Some choose to use different silverware in order to indicate that what we eat on Passover is meant to be different from the rest of the year. Does it matter? Does "God really care" if we eat matza on the same plate used for a bagel the rest of the year?
My bet is God doesn't much worry about our plates and silverware. Nevertheless, the idea of making our homes visually different for one week a year does speak strongly to me. At some level, "changing some dishes" can be an aesthetically pleasing and memory creating Passover option.
Not Eating Bread This Year? I vividly remember my experience as a young Air Force Chaplain, going to the senior Chaplain who I recall was a Protestant fundamentalist, and saying "Next month is Passover, and I need to have certain foods stocked in the PX for Jewish families. Jews have always understood this relationship.
Even in Reform Judaism, where questions of kosher foods are left to the individual's choice, it is still clear that what we eat reflects what we believe. This is especially obvious on Passover, when - at the very least - we abstain from eating bread for the duration of the holiday. It links us to other Jews in the world, and "vertically" to our people's experience on this planet. Although we talk about the great central ideal of Passover, the concept of freedom, nothing illustrates a concept better than some concrete action as a reminder.
In fact, we realize more and more that you cannot have a religion based only on ideas. That is called a philosophy.
We do not practice the philosophy of Judaism, but the religion of the Jewish people, which requires action as well as faith. We eat matzah during Passover to remind ourselves that we are part of the community of Israel, as well as the heirs of the hasty departure from Egypt. It is also a question of taste. And no bread ever tasted better than the first bite after the week of Passover. Another unexpected feature of quinoa is that it is kosher for Passover!
This is a welcome fact for those who have been yearning for alternatives to potatoes and matzah during Passover. Since it was not part of their diet, quinoa is not on the list of leavened grains forbidden during Passover. Amish Friendship bread is another common type of bread that's made from a starter, which contains sugar, milk, flour and yeast.
Potato bread starters likewise contain yeast. Foods that contain yeast extract aren't considered leavened. Yeast extracts are derivatives of yeast, according to the Intercontinental Church of God, but they don't leaven foods. Foods made with brewer's yeast or cream of tartar aren't leavened, either. Similarly, egg whites, autolyzed yeast and cornstarch are not leavening agents and can be used to cook when religious observance requires you to eat only unleavened foods.
When you're buying already prepared foods, read the ingredients label carefully to determine if the foods contain leavening agents. Sara Ipatenco has taught writing, health and nutrition. She started writing in and has been published in Teaching Tolerance magazine. We couldn't have that before. In Israel, they eat that way, all blended.
It's good. The ruling is long overdue. It's time to embrace healthier options and save kosher customers money. What has happened in the United States, Levin explained, is a demographic shift in which Jews from Israel, southern Europe and North Africa are living together. They are transforming the face of the American Jewish community, which is looking more and more like Israel, where the Sephardic Jews are permitted to eat kitniyot.
Golinkin revised his earlier paper, which was aimed at Israel's Ashkenazic Jews, to make a case today for Ashkenazic Jews everywhere to dispense with the custom. The explanation that rabbis are giving to their congregants is that kitniyot are not — and never were — hametz, the five forbidden grains in the Torah: wheat, barley, rye, oats and spelt. But centuries ago, hametz was often found mixed with these grains in the same bins. Or they were harvested and processed and ground into flour just like hametz.
Also, because cooked kitniyot porridges looked very similar to hametz, or because it was customary to prepare kitniyot and hametz together, the custom from the Middle Ages to avoid legumes took root. In a recent email to her congregants, Rabbi Annie Tucker of Beth Hillel Congregation B'nai Emunah in Wilmette asked: "Why must we still be bound by the restrictive practices of our ancestors?
This "foolish" custom, many rabbis say, detracts from the joy of the holiday by limiting the number of permitted foods. There's a lack of healthy packaged foods and an extremely inflated cost of products under Passover supervision. It causes unnecessary divisions among Jewish ethnic groups.
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