Voici le Pain de Misère

יחץ

Ya'hats, c'est le rite qui consiste à couper en deux la matsa médiane des trois matsoth du plat du Sédère.

Ahh, Yachatz. It's times like this I'm glad I'm not the head of the household - now's the part where Moses needs to break the middle matzah in two, hold it high for everyone to see, wrap the bigger half, and sneak it off to hide the Afikomen. Never mind, I guess Phil gets to hide the Afikomen. (Anyway, no one here has any interest in looking for it because you get the same bag of Gelt whether you find it or not.)

The thing about this matzah, is that it's the bread of affliction. It's what our people ate in Egypt. If any of my readership is hungry, come on by. And anyone out there who can't celebrate your own Passover, come over and do it with us.

And while you're at it, pour yourself a second cup of wine.

Maybe at this point Emma can Skype in from Germany to say, "Dies ist das Brot des Ungluecks." (Germany is still Ashkenaz to me, so you can imagine how long it's going to take me to start calling 26th Street Dean Keeton. Like never.) Anyway, nothing says affliction better than Unglueck. In contrast, le pain de misère makes you want some.

Yachatz is the heart and soul of Passover, the critical point in the service where you are supposed to remember where you (or you ancestors) came from. I like to put it this way: You may deserve some credit for where you are in life, but don't be so full of yourself to think that luck didn't play a role, so spread that luck around. I'm not the only one who feels this way. Maimonides was very concerned that fortune made people arrogant and insensitive.

Speaking of arrogance and insensitivity, some say that we eat matza at Passover rather than puffy bread because puffiness stands for arrogance and insensitivity. Where do they come up with that stuff?

The Bitterer the Better

כַּרְפַּס

It's this springtime weather that makes me so glad we ended up in Austin. It reminds me of that spring we Israelites left Egypt. To remember how teary I was, and how sad it is that some slaves aren't free today, it's time to dip parsley in salt water.

Remember parsley is just one of many bitter options. The Chabad website shows an onion.

Here's a prayer I like to say while I'm dipping:

טוֹבְלִין כַּרְפַּס פָּחוֹת מִכְזַיִת בְּמֵי מֶלַח, וּמְבָרְכִין. בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יי אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם, בּוֹרֵא פְּרִי הָאֲדָמָה.

( . . . boray pri ha'adamah)

Wikipedia says that some have explained the dipping of the Karpas to symbolize Josef's tunic being dipped into blood by his brothers. This is news to me. Of course, anybody can say anything on Wikipedia.

The Chabad Passover website shares some delightful anagramology and numerology: "The Hebrew letters of karpas can be arranged to spell 'Perach Samech'. Perach means backbreaking work and Samech is numerically equivalent to 60, referring to the 60 myriads (10,000), equaling 600,000, which was the number of Jewish males over 20 years of age who were enslaved in Egypt." http://www.chabad.org/holidays/passover/pesach.asp?AID=2003

Didn't someone just make a movie with that numerology concept?

Anagrams are easier in Hebrew, where you're not limited to specific vowels. The English rendering "karpas" can be rearranged to spell parkas, which stands for the cold nights in the desert; 0r "a spark" to stand for the brilliant idea to hot foot it out of Egypt; or "ark spa" to remind us of the nice thing God did for our ancestor Noah; or, along those lines "ark asp" to remind us that God loves all creatures, even snakes; or "ark's pa," which just reminds us of Noah himself (unless God h'self was the father of the ark). Finally there is the musical anagram "rap ska" I'll leave it to Marc to decode that one.

Speaking of anagrams, maybe someone will have some insight into the significance of "real spy" as an anagram for "parsley." Thanks to http://wordsmith.org/anagram/ for the anagrams.

Geography Note: There are lovely beaches on the Karpas peninsula in Cyprus:

I discovered that by searching for "Karpas" on Google images. There are also a lot of people with the last name "Karpas."

Passover Contest: See what words you can find using the letters in "passover." The person who finds the words with the most letters wins. "Overpass" doesn't count.

Where have those hands been?

וּרְחַץ

Almost forgot an important step - time for Urchatz, or the handwashing. It's always a good idea to do this before you start with all the dipping...

Although we're generally tired of Haikus, it's useful to have something to say for Urchatz. Anyway, everyone enjoys the seminal Urchatz haiku:

Slaves have to eat fast

But we're not in Egypt now

There's time to wash up.

Most sources (Internet sources, at least) say that Urchatz doesn't include a prayer. A minority, however, say that Urchatz involves the "nitalat yidayim," just like any other handwashing, so I'm including it to be safe:

נוֹטְלִין אֶת הַיַָדַיִם וְאֵין מְבָרְכִין "עַל נְטִילַת יָדַיִם

Actually some sources think that Urchatz doesn't really merit a solo section in the haggadah (or bloggadah) because it's really part of Karpas.

Urchatz is as good a time as any to say a blessing for our pets, one of whom in pictured here in her Midian-style cloak. Apparently pet blessing is not a particularly Jewish activity. St. Francis seems to have cornered that market. At least one writer was troubled enough by this state of affairs that he wrote about a Jewish boy who wants to take his dog to the Catholic Church for a blessing. His mom won't let him. "A disappointing, slack treatment of a promising theme," says Publisher's Weekly. (I certainly agree that it's a promising theme.) The School Library Journal is less harsh. It gives the book a thumbs up, saying, "The question of what Jared will choose to do keeps readers in suspense straight through to the last page." Since when are Jewish boys named Jared? For me, the cover sells the book. Check it out: http://www.amazon.com/Blessing-Animals-Michael-Rosen/dp/0374308381.

Woohoo - Time for Wine

קַדֵשׁ

One of the great things about Passover is the whole "four cups of wine" thing -- and now seems like a good time to start!

As I down this first one, I can't help but think about the first promise found in the Torah -- "I am Adonai, and I will free you from slavery in Egypt."

So let's bless the wine. Here's the Hebrew:

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יי אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָםבּוֹרֵא פְּרִי הַגָפֶן.
( . . . boray pri hagafen)
And in English:

Praised be Thou, O Lord our God, king of the universe, who created the fruit of the vine.


(For many years, Phil has tried to replace traditional Jewish wines with fancy French wines. This year he has traded in his yarmulke for a beret.)



Speaking of great things, it troubles me that dogs don't get any attention at the Seder. Maybe the Israelites had bad experiences with dogs in Egypt. There is, after all, a dog known as a pharoah dog, with a figure Ella can only dream about.

Big Meal Tonight

Time to set up for the big meal tonight -- can't believe it's been more than 3000 years since my husband Moses led us all out of slavery in Egypt. Seems like just yesterday we were making real mortar -- it's a lot easier to mix up apples & nuts.

This is my first year to blog the seder, so don't spare your comments and criticisms. Believe me, I heard what people were saying last year about the tired Haiku Haggadah.

Before I reveal what's on the menu, I think it's time for a little prayer and some candle lighting. By the way, blogging in Hebrew is a nightmare, so imagine my relief to find I could cut and paste the prayers from www.opensourcehaggadah.com. So for those of you who can still read Hebrew -- Jack?--, here we go:

בּרוּךְ אַתּה ײֳ אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם אֲשֶׁר קִדֹּשָׁנוּ בּמִצְוֹתָיו וְצִוָּנוּ עַל בּֽעוּר חָמֵץ.כָּל חֲמִירָא וַחֲמִירָא דְּאִכָּא בִרְשׁוּתִי דְּלָא חֲמִתֵּה וּדְלָא בִעַרְתֵּהּ וּדְלָא יְדַעְנָא בֵּיה לִבָּטֵל וְלֶהֱוִי הֶפְקִר כְּעַפְרָא דְּאַרְעָא.

Here's the traditional English:

Praised art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who hast sanctified us with Thy commandments and commanded us to kindle the festival lights.

We should probably come up with a more modern version, but I love the idea of "kindling the lights. Maybe we could keep the kindling and lose the king.

Now check out this spread:

The Z'roa is a roasted shank bone. It reminds us of the special lamb brought to the Temple in Jerusalem on Passover as an offering to God.

The Baytzo, a boiled egg, symbolizes the new life that comes with springtime.

(By the way, Marc and Lauren, we could use some new life at our Seder.)

Maror is a bitter herb that reminds us of the bitternessof slavery.

Charoset, a mixture of apples, nuts, and bad wine is symbolic of the mortar that slaves used to make bricks in Egypt.

Karpas, a green vegetable, reminds us that Passover occurs during springtime when new life brings a feeling of hope. (Like most people we know, we use parsley, and, oddly, it is Diego's favorite food item at the Seder.)

Now we are ready to start. On to the קַדֵשׁ

One more thing -- did someone forget to tell the NCAA about Passover?

Kosher for Passover?

There is a lot of disagreement at our Seder about what counts as kosher for Passover. Lauren takes the strict, and Biblically questionable, view that rice and corn are treyf. The corn prohibition in particular requires a fairly strained interpretation since there was no corn in the Jewish world until after 1492 (unless you believe that the native Americans really were a lost tribe). Nonetheless, if you've read Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemna or Greg Critser's Fatland, you may think a prohibition against corn (or at least a prohibition against high-fructose corn syrup) is a good concept--and one that should last for more than eight days a year.

It's good to know that Coca-Cola makes a Kosher-for-Passover Coke that is made with cane sugar rather than high-fructose corn syrup.

The Woelk-Durst household, by the way, subscribes to a Gestalt theory of Passover kosherness. Flat things, such as tortillas, are permissible.

חיות

חיות

(Animals)

If anyone knows how to write"pictures of pets" in Hebrew, let me know.

Above, left, Pip in her new spring collar.

On the right, Scooby.

Pip again.

Above, Mendel. Maybe "animals"is the right name for this post. Mendel can't honestly be identified as a pet. He is a cat who gets room and board on our porch.

To the left, Glorio. He is Mendel's long-time companion. Phil first named him G-L-O-R-I-A. Upon closer inspection, he turned out to be Glorio. This photo is for his album cover.