Passover Pita

Passover is here in Israel. The season of our joy, the celebration of our freedom, holiday of matzah and the arrival of spring. And yes, it is a joyful time in the Jewish country. We read in the newspapers about the pilgrims who arrived in Jerusalem to receive the priestly blessing and about the continued growth of the economy. On the beach yesterday with my son, I heard people sing the echoes of Seder songs stuck in their heads after the mere one night of recounting our Exodus story as is required in Israel. Oh what a joy to live, if only for an extended hiatus, in the holy land.
There is, however, an undertow to this holiday celebration which is increasingly bothersome to me and reflects a larger trend in Judaism. It could be best explained with the example of my friend Ofer.
Ofer is a great guy. He and I come from very very different worlds. His parents were immigrants from Iraq. He worked hard, at the exclusion of a higher education, to make his small fortune and started with the mini-market next to my apartment 18 years ago. Now he runs a successful Shwarma and falafel restaurant in central Tel Aviv. I remember two things very well from the five years we were neighbors. One is the coffees he would make us in the little kitchen in the store, the other the kindness he showed to poor people who he frequently gave food to for free. Ofer was there at my wedding and at the birth of my first child. We have a bond.
That said, Ofer is a businessman, and, as such, he looks to fill needs in society. During this week, that need is something resembling leavened flour that can house the contents of a falafel or shwarma. In short, Ofer's kosher restaurant continues to sell food as usual with a kosher for Passover version of his usual pita. What's the big deal, you might ask, and how does this relate to a larger trend in Judaism? As I see it, this is the perfect microcosm for understanding the direction of our people and, in a sense, the changing relationship we Jews are having with the God who we believe took us out of Egypt.
For many people in Tel Aviv, where I live, Passover is an excuse for a party, time to see family, paid vacation days from work and a bump in the road to culinary delights. It may be a time to tell the stories of our collective memory of exodus, but it is not a time of unique commandments or rituals that guide our collective behavior, and I am not trying to make a bad name for Tel-Aviv, my second favorite city after Chicago. The conclusion I get from this is that we are more a community of memory than we are of belief. But belief is not the only reason we refrain from leaven during Passover. In fact, the only reason I don't eat bread this week is because it helps me remember my collective past and reminds my that the bread of affliction is still being served around the world.
This year, my mother's husband, grandfather of my children, an African-American, sat at my mother in law's table for Seder. Just before we sang Oh Freedom, the Negro spiritual used frequently in civil rights demonstrations, I reminded everyone that Grandpa Claude is the person at the table who is best suited to really recall the enslavement of his ancestors. What I didn't say was that as an African-American, Claude remembers differently.
Rabban Gamliel reminds us, at our seders, that whoever does not discuss the pascal lamb, the matzah and the bitter herbs, has not completed the Passover observance properly. What does he mean? Does he want us to discuss the minutiae of what makes matzah kosher for the holiday or does he want us to discuss the expediency with which we had to flee Egypt and why that didn't allow time for our bread to rise? Does he want us to focus on cute furry mammals or is he interested in their role in past ritual observance? Does he care whether we eat horseradish or bitter lettuce or whether we remember how Pharaoh's treatment of us as resident aliens, enemies of the state and slaves made our lives so bitter? In short, as the innocent son asks, “What is this?”
Today, particularly in Israel, the so-called “wise” son rules. He asks a narrow, almost scientific question, “What are these testimonies, statutes and laws?” and we answer with narrow answers about why Ofer's pita replacement is kosher but not Shlomo's pita. And we forget the answers given to the wicked and innocent sons, that God did things for us when we were in Egypt and that He led us to freedom with a strong hand.
What I want to know is where is freedom in Ofer's pita? Where is memory?
More and more these days, I find Judaism focusing on the letters of the law and not the spirit and purpose. It reminds me, in a way, of the dilemma I have when I sit at a red light for an excessively long time, late at night, with no cars on the street. I ponder whether I should drive through the red or not. The purpose of the law, I understand, is to moderate traffic patterns, but there is no traffic. Thus far, I have been conservative and decided that I don't want the law interpreted by each individual, on her own, so I remain faithful to the letter, but in truth, I am not adhering to the spirit of the law which only wants to keep people safe and traffic flowing. The law doesn't intend to disrespect my time.
Some might not like the comparison between human law and that of the divine. I can respect that. But in many ways, this comparison is useful. I am not completely in favor of every Jew taking the tradition in her own hands. Just as we persist as a community of memory, I think that memory must serve a collective function. There is no value in remembering that “my father was a wandering Aramean,” if it doesn't teach us something about being strangers in strange lands and compassion. But, on the other hand, I am more fearful of strict adherence to the law, especially when some Jews dictate for all what the tradition might be. This can lead to Passover as the wise son will understand it, as a set of testimonies, statutes and laws at the expense of larger social missions.
I believe that Ofer's matzah is dangerous because it makes the holiday about laws and not their purposes. The Passover Seder, on the other hand, is wonderful because it is our chance to lean back and recline as we consider why we do the things we do, and it forces us to do it together in a framework that uses memory to instruct our decisions about the future.
The problem is that we only have a Seder once a year and that leaves us a gap that is filled by chief rabbis, non-democratically chosen community leaders and self-interested politicians. We don't participate in a Jewish national Seder, or dialog, neither as a country nor as a people. Our Jewish homeland hasn't had a constitution since it's establishment 62 years ago. And now we are acting as if we have no future without the intervention of God's strong hand.
So this year, as I avoid my friends kosher for Passover pita, and crunch my matzah, and remember the suffering of my ancestors, and grapple with the realities of Jewish statehood, I ask why remember the pascal lamb, the matzah and the bitter herbs, if doesn't lead us to celebrate our freedom and remember the slavery of others? But more importantly, I ask how I can make the spirit of the law come before the letter and how I can reach an understanding of this spirit collectively with all of my people?