Just about three days into Passover and...

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Posted by Missladybug15

i love matzah and I am not even jewish!!!

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me too

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Posted by Goldi1021

...the matzah is driving me NUTS.

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you're not the only one

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Posted by Goldi1021

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Posted by evnme

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Posted by laural2979

This non-jew definitely does not love matzah. I especially hate matzah stuffing!!

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but my dear, u are not required to eat it for 8 days....

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I hate matzah and matzah stuffing. And again, I think being released from the house of bondage could be celebrated with something better than being bound up for 8 days. Marnie, can you talk to a few Rabbi's and change this please?

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haha
well, i can add a new rule:
you are now required to eat lots of veggies and prunes! no if's and's or but's about it!

I made my FI matzah bri, turkey breakfast sausages and salad for dinner tonight in spirit of Passover. And you know what he said... 'I wish we could have maple syrup all the time'

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Posted by Goldi1021

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Posted by SweetCin704

I'm non-Jewish & love Matzoh Ball soup....yummmm

Leslie, can you explain what you have to do during passover? (sorry

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Marnie would be the better person to ask. But the dietary rules are vastly different for these 8 days. Anything with a leavening agent is forbidden. When the Jews left Egypt to escape slavery, they did not have time for the dough in their bread to rise and that is why we eat matzah. HOWEVER, it goes a lot deeper than that and I am not religious enough to give an explanation that would be adequate.

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ok, here goes:
leslie gave a good overview of why we eat matzah (extra gold stars for u! )

in every jewish worship service, we do the mi chamocha, as it is every generation of jews who left egypt. it is a collective memory that gets played out during passover during the seders when we read the haggadah and retell the story of the exodus from egypt (hence that book of the bible in english is called exodus...)
the tale of slavery to freedom is a common theme to many peoples.
each part of the seder is a piece of the jews' story from slavery to freedom--from egypt to canaan.
we eat maror (the bitter herbs) to remind us of how bitter our lives were in egypt. we dip the greens in salt water to remind us of the tears we shed as slaves. we eat charoset to remind us of the morter we used to build bricks to build the pyramids for the egyptions. we dip a finger in the wine and dot it on a plate for each plague we read. we lean on pillows to remind us that now we are free and can recline while we eat.
leslie's explanation of why we eat the matzah is on the money-- we had to flee b4 pharoah changed his mind and we did not have time to allow the dough to rise. we also have a roasted egg to symbolize our hard life and also new beginnings, and a roasted shankbone or roasted beat symbolzing the jews painting lamb's blood on their door posts so the angel of death would pass over their homes (10th plague...)
each year on passover, it is like we are the generation leaving egypt and we re-enact the exodus.
we sing songs of slavery to freedom (like--avadim hayinu-- we were slaves, but now we are free)
we leave an empty cup on the table for the prophet elijah and leave a door open for him to come and drink the wine we leave for him. when elijah comes,it is a sign of the messiah we are waiting for.
we have the youngest children as the 4 questions, that adults answer which explain many of the customs of passover...
some people add other symbolic foods to their seder plates-- like potato peels symbolizing the poor and an orange symbolizing women. the orange is a symbol of defiance. susanna heschel once wrote that a man said to her that a woman belongs on the bimah like an orange belongs on a seder plate, hence we put the orange on the seder plate.....
some people also have a miriam's cup on the table along w/ elijah's cup as a symbol of the prophetess miriam (moses' sister) leadingthe women in song and dance as they crossed the red sea.

there is a fun persian custom of hitting eachother with scalions as we sing dayinu, symbolizing pharoah's task masters' whips.

leslie, did i get most of it?
let me know if i missed something....

This non jew loves Matzah also!!! But only because I was exposed to it at an early age!!!
(My dad is Jewish, and eating matzah at Passover is about as Jewish as he gets!!)

Oh yeah, I love rugalach (sp?) also!!!

Marnie,
I searched for the actual origin of the orange on the seder plate for my seders this year. Just thought you might like to know.

It is as follows:

In the early 1980s, the Hillel Foundation invited me to speak on a panel at Oberlin College. While on campus, I came across a Haggada that had been written by some Oberlin students to express feminist concerns. One ritual they devised was placing a crust of bread on the Seder plate, as a sign of solidarity with Jewish lesbians ('there's as much room for a lesbian in Judaism as there is for a crust of break on the Seder plate').

At the next Passover, I placed an orange on our family's Seder plate. During the first part of the Seder, I asked everyone to take a segment of the orange, make the blessing over fruit, and eat it as a gesture of solidarity with Jewish lesbians and gay men, and others who are marginalized within the Jewish community (I mentioned widows in particular).

Bread on the Seder plate brings an end to Pesach - it renders everything chometz. And its symbolism suggests that being lesbian is being transgressive, violating Judaism. I felt that an orange was suggestive of something else: the fruitfulness for all Jews when lesbians and gay men are contributing and active members of Jewish life. In addition, each orange segment had a few seeds that had to be spit out - a gesture of spitting out, repudiating the homophobia that poisons too many Jews.

When lecturing, I often mentioned my custom as one of many new feminist rituals that had been developed in the last twenty years. Somehow, though, the typical patriarchal maneuver occurred: My idea of an orange and my intention of affirming lesbians and gay men were transformed. Now the story circulates that a MAN stood up after I lecture I delivered and said to me, in anger, that a woman belongs on the bimah as much as an orange on the Seder plate. My idea, a woman's words, are attributed to a man, and the affirmation of lesbians and gay men is simply erased. Isn't that precisely what's happened over the centuries to women's ideas?

Susannah Heschel, April, 2001
Eli Black Professor of Jewish Studies Dartmouth College

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Posted by Goldi1021

...the matzah is driving me NUTS.

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Totally!! I'm counting the days (hours?) until my pasta dinner Wednesday night. Why can we not eat beans on Passover? I miss soy!

I did, however, make a pretty darn good Passover Pizza - mashed potato crust, carmelized onionis and roasted red peppers. Yum! I'll post it in the passover recipes thread.

hi,
thanks,
i knew this.
the version i gave is the popularized version.

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Posted by EandD

Marnie,
I searched for the actual origin of the orange on the seder plate for my seders this year. Just thought you might like to know.

It is as follows:

In the early 1980s, the Hillel Foundation invited me to speak on a panel at Oberlin College. While on campus, I came across a Haggada that had been written by some Oberlin students to express feminist concerns. One ritual they devised was placing a crust of bread on the Seder plate, as a sign of solidarity with Jewish lesbians ('there's as much room for a lesbian in Judaism as there is for a crust of break on the Seder plate').

At the next Passover, I placed an orange on our family's Seder plate. During the first part of the Seder, I asked everyone to take a segment of the orange, make the blessing over fruit, and eat it as a gesture of solidarity with Jewish lesbians and gay men, and others who are marginalized within the Jewish community (I mentioned widows in particular).

Bread on the Seder plate brings an end to Pesach - it renders everything chometz. And its symbolism suggests that being lesbian is being transgressive, violating Judaism. I felt that an orange was suggestive of something else: the fruitfulness for all Jews when lesbians and gay men are contributing and active members of Jewish life. In addition, each orange segment had a few seeds that had to be spit out - a gesture of spitting out, repudiating the homophobia that poisons too many Jews.

When lecturing, I often mentioned my custom as one of many new feminist rituals that had been developed in the last twenty years. Somehow, though, the typical patriarchal maneuver occurred: My idea of an orange and my intention of affirming lesbians and gay men were transformed. Now the story circulates that a MAN stood up after I lecture I delivered and said to me, in anger, that a woman belongs on the bimah as much as an orange on the Seder plate. My idea, a woman's words, are attributed to a man, and the affirmation of lesbians and gay men is simply erased. Isn't that precisely what's happened over the centuries to women's ideas?

Susannah Heschel, April, 2001
Eli Black Professor of Jewish Studies Dartmouth College

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