Pesah

Pesah, the seder, and the practice of freedom.

Pesah and Trans Rights

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As I wind down from preparing for #Passover, I want to share a politically incorrect musing on a recent development in the American culture war.

Based on my understanding of gender (which I believe is a social performance, unlike biological sex, which I believe is a non-binary chromosomal fact), I don’t personally subscribe to either the theory that someone’s gender is determined by their sex or the theory that someone’s gender performance can be cleanly separated from their accumulated embodied experiences with their biological sex.

Neither theory convinces me.

But first of all, I respect the rights of someone who identifies as trans to perform their gender however they choose, to be safe and secure in their bodily integrity and autonomy, and to be treated with the same dignity befitting any other human being created in the image of God. To me, those are the same rights everyone in a free society should enjoy. It pains me that the rights of people who identify as trans are not respected, and the fearful and specious justifications given for violating their rights are an affront to my God-given reason and compassion.

And second of all, I respect the hell out of anyone defying all the social pressure and seeking to construct their identity on a deeper level than their body, trying to bring their physicality into alignment with their spirit, and/or challenging arbitrary norms that have outlived their purpose and constrain the human impulse to envision new ways of being free. I think these people are at the vanguard of a free, civil society and deserve recognition for the paths they carve, and the freedoms they claim, for the rest of us. A society that targets them for violence has not only lost its moral compass but has chosen slow suicide in the face of ever-oncoming modernity.

Pesah is about freedom.

Autonomy.

Letting go of the masters we place over ourselves and choosing the gift and the responsibility of creating and ordering our lives according to the values we choose, without pressure and violence forcing us to do otherwise.

When we make that choice, we have the opportunity to build a better society for all of us.

A freer society. A more responsible society.

The kind of society you want to raise the next generation in…

…just something to think about at the Haggada reading this year. Let freedom ring.

Mental Slavery

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“Emancipate yourself from mental slavery
None but ourselves can free our minds”

The Creator intervened in biohistory and through the imposition of a higher order, brought the regional empire to its knees and delivered a caste of foreign slaves to liberty.

Every norm was challenged, every supposition overturned, every “rule” broken. The idols crumbled, the privileged died, the sea split, and the true nature of reality was directly revealed to the nation en masse.

Deliverance at its most “miraculous.”

And yet… The generation of adults that were taken out of Egypt, never really left Egypt.

Not inside.

Even though they were physically free they were still mentally enslaved.

Not just in terms of assimilation to the cultural memes and values underpinning the hierarchical power structure of the society into which they were born.

But in terms of how they saw themselves: As slaves, as inherently inferior, as individuals lacking agency and autonomy, as destined to control or be controlled.

The Creator wrought wonders to free these people, but they couldn’t take the final step and free themselves.

When the time came to begin seriously planning to establish a just and holy society in the land the Creator chose for this purpose – they instead retreated into their fears and spun stories of how their hands were tied and the situation was hopeless and how great it was when they were slaves…

They circled the desert for forty years rather than take responsibility for themselves and their future.

On #Passover we are invited to step into their sandals and see ourselves as former slaves, newly liberated from bondage.

We are invited to tell the story of that liberation and to place ourselves in that story.

To begin the story with our worst memories, experiences, and selves. With everything that tripped us up and held us back and kept us down. With our errors and mistakes.

And to end this chapter of the story with our greatest gifts, achievements, and dreams. With the testimony of miracles and wonders, of empires falling and reality being revealed. With gratitude and song for the faithful deliverance, time and again, generation after generation, from the confines of Egypt.

Every year – the same story, told differently.

Every year – we tell how far we’ve come.

Every year – we tell ourselves that we choose freedom. Liberty. Responsibility.

Every year. And yet it still feels that despite the Creator’s intervention in biohistory once again, despite the creation of a free society in our ancestral land – we’re somehow still circling the desert.

As we prepare the home for the haggada, I want to take a minute to pray that this year, we merit to not only truly see ourselves in the story we tell of our freedom, but to continue living that story after the night of its annual telling has passed.

Five Bitter Herbs

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What’s on your seder plate? Five traditional options for the “bitters”:

Ḥazzereth – cultivated lettuce (Lactuca sativa) (all identifications follow Rambam’s commentary on Mishnah Pesachim 2:6). An annual vegetable that develops a dense rosette of edible leaves. At first, its leaves are small and bitter.

ʻOlashin – cultivated chicory (Cichorium intybus). A perennial garden plant with elongated leaves and light blue blossoms, with many varieties. Today, a coffee substitute is made from its roasted roots, and its young leaves, which are slightly bitter, are used in salads.

Tamkha – endive (Cichorium endivia). Similar to lettuce and eaten in the same way.

Ḥarḥabina – wild plants (from the genus Eryngium). The young plant has edible leaves with a bitter taste. At maturity, the plant becomes spiny. The common wild species in the Mediterranean region of the Land of Israel is Eryngium creticum.

Maror – desert lettuce, which is very bitter (ibid.), likely referring to prickly lettuce (Lactuca serriola).

Mo’adim leSimha

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The haggada was voted a success by all participants.

Barukh Hashem.

Mo’adim leSimha to all my friends – special shout-out to the Houthis, who sent us a reminder to say minha before Yom Tob was finished. Thank you for not shooting missiles at us last night, during the haggada; that would have been an actual annoyance.

Thank you, Hashem, for giving us the Iron Dome and for making sure it always works! 👍👍

The 49th Level

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Thinking about
– the 49th level of con-fusion טומאה
– the Hebrews who did not want to leave Egypt
– the seductiveness of political pyramid schemes

Historiography and the Holiday of History

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Some thoughts on historiography, in preparation for Pesah, the holiday of history:

History may not be a science, but it is a discipline that makes use of the sciences.

That said, the material evidence of bygone ages that scientists have to work with is relatively scant, and the majority of textual evidence that might provide meaningful context for interpreting the little material evidence we have, has not survived to the present day. Certainly we have no surviving members of lost societies to consult on the interpretation of their material heritage.

This makes the work of the historian especially vulnerable to bias, both overt and latent. While peer review of results and interpretations that methodologically respect the available source material helps to curb the influence of some of the more fatuous theories, peer consensus is not always correct and is rarely universally shared, in any academic discipline. Due to various factors and despite persistent criticism from equally credentialed experts in the field, mediocre explanations of the material and textual evidence sometimes can and do become academic dogma, with all the political implications thereof.

Some people, lacking exposure to critical and scientific methods and sometimes ignorant of basic facts of the relevant source material, react to the inherent tenuousness of the historian’s conclusions by rejecting their expertise altogether, preferring history written by contemporary religious or political celebrities, or other authors of fiction. This is how we get pseudo-history, and it’s a poor replacement for the real thing.

David Rohl (the historian, not the musician) is not a pseudo-historian. He is a serious academic, recognized by his peers as a master of the relevant source material, who happens to disagree with the academic consensus on Egyptian chronology. 🤷 While purveyors and consumers of pseudo-history have of course made much of his work, so have many thoughtful and credentialed historians of ancient history across the world. Rohl has his critics – the academic discourse still functions – but I think his ideas about redating Egyptian chronology, in a way that just so happens to line up the material evidence with the biblical record, are worth considering as we ponder the reality and the meaning of the Exodus.

The Hebrew Bible contains, among many other genres, historical works, written in a distinctly Canaanite style. The Pentateuch, the first section of that anthology that is replete with Egyptian vocabulary and cultural references, contains much historical information as well. And the archaeological record, when interpreted critically but differently from the consensus view, upholds much of the history of the Hebrew Bible.

Is it really beyond the pale to suggest, in light of the totality of the evidence considered without prejudice, that the Israelites of the Judaean and Samaritan provinces of the second commonwealth didn’t all just make it all up, and that the Exodus from Egypt in fact occurred?

Check out the wikipedia article on the New Egyptian Chronology proposed by Rohl.

Selling Hamets: The Basics

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AFAIK the best way to fulfill the precept of not owning any leavened bread foodstuffs during Pesah, is to get rid of it all before Pesah.

If that’s not feasible for you – due to the financial loss it would incur, for example – it is also possible to sell it, in a halakhically-valid sale, to a gentile friend.

This works by a) selling the leavened bread foodstuffs to a gentile on credit with a 7 (or 8) day term for repayment, with the leavened bread foodstuffs as collateral for the loan and b) leasing the area in which the leavened bread foodstuffs are stored to a gentile with a 7 (or 8) day term for initial payment, and reverting it to original ownership upon default.

When this is done correctly, neither the leavened bread foodstuffs nor their location are in your possession for the duration of Pesah, and upon finishing the holiday you either receive the same leavened bread foodstuffs and don’t have a new part-time tenant, or you get their monetary equivalent and are now a part-time landlord. 🤷

If you would like help arranging for your own sale of leavened bread foodstuffs in anticipation of Pesah, feel free to message me.

You will need:

1) a gentile you trust

2) an extra house key

3) an area of your house (can be a shelving unit) that can be clearly demarcated and preferably closed/covered

4) a price list for your leavened bread foodstuffs

The Easy Pesah Cleaning Guide

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Someone could not translate their OU-approved easy Pesah cleaning guide from a well-known rabbi, so I figured I’d do a public service and share with you the Gil-approved easy Pesah cleaning guide from, uh, me:

1) Remove all leavened bread foodstuffs from your house

2) Remove all crumbs of leavened bread foodstuffs from all the rooms in your house where anyone might have brought leavened bread foodstuffs over the past year

3) Heat all absorbant non-earthenware cookware and dinnerware to the same temperature at which they might have absorbed particles of leavened bread foodstuffs

4) Enjoy Pesah