" but something a lot more disturbing.

Pesach is a holiday for the Jewish People, a national celebration of liberation from slavery, culminating is receiving the Torah and our acceptance of the laws and responsibilities of Judaism. That galvanizing experience molded us into a nation.

The authentic Pesach experience of the Jewish people in their homeland, involved the "Chabura" and eating of the Korban Pesach, the Passover sacraficial lamb. The "Chabura" aspect, was that families and friends would eat the Korban Pesach together. An entire lamb was too much for a single family, and groups and groups would join together, and experience their seder toegther.

That was classical Pesach.

Unfortunately, the downside of Pesach today is an insularity among many parts of the frum community due to Pesach kashrut observances. Chumrot and Minhagim isolate families from their friends to the point that I commonly hear, "We don't eat over by anyone on Pesach."

Don't get me wrong; I'm not attacking the Ashkenazic ban on "kitnoyot" at all.

Yet if we look at the spectrum of chumrot and minhagim about Pesach including, but not limited to:

Kitniyot
Mei Kitnityot
Kitniyot which changed their form
Lecitin (yes or no?)
Only Hand Shmurah Matza
Only "Chai Regaim" Shmura Matza
Only Machine Shmura Maztza (if using machine baked matza)
Gebrochts

...we see that the possibility of returning to the "Chabura" communal aspect of Pesach is impossible in this day and age.

The Pesach Seder "Chabura" pictured here in the Temple Haggada.
(link in English or Hebrew...hmmm, can't find the hagadda link
in Hebrew, but it exists, and is excellent...I own one)

When people refuse to eat by friends (or even family) because of too many chumrot and minhagim, then in my humble opinion, we are losing out on a crucial aspect of Pesach.

And that's a huge downside.

Therefore, I'm happy to report that we WILL be having a joint seder at our friends and neighbors home this year...unless of course, we merit to have our Chaburah Seder with the Korban Pesach in Yerushalayim with a rebuilt Beit HaMikdash.

A Chag Kasher vSameach to all our readers!

Jameel & Co.
The Muqata

Lexicon (no time to get hyperlinks for them, so here's a quick, off the cuff listing)

Halacha: Jewish Law
Chumorot: Personal stringencies going above the basic required Jewish law.
Minhagim: Personal Customs, not Jewish Law, but a personally accepted (or inherited) custom.
Kitniyot: Legumes, not outright Chametz.
Mei Kitniyot: Oil from Kitniyot
Gebrochts: Any combination of baked matza and liquid, whether baked or eaten together.
Chametz: Google it yourself :)







Wherever I am, my blog turns towards Eretz Yisrael

Like it or not...we will keep returning.

Great Return to Chomesh picture roundup on HNN. (hat-tip ASJ)

The NY Times had the following to say:

The reoccupation, even temporarily, of a destroyed Jewish settlement deep in the West Bank, near Jenin, is an open challenge to a weak Israeli government. How it plays out will be viewed by Palestinians as a sign of whether Israel intends to keep its pledges, or whether settlement activity will continue to proceed unhindered, despite Israel’s promises to halt it.

“We are not here to cry,” said Batya Danziger, 16, one of the many teenagers who took part in the effort to reach the now desolate Homesh. “We are here to live and build it back up again.”

“Hooray, a house!” her friends shouted out in delight as they used palm fronds to fasten a lean-to against one of the few remaining stone walls.

Despite initial warnings to participants that their attempts to reach Homesh would be considered illegal, the government did not order security forces to stop the group from making its way there by foot. Instead, the forces provided security for a six-mile stretch of winding road on which the activists made their way to the site.

Parents held the hands of preschoolers, young people banged on drums and some pushed strollers piled high with sleeping bags, tents, bottled water and canned tuna as part of a campaign the organizers called Homesh Is the Beginning.

Yes, this is just the beginning. We will keep returning...and to Gush Katif as well.

Who would have thought it would have been this quick? Limor Har-Melech, the widow of Shuly Har-Melech who was murdered by a Palestinian terrorists on his way home to Chomesh, remarried, and today is the brit of her newborn son...in CHOMESH.

The Arabs...and even some Jews may not want us here, but we will keep returning.

Wherever I am, my blog turns towards Eretz Yisrael