Passover is upon us, and while most Italians are mobbing the stores to do some last-minute Easter shopping before everything closes for the "ponte" (literally, "bridge," but actually "long weekend"), I went hunting for non-bread products to keep me going for the duration of the holiday. For those not in the know, pasta is not kosher for Passover, though every year many of my non-Jewish friends try to convince me otherwise. Trust me on this one, guys. Even though it doesn't look like bread, pasta still counts.
Not being able to eat pasta in Italy presents a bit of a challenge. (I have a newfound appreciation for another of the fellows at the Academy who has a gluten intolerance.) As I wended my way through the aisles of my local grocery store, crammed with enormous overpriced hollow chocolate eggs wrapped in glistening cellophane and riots of ribbons, I tried to plan the next few days of meals. At the bread section, I paused, then went on wheeling my cart, in the odd hope of finding a box of matzah. (My copy-editor at Random House insists it's spelled matzo, but somehow the "o" spelling doesn't look right to me.)
Imagine my surprise to find a box of crackers called "Pane Azymo," imported from Strasbourg. As I looked over the ingredients, water, salt, unleavened flour, it was clear what I was holding: genuine matzah. True, if I were going strictly by the book, the Pane Azymo wouldn't count because though it had a symbol on the box indicating it was kosher, there was no mark that it was kosher for Passover, which is officially a different thing. However, I made a sign of the cross over the box, which in my book is just as good as paying off some ultra-Orthodox rabbi for the kosher-for-Passover stamp, and voila: matzah.
Some of my friends have trouble understanding my pick and choose attitude toward religion, and truly, I'm not sure I get it all either. At one of the Passover seders I went to this year, a debate erupted at the table over whether we're allowed to decide for ourselves the extent to which we keep the rituals and laws of religion. My view is that I'm not willing to run around wearing a yarmulke, only eating pre-approved foods, keeping the lights off on Shabbat (or setting them to go on and off on a timer, which always strikes me as a bit of a cheat). At the same time, I don't want to chuck all of the traditions I grew up with out the window. And so I nod to the past, rather than bow. I'm willing to give up bread, pasta, cookies, and cake for Passover, but I'm not going to chase bread crumbs with a feather and a candle.
This approach leads to some confusion, even hypocrisy it might be argued, on my part. I won't touch bread on Passover, but a slice of sandwich-less non-kosher salami doesn't bother me. "A-ha!" cry both my religious and atheist friends with satisfaction. "Your system of rules has no logic! Why bother keeping it at all?"
Suppose it was your husband's birthday, and you didn't want to take him out to the most expensive restaurant in town and buy him a new Mercedes. Would that mean you shouldn't recognize the occasion at all? Or that it's less valid to celebrate a birthday by baking him a cake and giving him a new tie?
My version of recognizing my Jewish identity connects me with my past in a way that I find satisfying. I don't ask anyone else to do as I do or to approve. It's just that for me, I don't get much out of pondering whether a box has a K stamp or a K for P stamp or a Mickey Mouse stamp on it. There are other questions in life I want to spend my time worrying about. That's not to say that a question of stamps might not prove extremely meaningful and satisfying to someone else. But for me, I'm sticking with my "pane azymo" topped with a few slices of tomato and mozzarella. Or, if I feel like it, some non-kosher salami.
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5 comments:
Finally someone who understands how I feel about being Jewish and following certain rituals. I couldn't agree with you more.
I think that at any level of observance, even the most strict, there is a certain degree of picking and choosing. In neighborhoods where owning a TV is frowned on, people will buy one and put the box somewhere else so no one will see it. I don't think you need to justify your own logic to someone else.
Where it becomes trickier however is when you are in a relationship or have kids. Then you need to have some kind of standard or code and particularly a community to reinforce the norms you wish your children to follow. Though I am agnostic in some ways, I very much appreciate the role of a community in helping to educate kids to expectations of kashrut, Shabbat,etc.
I randomly found your blog while doing a search on kosher for passover foods. I've been pondering what passover means to me and you have hit it on the head. THANK YOU! It helps to know there are other people out there with that viewpoint.
Many have told me that pasta is not kosher for passover, but I cannot understand why. The only active ingredient is flour, and it takes about 6 minutes to cook.
I am a Christian who keeps Torah. Our Heavenly Father has showed me the error of the Christians who say that we do not need to follow Moses. I am however very careful not to follow man-made laws and traditions that negate the instructions from our Creator. I understand from scrpiture to remove all leven for Passover. As long as I don't eat leven I am obeying. Traditions are fine, but they do not replace or have higher authority over the word of God.
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