Today is the Jewish holiday Shavuot, the conclusion of a seven-week counting period from the start of Passover, the day on which tradition tells us God gave the Torah to the Jewish people.

Or, more accurately, the day on which tradition tells us that God gave them the ten commandments, speaking to them directly. Apparently overwhelmed by the experience, the Jewish people then beg Moses to act as an intermediary, leading Moses to head up the mountain for forty days, returning with the physical tablets of the ten commandments, and with an oral transmission of the rest of the Torah.

As with all of Judaism, the details of that story have been studied and debated over the millennia since.

According to some rabbis, God spoke only the first commandment to the people directly: “Anochi Adonai Elohecha, asher hotzeticha mei’eretz mitzrayim mi’bait”, “I am the Lord, your God, Who took you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.”

According to some others, God spoke only the first word of the first commandment, “Anochi”, a word of Egyptian origin meaning “I am.”

And still others say that God spoke only the first letter of that first word, the Hebrew letter aleph.  But aleph is a silent letter – neither vowel nor consonant.  It has no sound.  So what and how did God speak in that silence?  It’s an interesting question to ponder today, on Shavuot.

To that end, a poem I’ve long loved by former US Poet Laureate Billy Collins, “Silence”:

There is the sudden silence of the crowd
above a player not moving on the field,
and the silence of the orchid.

The silence of the falling vase
before it strikes the floor,
the silence of the belt when it is not striking the child.

The stillness of the cup and the water in it,
the silence of the moon
and the quiet of the day far from the roar of the sun.

The silence when I hold you to my chest,
the silence of the window above us,
and the silence when you rise and turn away.

And there is the silence of this morning
which I have broken with my pen,
a silence that had piled up all night

like snow falling in the darkness of the house—
the silence before I wrote a word
and the poorer silence now.

Today is the second full day of Passover, a holiday that begins with two nights of ritual ‘Seder’ meals, and continues for eight days of avoiding 'chametz', or leavened bread.

It’s a biblical holiday, celebrating the liberation of the Jewish slaves in Egypt, and their exodus to Israel. And, indeed, the prohibition of chametz is similarly biblical, with Exodus 13:3 ruling out leavened bread made from the ‘five grains’: wheat, spelt, barley, oats (or possibly two-rowed barley, depending on the translation), and rye.

Subsequently, in the 6th century B.C., the rabbinical Great Assembly came up with the idea of “asu syag latorah,” building a fence around the Torah: they introduced broader prohibitions surrounding the original biblical ones, to prevent people from inadvertently violating commandments. Under the Assembly’s lead, the prohibition spread from leavened bread made from the five grains, to any use of the five grains other than in matzah.

Two thousand years or so later, another traditional passover ’fence’ emerged, at least amongst Ashkenazi Jews, those living in Eastern Europe. That group extended the prohibition to ‘kitniyot,’ other seeds, grains, and legumes that might be made into a flour, such as rice, corn, beans, soybeans, peas, and lentils.

Sephardic Jews, those from around the Mediterranean Sea (in Portugal, Spain, Northern Africa, and the Middle East) never picked up the kitniyot tradition. So those Jews, and most Israeli’s today, will happily eat rice, beans, etc. during Passover.

But my own family lineage might best be described as ‘Eastern European mutt.’ So I have strong memories of, as a child, grocery shopping with my mother for Passover, buying the yellow-capped ‘kosher for passover’ Coca Cola (made using sugar rather than corn syrup), or ruling out the slew of canned and processed foods made with soy lecithin as a stabilizer.

These days, I’d class myself as part of the Reconstructionist Jewish movement. I’m somewhere between atheist and agnostic, so I observe Passover, but not because I believe there’s a big guy with a beard up in the sky who shakes his fist if I eat bread. But I do still very much value Judaism, as a source of tradition, wisdom, ritual, and community. As Mordecai Kaplan, the founder of Reconstructionism explained a century back, one way to make sense of Judaism is as “the evolving religious civilization of the Jewish people,” a quest to find ways of living that reveal holiness and godliness in the world, and one that gives tradition “a vote, not a veto in that quest.”

So, up until now, I’ve always observed Passover by avoiding any non-matzah use of the five grains, but also by avoiding kitniyot, too. If the whole point is to honor Passover tradition, and the prohibition against kitniyot is part of that tradition in my family, that seemed as good an argument as any to stick with it.

Still, one thing that I’ve long appreciated about Judaism is that’s it’s a religion based on questioning, analysis, and interpretation. The word Israel itself means literally “he who wrestles with god,” and the centuries of rabbinical writing encapsulated in the Talmud and other works chronicle the thoughtful and rigorous undertaking of that wrestling match.

To that end, this year, I carefully studied up on two recent decisions by Conservative Judaism’s governing Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, and a similar opinion from the Israeli orthodox rabbi David Bar-Hayim. All of which, surprisingly, made for pretty interesting reading.

To summarize:

The rabbis of the Talmud, the group that came up with the first ‘fence’ (of not eating anything but matzah made of the five grains), actually specifically considered kitniyot in about a half-dozen instances, and decided it’s fine to eat during Passover.

A thousand years later, when the custom of avoiding kitniyot first appeared, the rabbis of the time mention it only to say it was a bad idea. They describe it as “mistaken,” “foolish,” and “baseless,” which is about as harsh as language gets in talmudic debate.

So the question becomes: if it contravenes the Talmud, and the contemporary authorities at the time it was instituted though it was stupid, should we still keep up the custom for the sake of tradition?

Fortunately, the rabbis of Talmud gave some guidelines there, too:

First, they explain that all customs should have a rational basis in Torah. If you start observing a baseless custom, they warn, then people might start to assume all the other, more carefully reasoned customs are baseless, too. Thus, we should discard any custom, like avoiding kitniyot, that has no good explanation, especially when it directly contravenes more thorough earlier consideration.

Second, we should discard any custom that’s a ‘humra yethera,’ an unnecessary stringency, lest we reduce the joy of the holiday it’s meant to help celebrate, or emphasize the insignificant (avoiding rice and beans) over the significant (avoiding the five kinds of prohibited grain) aspects of the holiday.

Third, we should discard any custom that causes ‘hefsed merubeh,’ substantial monetary loss for the poor, much as prohibiting inexpensive kitniyot forces people to buy more expensive matzah, fish, and meat for the same calories.

All of which is to say, even for those (like me) who keep kosher for Passover for the sake of tradition should be willing to drop the specific prohibition of kitniyot.

And now I’m off to eat some rice.

I wrote this 13 years (or, one bar mitzvah) ago, but I stand by it still today. Happy Chanukah – chag urim sameach – to all, and to all a good night. [And, in other news, if you’re actually going to make latkes, definitely don’t follow my pre-culinary school process below. Washing off the starch? Oy vey. Here’s what you need to know to get them right.]

+++

It is the fourth night of Chanukah and my apartment is empty, my roommates having gone off to their respective families for Christmas. The block of 51st Street outside my front window is oddly quiet as well, as if my neighbors have left to make room for the holiday inflow of tourists that swarms our little island, packs Times Square and Rockefeller Plaza, both a few blocks away.

It is nearly 7:00, and though the sun has set two and a half hours ago, I am only now getting ready to light the menorah. It is a traditional one – wrought brass, burning oil rather than candles. I fill the four rightmost cups, then the shamash, the taller ‘helper’ flame, placing a floating wick in each. I recite the prayers, rote, in Hebrew: Blessed are you, Hashem our God, king of the universe, who has sanctified us with his commandments, and has commanded us to kindle the light of Chanukah. Blessed are You, Hashem our God, king of the universe, who wrought miracles for our forefathers in those days at this season.

Carefully, I lift the menorah from the stovetop and carry it over to the kitchen window, placing it facing outward, so that passersby on the street below can see it. I turn off the overhead lights, and stand for several minutes in the dark, watching the five smalls flames flicker, leap, and dance for their reflections in the pane of window glass.

:::

I sit down at my desk, intending to slog away at a pile of work, but instead drift into thought about Chanukah – or, more accurately, about Chanukahs past. About, as a child, standing in the kitchen with my family, crowded around several lit menorot, singing. About laughing and clowning in the living room as we exchange gifts – my mother, every year without fail, affixing all the bows pulled from any of our gifts to her hair. About sitting around the table, eating the traditional Chanukah latkes – potato pancakes cooked in oil.

And, unexpectedly, I’m swept by a wave of homesickness, a sudden welling burst of holiday loneliness. I decide the only thing I can do is to create some Chanukah joy in my own home. I decide, in fact, that I’ll make a batch of latkes myself.

:::

It occurs to me, however, that I’ve never actually made latkes. Certainly, in years past, I’d always helped my mother prepare them, but my assistance was solely limited to peeling potatoes. Still, I reason, latkes certainly aren’t a complicated dish: coarsely grated potato, onion and egg, pan-fried in lots of oil. I should be able to handle it. I call my parents’ home to inquire about the proportions – how many eggs exactly? – but as they’re out, I decide to simply fake it.

:::

Walking to the Food Emporium, I realize the unfolding latke misadventure might make for good reading. And, at first, the idea gives me pause. I wrote online for years before even obliquely referring to Judaism. Posting about the topic still makes me vaguely uncomfortable, as if it’s something I shouldn’t share, or at least shouldn’t advertise, about myself. We Jews are a culturally paranoid people – it’s easy to think everyone’s out to get you when, for centuries, they were. These days, bludgeoned as children by hundreds of Holocaust documentaries, we grow up with the message that, sometimes, being publicly Jewish can be rather bad for your health.

With a bit of thought, however, I conclude my tacit ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy simply supports anti-semitism. Instead, I decide to push for understanding through openness; if Chanukah is something I’m thinking about, a part of who I am, certainly, I should be willing to share that.

:::

I return from Food Emporium with five exceedingly large potatoes, one large onion and a dozen eggs. Setting them out on the counter, I wash my hands, then scrub down each potato thoroughly. The peeler isn’t in the drawer where it should be, and I spend several minutes searching for where my roommates might have placed it. Eventually, I find it – an OXO Good Grip, courtesy of my father, who is obsessed with kitchen gadgetry.

I peel the potatoes over the sink, thinking about the years of potatoes peeled in my parents house. Perversely, I miss the old, less-effective peelers we owned when I was still very young – sparely built metal ones, with orange plastic handles. I have a sudden flashbulb memory of rummaging through the drawer to find them, looking for one of the two right-handed peelers rather than the left-handed one. Which, it occurs to me, was a rather odd possession, considering that my entire family is right handed.

:::

Quartering the peeled potatoes, I place them into a bowl of water to keep the air from turning them brown. Then, without the Cuisinart we always used in my parents’ house, I pull out a metal hand-grater, and begin coarsely grating the first potato quarter. I’m careful with my strokes, watching out to keep my knuckles from dragging across the sharp edges, but it is still repetitive, vaguely meditative work.

In the quiet, I begin to think about the story of Chanukah. Or, rather, about the stark difference between the version we Jews learn as children, and the full, historically accurate one that some of us discover as adults. Observe:

The kid version: An evil Greek ruler, Antiochus, tries to destroy the Jewish people. He takes over the Jew’s holy temple and turns it into a shrine to himself. The brave Maccabees, led by Judah “The Hammer”, revolt, fight back, and eventually win, reclaiming the temple. The ner tamid – the temple’s eternal, holy light – has been extinguished, and all the vessels of oil (used to fuel the light) have been shattered. After much search, a single intact vessel is found; though it should last only one night, it miraculously burns for eight, long enough to harvest and press enough olive oil to keep the light burning.

The adult version: The majority of Jews are – much like today – highly integrated into Hellenic Greek culture. They make major contributions to the arts, science and philosophy, and are increasingly involved in sports and popular culture. The Maccabees belong to a violent fundamentalist minority group, the Hasmoneans; they travel around, using violence and murder to coerce integrated Hellenistic Jews back to a segregated, traditionalist lifestyle. Antiochus comes to power, and people recognize him as basically a nut-job – I mean, the guy renames himself Epiphanes (meaning, literally, ”god made manifest’), believing he is a human incarnation of the god Zeus. As a result, he takes stupid military risks, which, combined with the fact that everybody is out to kill him, leads the Hellenistic Jews to figure he won’t last long. Further, while he does ask the Jews to bring him offerings recognizing his divinity and put his picture up in their temple, he’s otherwise fairly tolerant, and certainly never violent towards the Jewish people. They therefore decide to simply ignore Antiochus for a couple of years and wait for him to get himself killed, letting things return to their previous, unharried state. The Hasmoneans, however, have other ideas. They organize a military revolt and take Jerusalem by military force (causing Antiochus’ troops to defile the temple in retreat). The victorious Hasmoneans then secede from Greece and revert the country into a fundamentalist state, cutting off outside communication, outlawing much of the intellectual progress made by Greek Jews, and more or less setting the Jewish people back a couple hundred years.

In other words, if the Chanukah story played itself out again today, I doubt I’d be rooting for the Maccabees. And I certainly wouldn’t be frying up potato pancakes in their honor.

:::

I grate as I think, and after several minutes I’ve made it through the first two potato quarters, knuckles unscathed. Still, I regard the bowl of potato quarters skeptically, trying to avoid estimating how long all that grating is likely to take. Suddenly, it occurs to me that perhaps I do own a Cuisinart. I seem to vaguely recall my parents shipping me their old one a few years back when they replaced it with a newer model. While I’ve never before used it, I can sort of picture unpacking it from a box full of styrofoam peanuts, and so begin diving through the back of less used cabinets.

To my delight, I find the Cuisinart wedged between an unused toaster and a coffee maker (the result of three roommates worth of appliances moving into one kitchen). I dust off the body, wash out the top, then plug it in. Gaining a whole new appreciation for the miracles of technology, I polish off grating the remaining eighteen potato quarters in less time than it took me to hand-grate the first two.

Pouring the grated potatoes into a strainer, I wash off the starch, then dump them into a large bowl. I’m amazed by the amount of grated potato generated from the five potatoes I started with – the bowl is nearly overflowing. I can’t help but laugh, thinking my mother would be thrilled, serving waaaay too much food being the hallmark of Jewish-motherhood.

Once I’ve peeled and Cuisinart-ed the onion, I decide to dump everything across to a soup pot – the largest container I own – lest I spill over the edge while mixing. I crack in one egg, then another, stirring them through with my bare hands. The mix looks about right, so I pull out a pan, fill it with olive oil, and put it over a burner at high heat.

:::

As the oil begins to sputter and sizzle, I start to reconsider my Chanukah objections. Certainly, I appreciate any number of other Jewish holidays whose origins seem a bit dodgy to me. Consider the holiday of Yom Kippur, the ‘day of atonement’: while I do believe in some sort of underlying ‘force’ in the universe, I certainly don’t believe some old guy with a long beard is sitting up there in a chair, judging on that holiday whether I’ll be smote in the coming year because I’ve eaten too much shrimp. Still, come Yom Kippur, I pray and I mean it. I’m pleading for forgiveness – perhaps not from ‘God’, but certainly from the best, most Godly part of myself. Which is to say that, though I don’t take the Torah literally, I do take it seriously. I never cease to find value in Jewish tradition, in Jewish practice, no matter the underlying motivation that brings me to it.

Which, frankly, isn’t too unusual. After all, Judaism is a religion that values action over faith, sort of a “feel the doubt and do it anyway” kind of deal. Even the word ‘Israel’ itself means ”he who wrestles with God’. In other words, questioning, considering, doubting – they’re all at the heart of what it means to celebrate a holiday as a Jew.

:::

With the oil bubbling, I pack the first latke – balling a small handful of the potato mix, flattening it out, then tossing it into the pan. Though it sizzles and browns nicely, when I try to flip it, it disintegrates, turning from latke to hash brown. I figure the mixture needs a few more eggs, and crack in another two.

The next pass works a bit better – the latke stays together through flipping – though I seem to have packed it a bit too thick, as the outside singes before the center is cooked through. I toss three thinner latkes in, pour in a bit more oil and let them cook. They come out golden brown, not quite crisp. I lay them on a paper-towel-covered plate to soak up excess oil, then break off a piece of one. It’s still hot from the pan, and I burn my mouth slightly on the first bite, but don’t mind at all. It’s absolutely delicious.

:::

Once I get the hang of it, I fall into latke autopilot, quickly browning up the rest of the batch. I realize I’ve neglected to buy sour cream or applesauce, and so am left to down a plateful straight, no chaser.

Still, I enjoy them, in part because they’ve come out much better than I’d have expected, in part because they taste like Chanukah to me, because they taste like home.

Though I consider Judaism a strong part of my identity, I’m also, at best, agnostic. Fortunately, Judaism gives plenty of space for questioning; it’s a religion based on the primacy of action, rather than, as with Christianity, the primacy of belief. Sort of a ‘feel the doubt, and do it anyway’ setup. Even the name Israel, for example, literally means ‘he who wrestles with God.’

So I’ve always particularly loved the story of the Oven of Akhnai, which appears in the Babylonian Talmud [Baba Metzia 59b], a record of the leading rabbis of the 2nd century discussing and interpreting the Torah and Jewish law. At it’s core, it’s a story about Judaism being in the hands of its practitioners, rather than in the hands of an unquestionable, all-knowing God.

The story centers around an innovative clay oven, built with layers of sand in between each of the clay coils, rather than with the clay coils placed directly upon one another, as was the standard construction at the time.

Usually, cooking non-kosher food in an oven would render the oven non-kosher. But Rabbi Eliezer, one of the sages featured in the Talmud, argues that this new sand-separated oven is different. Because each of the coils doesn’t qualify as a cooking utensil on its own, and because the sand between the coils keeps the oven from being a single unit, then the oven can’t be rendered non-kosher.

The dozen other Rabbis, however, disagree. They point out that the outer structure of the oven unifies the coils, making it a single item, regulated by the same laws as any other oven.

The story picks up from there:

It is taught: On that day Rabbi Eliezer brought forward every imaginable argument, but the Sages did not accept any of them.

Finally, he said to them: “if the Halakhah (religious law) is in accordance with me, let this carob tree prove it!”

Sure enough the carob tree immediately uprooted itself and walked one hundred cubits, and some say 400 cubits, from its place.

“You cannot prove an argument with a carob tree,” the Sages retorted.

So again Rabbi Eliezer said to them, “if the Halakhah agrees with me, let this stream prove it!”

Sure enough, the stream stopped flowing, and then began to flow backward.

“You cannot prove an argument with a stream,” the Sages rejoined.

Again Rabbi Eliezer urged, “if the Halakhah agrees with me, let the walls of this study hall prove it!”

Sure enough, the walls tilted as if to fall. But Rabbi Joshua rebuked the walls, saying, “when disciples are engaged in a Halakhic dispute, what right have you to interfere?”

In deference to Rabbi Joshua, they did not fall, but in deference to Rabbi Eliezer they did not resume their upright position; they are still standing aslant today.

Rabbi Eliezer then said to the Sages, “if the Halakhah agrees with me, let it be proved from heaven!”

Sure enough, a divine voice cried out, “why do you dispute with Rabbi Eliezer, with whom the Halakhah agrees?”

Rabbi Joshua stood up and protested, citing Deutoronomy: “‘the Torah is not in heaven’! We pay no attention to a divine voice, because long ago at Mount Sinai, You wrote in your Torah, ‘after the majority must one incline’.”

Bam. Sorry God, but majority rules, and you just got out-voted on this one.

(That said, at least God’s not a sore loser. Later in the Talmud, Rabbi Nathan meets the prophet Elijah, and asks, “what did the Holy One do at that moment?” Elijah replies, “he laughed [with joy], saying, ‘my children have defeated Me, my children have defeated Me.'”)

In keeping with custom, watched a movie (the excellent Brooklyn, with my parents and 92-year-old grandmother) and am now headed off to enjoy Red Farm.

Gut yontif to all, and to all a good night.

With the Jewish High Holidays upon us, I’ve been busy wrangling family, cooking up a storm (including brisket two ways [one traditional, one Italian style], Hungarian stuffed chicken, apple-honey challah, potato kugel, honey-roasted root vegetables, etc.) and praying it up in synagogue.

By tradition, God passes judgment on each person on Rosh Hashanah, though the decree isn’t made absolute until Yom Kippur. The liturgy for both holidays includes the poem “Unetaneh Tokef,” which contains this rather graphic passage:

On Rosh Hashanah it is written, and on Yom Kippur it is sealed.
How many will pass and how many will be created?
Who will live and who will die?
Who in their time, and who not their time?
Who by fire and who by water?
Who by sword and who by beast?
Who by hunger and who by thirst?
Who by earthquake and who by drowning?
Who by strangling and who by stoning?
Who will rest and who will wander?
Who will be safe and who will be torn?
Who will be calm and who will be tormented?
Who will become poor and who will get rich?
Who will be made humble and who will be raised up?
But teshuvah and tefillah and tzedakah (return and prayer and righteous acts)
deflect the evil of the decree.

The whole stretch from Rosh Hashanah through Yom Kippur is known as Yamim Noraim, “the days of awe”, during which time Jews think about where they stand (a Chesbhon haNefesh, or “accounting of the soul”), and try to improve themselves, their relationships with others, and their place in the world (and, by extension for those who believe things more literally, their fate in the year to come).

As I have plenty to think about from the past year, I’ve been reading far and wide, and came across this great passage from a talk by the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Schneerson, on teshuvah, repentance, and the space between the two:

“Repentance” in Hebrew is not teshuvah but charatah. Not only are these two terms not synonymous, they are opposites.

Charatah implies remorse or a feeling of guilt about the past and an intention to behave in a completely new way in the future. The person decides to become “a new man.” But teshuvah means “returning” to the old, to one’s original nature.

Underlying the concept of teshuvah is the fact that the Jew is, in essence, good. Desires or temptations may deflect him temporarily from being himself, being true to his essence.

But the bad that he does is not part of, nor does it affect, his real nature. Teshuvah is a return to the self.

While repentance involves dismissing the past and starting anew, teshuvah means going back to one’s roots in G-d and exposing them as one’s true character.

For this reason, while the righteous have no need to repent, and the wicked may be unable to, both may do teshuvah.

The righteous, though they have never sinned, have constantly to strive to return to their innermost. And the wicked, however distant they are from G-d, can always return, for teshuvah does not involve creating anything new, only rediscovering the good that was always within them.

To all my readers, Jewish and not, best wishes for a shana tova umetukah, “a good and sweet year.” Ketiva ve-chatima tovah, “may you be written and sealed for a good year,” indeed.

We’re counting down the last days of Passover, and none too soon, as I’ve started fantasizing about baked goods in idle moments. In honor of the holiday, thought it was worth retelling this classic joke:

Throughout his childhood, Bernie is obsessed with airplanes. By high school, he decides that he wants to be an aeronautical engineer and plane designer. He studies hard, gets into the best design school, graduates cum laude and, through years of hard work, begins to build a reputation as the US’s finest plane designer. Eventually, as his reputation peaks, the President calls.

“Bernie,” the President says, “we want you to build a fighter jet – cost is no object – but I want it to be, by far, the very best fighter jet in the world. ”

Ecstatic, Bernie goes to work, directing the entire resources of his company into this single project. After several months of tireless toil, Bernie shows a design so revolutionary that it draws universal acclaim. A prototype is built, yielding further adulation. Yet, on the first test flight, before the plane even leaves the ground, the forces are too great, breaking the wings cleanly off the fuselage.

Bernie is distraught. He completely redesigns the wing attachments, builds another prototype and attempts a second test flight. The same problem strikes. After a third time through the design-build-test-break cycle, Bernie is despondent.

Not knowing where else to turn, Bernie consults a rabbi. He pours his heart out. The rabbi deliberates.

“Listen,” says the rabbi. “I can solve your problem. You must drill a row of tiny holes directly above and below where the wing meets the fuselage. If you do this, I absolutely guarantee the wings won’t fall off.”

Bernie thanks the rabbi, but leaves disillusioned. The suggestion flies completely in the face of the laws of structural design. But after a few nights of fruitless brainstorming, Bernie decides he has nothing to lose. He builds another prototype, following the rabbi’s advice, drilling a row of holes directly above and below where the wings meet the fuselage.

Lo and behold, the test flight goes off without a hitch. The president is thrilled, an entire armada of Bernie’s planes are built, and Bernie becomes a living legend in the aeronautics community. Eventually, plagued by curiosity, Bernie returns to the rabbi.

“Rabbi,” he asks, “how did you know that drilling those holes would prevent the wings from breaking off?”

The rabbi smiles, then replies,

“Bernie, I’m an old man. I’ve been a rabbi for many years, and I’ve celebrated Passover every year of my life. And in that time, not once, NOT ONCE, have I ever seen a single piece of matzo break along the perforation. ”

Pesach sameach, everyone. Next year, in Jerusalem.