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Dear Friends,
Dedicated to the Love and Inspiration of the Lubavitcher Rebbe OBM
We are about to leave Egypt behind. Yes, we will be exiting Egypt for the 3,335th time. Upon leaving Egypt the first time, we were granted out eternal freedom. No one and nothing can stop us from being who we are and who we want to be. But from there on it is dependent on us to take advantage of this freedom, to fully experience it. This Pesach, let us, each of us, free ourselves from our own limitations. Let this be the Pesach when we act upon our conscience in all matters of goodness and holiness. Best wishes for a very happy and joyous Pesach. Warmest Regards, Rabbi Yisroel Rosenfeld
Executive Director of Chabad of Western, PA
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Spring 2014 • The Spark Magazine
A
What’s In A Name? By Shais Taub
A young Jewish mother
walks her son to the school bus on his first day of kindergarten. “Please behave, my boobeleh,” she says. “Take good care of yourself and think about your mother who is waiting for you, zeeskeit,” she says. “And come right back home on the bus, my teir’keh,” she says. At the end of the school day, the bus returns. She runs to her son and hugs him. “So what did my tateleh learn on his first day of school?” she asks. ”I learned my name is David.” In the Torah it’s called the Festival of Matzos; in the text of the holiday prayers it’s called the Season of Our Freedom; and our Sages called it, as do most people nowadays, the Festival of Passover. Since they all refer to one holiday,
what is the meaning of all of these names? The Exodus is described in the Prophets as the birth of the Jewish people and the ultimate purpose of the Exodus was to stand at Sinai and receive the Torah forty-nine days later. So, the birth of the Jewish nation really means the birth of a “Torah nation.” But what does that mean? What is a “Torah nation”? We can understand by looking at the three names for the holiday that celebrates our becoming just such a people.
Stage 1.
Forget Everything You Know “Fesitival of Matzos”
Imagine a teacher trying to impart
knowledge to a student, but the knowledge is beyond the student’s grasp. The more the student tries to relate the teacher’s ideas to his own experience, the more stuck the student becomes in his own way of thinking. It may seem counterintuitive, but the student first needs to just clear his mind, relax, and surrender. This is what happened for us as slaves when G-d took us out of Egypt. We couldn’t get out of Egypt ourselves and when it finally happened we had no idea what hit us. I mean, we didn’t even have time for our bread to rise. We had to just forget what we thought we knew and go along for the ride. Humility, deflation of ego, that’s the first stage. This state of humbly abandoning all preconceived notions is likened to the flatness of matzah and is reflected in the name
“Festival of Matzos.”
Stage 2.
Make It Your Own After letting go, however, the student must make his best effort to understand. Matzah-like nullification was just a necessary precursor for the stage that follows it. The student must strive to grasp the teacher’s idea on his own level. This stage, when the student is able to internalize the teacher’s wisdom, resembles our experience when we stood at Sinai and received
being to understand unlimited G-dly wisdom is true “freedom,” as it says in the Ethics of the Fathers, “only a Jew who studies Torah is truly free.” We refer to this phase of the Exodus process when we use the name “Season of Our Freedom.”
Stage 3.
Through the Torah, we see the world through the eyes of the Creator.
Become One
But just like humility in phase one leads to understanding in phase two, understanding leads to something even greater in phase three. The
The ultimate purpose of G-d’s giving us the Torah is to make us one with Him the Torah. For a limited human
Him. Through the Torah, we see the world through the eyes of the Creator. We refer to this level when we use the term “Festival of Passover,” for as its name implies, Passover means to “skip over,” and
ultimate purpose of G-d’s giving us the Torah is to make us one with
“to leap.” And this is the ultimate purpose of Torah, to enable a finite being to leap past all limits, to transcend the bounds of finite creation and become one with the Infinite.
Rabbi Shais Taub is a noted author and lecturer. He lives in Pittsburgh, PA with his wife and children.
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By Sara Bressler-Rutz
I have a tendency to daydream. Well, really, it’s more than a tendency, it’s a nearly constant habit. My husband and I are walking toward the car in a parking lot... I walk directly past it (much to my husband’s amusement). There goes Sara, off in her own little world. I can’t tell you how often this happens. When it’s not accidental, it is completely intentional. If I have an hour to kill before bed I can just sit there and think, and wholly enjoy it. To me, there is an endless amount of things to think about, to construct and deconstruct, to analyze, to figure out, and to daydream about. Sometimes it’s wonderful, other times it’s an unstoppable and annoying force that steals my time, and occasionally makes me look silly. With the holidays in the air and in my work, naturally, this will make it’s way into my daydreaming. I have sat back and fully constructed the stories in my mind, casted all the parts (let me tell you, Jack Nicholson makes a great Pharaoh), and daydreamed. The thought strikes me that there are so many stories of the struggles of the Jewish people - disdain and triumph, enslavement and freedom. What is making all of these people survive continuously? And who were these people? Yes, we know they are the Jews and we know some key characters, but who were the individuals? What was it that made them pull through such ghastly events? When we think of the Jewish people it is as a group, men, women and children, but they were all different. They all had different thoughts, different faces, different quirks, different souls. I asked my Rabbi (who is very patient with my incessant questioning) why G-d made souls different, what’s the point? He told me it’s because we all have different missions. Maybe I’m wrong in this train of thought, but maybe along with that we each have different quirks, idiosyncrasies, something that keeps us going, tailored specifically for our needs, coping skills built directly for us. As I sat daydreaming about all this, I had my a-ha moment. Once when I was a teenager I ran away into the night from a foster home I felt I wasn’t going to be safe in much longer. The home, unfortunately, was in the middle of the woods in what I like to call “Nowhere Pennsylvania.” I was scared and I was sad, and all I had with me were the sounds of night. There is something
awful about loneliness; it takes sadness and fright, and amplifies them into one large ache that feels heavy in your chest. As my sneakers splashed in the mud puddles along a dirt path, the loneliness ebbed, as did the fright and the sadness. Sara was once again in her own little world, this time dreaming about the pioneer Daniel Boone exploring the unknown wilderness of West America. There is no time to be lonely or scared when you are constructing the world of a rather adventurous man. And there it is, this unstoppable and annoying habit, this somewhat childish idiosyncrasy of mine, could really be a gift. If G-d made my soul, my soul loves to dream, and in retrospect, it’s been a wonderful tool throughout my entire life, as a frightened adolescent, to a mother telling bedtime stories. So now back to Egypt, with all of the individuals within the group of enslaved Jews. If all of our souls are different, what did G-d give them? What gifts and mechanisms helped them survive?
What Did G-d Give You?
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Maybe there was a little girl who stared at the stars and wondered what they were made of. Maybe there was a man who loved to make people laugh, and would throw in jokes at every given opportunity. Maybe there was a songbird who would sing to her grandchildren after the sun would set. What did G-d give you? All of these differences and facets of our beings are amazing, and I don’t quite have the words to express how wonderful I think it is, it is just so beautifully human. This is humanity. This is us, so very different, yet joined together in heritage, struggles, triumphs and dreams.
Sara is a writer and designer for The Spark Magazine, living in Pennsylvania with her husband and daughter.
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Directions 1. Cream Crisco and sugar together until light & fluffy. 2. Add eggs. 3. Combine dry ingredients together and slowly add to wet ingredients. 4. Beat on medium for 2 minutes until a soft dough forms. 5. Roll out on a table floured with a mixture of cake meal and potato starch. 6. Cut half the dough into full circles and for the other half remove the middle. 7. Bake at 350 degrees for 10-15, until the edges are brown. 8. Set out to cool. 9. Spread jelly on the full circle halves and dip the “holey” halves in powdered sugar. Place together and enjoy! Tip: The trick to getting the dough evenly rolled is to place two yard sticks on your table about one foot apart. Place the dough in the center and roll until the rolling pin hits the sticks, then cut and bake! Spring 2014 • The Spark Magazine
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What to Do Before You Passover Chametz—all leavened foods that contain wheat, barley, oats, rye or spelt— are forbidden by Torah law on Passover. You’ll be surprised at where you can find Chametz. So, look out for possible leavened products and isolate them in a designated “Chametz Closet.” Rabbinic law allows one to sell the Chametz (see next step). Then clear the house of any possible remaining Chametz: empty clothes’ pockets, vacuum cleaner bags, even the pet food goes into the Closet. Since you’ll use a separate set of dishes for Passover, the Chametz dishes get locked up too. Now stock up on Kosher-for-Passover items; for good leads on Passover foods check out:
www.chabad.org/sellchametz How to sell your chametz? It is also forbiden to “own” Chametz during Passover, hence, the annual sale of chametz. Sound complicated? It is, so ask your Rabbi to make the arrangements. Or log on to www.chabad.org to sell your Chametz online.
4/13 Search for the Chametz
At nightfall begin the “formal search” of the house for Chametz. Traditionally, we use a candle to light the way, a spoon (as a shovel), feather (as a broom) and a paper bag to collect any Chametz found. After the search, place everything you found in a conspicuous place to be burned the following morning.
4/14 Preparing for Tonight When G-d slew the firstborn of Egypt, he spared the firstborn sons of Israel. Out of gratitude all firstborn sons fast on this day.
Prepare to celebrate checklist: • Matza, Wine, Haggadah, Bitter Herbs, Charoset, Hard Boiled Egg, Roasted Chicken Bone, Salt water, and a festive meal menu. Talmudic Tip: To build an appetite for the Seder abstain from eating any Seder plate foods today, especially Matza. So if you’re a lover of bitter herbs and raw onions, stay out of the kitchen.
Burning of the chametz: In the morning burn all the Chametz found during the previous night’s formal search.
Step 1: Kadesh (sanctify) The seder begings with a blessing over the 1st cup of wine. This is when we declare that this is “The Season of Our Freedom.” To stress this point, we recline to the left when drinking, as only free people did in ancient times.
Step 2: Urchatz (wash) Wash the hands (in the ritual manner but without reciting a blessing). We will be touching a wet vegetable in the next step and rabbinic law requires washings before washing of the hands. The Kabbalah teaches that hands represent expressions and attributes, while water epitomizes intellect and purity. Washing refines our attributes with intellect, enabling restrictions to turn into benevolence, hate into love, and personal slavery into freedom. The observance, one of many during the Seder intended to pique the interest of children, awakens the innocence within each of us.
Step 3: Karpas (vegetables) Recite the appropriate blessing for vegetables, then dip the Karpas vegetable in saltwater before eating it. In the saltwater, we can taste the tears of anguish and despair our ancestors shed as their spirits were crushed in Egypt. When rearranged, the letters of Karpas alludes to the word Perech, or “crushing labor.” Our people were forced to perform senseless tasks in Egypt, endless drudgery without meaning, purpose or goal. Why, some
3,000 years later, do mindless routines and habits, or careers driven by the need for status, still dominate our lives so often?
Step 4: Yachatz (breaking) The middle matza (of the 3) is broken in two pieces. The larger piece, designated as the Afikoman, is wrapped and hidden away for the children to discover. The smaller broken piece, the “bread of poverty,” takes center stage while retelling the story of the Exodus. It personifies the spiritual and material destitution our people endured in Egypt once they no longer grasped the meaning of true freedom. By relating to their plight, we feel what is broken in our own humanity. At the same time, when the children hide the Afikoman we sense the larger dimension of our being, the part of our soul never touched by slavery that waits to be discovered.
Step 5: Maggid (telling) “Tell your children G-d took you out of Egypt.” Fill the second cup of wine, then retell the story of our rise from the depths of bondage to the heights of redemption. Maggid begins with the children asking, “Why is this night different from all other nights?” The question can put us in touch with the innocence of children as we contemplate the dynamics of liberation. Are we eating the matzah out of habit, or because we are ready to embrace its significance? Are we observing these rituals to assuage guilt, or to actualize the desire to live a more
Make It Legal After cleaning the house, and selling and burning the Chametz, the head of the household says the appropriate prayers (see Haggadah), verbally disowning any Chametz that might have been overlooked. Ready to Seder At sundown candles are lit. At nightfall the Seder begins. Be sure to eat Matza and drink the four cups of wine.
4/15 Seder Round 2
Jews living outside of Israel hold a second seder. Since the festival is already in full swing, the candles are lit after nightfall from a pre-existing flame. On the 2nd night of Passover we begin to count the Omer, which lasts for 49 days. What’s the Omer? In the Holy Temple the Omer was an offering of barley taken from the first grain of the new crop. We count seven weeks, from the bringing of the first Omer offering (Passover) until the day we received the Torah (the Festival of Shavuot). The 49 days between Passover and Shavuot represent the 49 steps of mystical self-purification and preparation our people went through between leaving Egypt (Passover) and receiving the Torah (Shavuot). In between the first two and last two days of Passover, are the 4 days of Chol Hamoed, considered Passover without the prohibition of work.
4/20 The Eve of the Seventh Day
At sundown, light candles. It was a seven day journey from Eygypt to the Sea of Reeds. On the 7th day of Passover we celebrate the Miracle of the Splitting of the Sea and our total liberation from Egypt. In commemoration, we stay up all night studying Torah.
4/21 The Last Day
After nightfall, light candles from a pre-existing flame. This day, the final day of Passover, emphasizes an even higher level of freedom. It is dedicated to our imminent and Final Redemption.
4/22 The Final Hours
The final hours of Passover are about freedom and redemption. And with each passing day these energies increase and intesify. So, it is befitting that on the last day we observe Yizkor memorial prayers during services. Chasidic Jews also have the custom of the Ba’al Shem Tov, to conclude Passover with a “Feast of Moshiach”—a festive meal complete with Matza and, yes, four cups of wine. It begins before sunset as the spiritual light of the future redemption shines brightest. Nightfall marks the official conclusion of Passover. Wait an hour to give the Rabbi enough time to buy back your Chametz and then, eat Chametz to your heart’s content.
meaningful life? When we allow the events in the Maggid to touch us to the core, we reveal the candor that children hold dear. At the conclusion of Maggid, we savor the second glass.
Step 6: Rachtzah (washing) Wash the hands and recite the blessing, Al Netilat Yadayim (on the lifting of the hands). We prepare to internalize the humble nature of matza by uplifting our extremities and expressions. In its literal sense, the word netila means to move something from one place to another. With this blessing, we remove the physicality and vulgarity that may dwell in and around the hands, raising them up for what is to follow.
Step 7: Motzi (blessing over bread) Hold the broken half-matza and two whole ones while reciting the appropriate blessing for bread, Hamotzie Leh-Chem Min Ha-Aretz. The word lechem (bread) contains the same letters as lochem (war). Food is raw energy that holds the potential for either good or evil. Thus, a spiritual battle ensues every time it is consumed. If the purpose in eating is solely to gratify physical cravings, evil prevails. However, when eating to gain energy with which to better serve G-d, good prevails.
Step 8: Matza (blessing the Matza) Return the bottom matza to the Seder plate. Holding the remaining one and one-half matzot, recite the blessing for eating matza, Al Ah-Chilat Matza. Our ancestors fled Egypt with inconceivable haste, leaving no time for the dough that would nourish them to rise. Once free, their first taste was the “bread of poverty,” matza. From a mystical
viewpoint, matza exemplifies a selfless ego. It was with this trait, rather than arrogance, that they accepted G-d-given freedom. Humility allowed them to appreciate the gifts of life. After the blessing, recline to the left and eat at least one ounce of matza.
Step 9: Maror (bitter herbs) Take at least 3/4 ounce of bitter herbs and dip it in the charoset, shake off the excess, and recite the blessing Al Ah-Chilat Maror before eating. Having meditated on the bitterness of exile during Maggid, we now physically experience its force. The impact further clarifies the significance of our exile. Before we can experience true freedom we have to internalize the might of our hardship—and accept that when we make the right choices, hardship exists only to make us stronger. Likewise, now that we have felt what it means to break free of slavery on a personal level, it is our obligation to share the experience with others.
Step 10: Korech (sandwich) Break off two pieces of the bottom matza (at least one ounce). Take 3/4 ounce of maror, dip it in charoset and shake off the excess. Place the maror between the two pieces of matza and say, “Thus did Hillel do in the time of the Holy Temple…” Recline while eating. Maror alludes to the wicked, while matza refers to the righteous. Hillel, the great Jewish sage known for his compassion, instructed the righteous to reach out and draw the wicked closer. Likewise, now that we have felt what it means to break free of slavery on a personal level, it is our obligation to share the experience with others.
Step 11: Shulchan orech (festive meal) Traditionally, the meal begins by
dipping the hard-boiled egg from the Seder plate in saltwater to symbolize our constant mourning for the destruction of the Holy Temple, and to allude to G-d’s desire to redeem His people. “Ess, mein khind!” Across the community and throughout the world, we are together at the Seder table. The wise, the wicked, the simple and the innocent, all equal in the eyes of each other and the eyes of G-d. And we remember the fifth son—he who has not yet experienced the freedom of Passover. We are united as one in the common goal of redemption.
Step 12: Tzafun (hidden) At the conclusion of the Passover meal, children return the Afikoman. Eat at least one ounce of this matzah. Nothing else except the remaining two cups of wine is consumed thereafter. It was necessary to partake in every step, every ritual, every taste and every thought before the Afikoman is revealed; then, we can become one with its Divine potential. We eat it
only when completely satiated because it fulfills a need higher than the hunger for freedom, and we eat nothing afterward so that its taste remains with us. In the Seder, as with everyday life, there are no shortcuts to the greater dimension. Yet we are always aware that it is present and yearns to reveal itself when we seek with a pure heart.
Step 13: Beirach (grace after meal) Recite the blessing over the third cup of wine, then drink while reclining. In anticipation of our Ultimate Redemption, we now fill a special goblet, the Cup of Elijah. We then open the door to the house and, holding a lit candle, recite the passage inviting the Prophet Elijah to appear. Imagine all of creation in a state of spiritual and material freedom. Think about a world free of pain and suffering, war and struggles. Imagine all of existence at this level. Imagine yourself, the light of a single candle, ushering in the era of our redemption.
Step 14: Hallel (songs of praise) We offer praise to G-d for his mercy and compassion in redeeming our people from Egypt, and in anticipation of our own ultimate redemption. Why does G-d need us to praise Him? He doesn’t; we do. As the Kabbalah explains, when we praise His kindness we reveal His compassion. When praying for our needs, we evoke His desire to give.
Step 15: Nirtzah (accepted) The Seder concludes with the wish, L’shana Ha-ba-ah Bi-Yerushalayim. We hope for each other that which our forefathers prayed for while enslaved in Egypt, “Next Year in Jerusalem!” Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi omitted the passage, “The order of Passover is concluded,” from his Haggadah because the Seder’s message remains timeless. Every day, one leaves Egypt by transcending his limitations, to reach higher levels of holiness.
The Extra Matza Rabbi Eliezer Zusha Portugal (1896-1982), the Skulener Rebbe, was the chassidic rebbe from a small town, Sculeni, in what was then northeastern Romania (now Ukraine). Toward the end of World War II, in March of 1945, he found himself, along with other holocaust survivors and displaced persons, in the Russian-governed town of Czernovitz, Bukovina. Although Germany would not officially surrender until May 7, much of Eastern Europe had already been liberated by the Russian army. Passover was only weeks away. Although some Passover foodstuffs might well be provided by charitable organizations, the Rebbe sought to obtain wheat that he could bake into properly-guarded and
traditionally baked Shmurah Matzah. Despite the oppressive economic situation of the Jews, he was able to bake a limited number of these matzahs. He sent word to other rebbes in the region, offering each of them three matzahs. One week before Pesach, Rabbi Moshe Hager, the son of the Seret-Vizhnitzer Rebbe, came for the matzahs that had been offered to his father, Rabbi Boruch Hager. After being handed the allotted three matzahs, he said to the Skulener Rebbe: “I know that you sent word that you could give only three matzahs, but nonetheless my father, the Seret-Vizhnitzer Rebbe, told me to tell you that he must have six matzahs.” The Skulener Rebbe felt that he had no choice but to honor
the request, albeit reluctantly. On the day before Pesach, Rabbi Moshe returned to the Skulener Rebbe, saying “I want to return three of the matzahs to you.” “But I don’t understand. I thought your father absolutely had to have six matzahs.” “My father said to ask whether you had saved any of the Shmurah Matzah for yourself?” Embarrassed, the Skulener Rebbe replied, “How could I, when so many others needed?” “My father assumed that is what you would do,” explained Rabbi Moshe, “these three matzahs are for you!”
By Chani Rothman
I think I need some more hands I know I need some more hands Won’t all of us choose? Can’t all of us use? Who would ever refuse? Some more hands? Oh, the things I would do with some more hands I’d be sure to construe many more hands The puzzles I’d make The cookies I’d bake The leaves I would rake With some more hands An incredible hype, having more hands The faces I’d wipe with some more hands The hair I would brush The babies I’d shush I’d not have to rush With some more hands Blessings untold, growing more hands The kids I would hold with some more hands The clutter I’d clear The makeup I’d wear The socks I would pair With some more hands I’d be a machine with some more hands The bathrooms I’d clean with some more hands The games I would play I’d make a souffle I’d do it today With some more hands An endless supply of some more hands! The shoes I would tie with some more hands We’d all make a skit This time I won’t quit My word I commit I’d have more hands My daydream today, having more hands Though not G-d’s way, any more hands I learn to make do He’ll help me pull through I thank Him, do you? For my two hands Spring 2014 • The Spark Magazine
By Stacy Spensley
Between 8 and 15% of Jewish families in the United States reportedly keep kosher year round. Comparatively, a whopping 77% say they celebrate Passover. Families who don’t regularly eat kosher food can experience a bit of sticker shock at the grocery store while planning their holiday meals. Are prices actually higher for Passover? For some items, yes, they are. One major reason is increased manufacturing costs. Regular kosher manufacturing requires occasional inspections from a rabbi. For Passover the entire facility must be shut down and cleaned to prevent contamination, and then constant supervision during manufacturing is needed. The increased cost is in stopping production and hiring additional labor. This is especially true for products with many ingredients. Each individual ingredient has to meet certified kosher-for-Passover standards before being combined into the final product in a certified facility. Although many people blame the manufacturers for fixing prices on Passover foods, competition seems to be up, and those who shop at warehouse clubs have been finding the 5 lb. packages of matzah to be very reasonable, much less than during the year. According to Rochel Shlomo of Sampo Distributors in McKees Rocks, meat prices, non-kosher and kosher, across the country have almost doubled the last few months, so the major price increases people are seeing are not connected to Passover at all. Of course, the higher quality of inspection and health benefits of kosher often make kosher beef a better value. Grocery chains like Giant Eagle and Shop’n Save know there is a market for kosher-for-Passover products and make an effort to give their customers what they want. Their stores carry a booklet sponsored by Maxwell House Coffee that features prayers and rituals for the holiday and a guide for kosher-for-Passover products. Several locations offer a kosher department tour guided by a rabbi just before Passover. Some people actually attend the tour every year with notepads because they always learn something new. Rabbi Mendy Schapiro, Director of Monroeville Chabad, offers a stand at his local Giant Eagle where he highlights kosher for Passover food. “It’s an incredible
www.kennywood.com (412) 461-0500
incredible opportunity for pre-Passover shoppers to add a touch of education and inspiration to their shopping experience, while learning the ‘how’s, what’s & why’s’ of kosher for Passover and year round.” Does all that mean eating for Passover is more expensive? Not necessarily. While you may pay a premium price for kosher-for-Passover Coke and Pepsi (replacing chametz high fructose corn syrup with cane sugar) and other specialty products, most items are the same price as usual. Kosher meat may cost up to 20% more than non-kosher meat, but none of that changes for Passover. Fruits and vegetables are great options during Passover and any time of year, and so long as you’re eating them when they’re in season, very affordable. Specialty is the operative word. Saul Markovic of Murray Avenue Kosher in Squirrel Hill points out that specialty items always carry a higher price tag. Check out the gluten free display in Giant Eagle and note the inflated prices for these items. Of course when purchasing ready-to-eat foods, once again, you will be paying a premium. What you are paying for is the human factor; the manpower necessary to produce the product. Wheat and other grains are large volume (often subsidized) commodities, and mainstream food products are manufactured in large scale operations that create artificially low prices. When you replace foods using those ingredients with alternatives, they cost more than the original. Instead of switching spaghetti for gluten-free noodles, try using spaghetti squash or zucchini noodles instead. Missing rice? Try quinoa. After “an intensive, multi-year investigation and an internal debate into quinoa’s status, the Orthodox Union has decided that it can certify quinoa for Passover and should be available in the kosher for Passover aisle.” Thanks to globalization, there are also more options available. Imported matzah from Israel tends to be cheaper than domestic matzah. “They say the
government in Israel subsidizes it,” says Lee Hurwitz, CEO of Alber and Leff, a Pittsburgh food distributor.
Instead of using Passover as a chance to bemoan the higher costs of Passover-friendly foods, you may want to take the holiday as an opportunity to clean out your pantry of chametz and kitniyot items and bring in more healthful foods. Skip the sugar cane cola altogether and drink water – it’s better for you, and it’s practically free. Instead of crackers or pretzels, have fresh fruit. Use in-season produce and cook at home. Passover foods, like any specialty item, can cost more than their everyday alternatives, but that doesn’t mean you have to pay more overall.
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Stacy Spensley is a writer for The Spark Magazine and a certified health coach. You can find her on the web at www.centerstagewellness.com.
Western PA’s Passover Food Supercenter! Your one-stop shop for everything Kosher.
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Dear Yoc the Doc: Every year before Passover my wife goes crazy with cleaning breadcrumbs. She’s gotta be obsessive-compulsive. Please help! - Tired Husband
Dear Tired Husband: Sounds like it’s not just your wife who is going crazy. It’s highly unlikely that she suffers from OCD if her behavior is linked specifically to pre-Passover. The keys to OCD are obsessions (intrusive thoughts) and/or compulsions (repetitive actions) that one simply HAS to do (usually to relieve anxiety); it is pervasive; it seriously impedes social and occupational functioning; and (this is key) the person knows that what they are doing is weird but they just can’t help it. So unless you wife fits the above, you’re best off standing by her side. Peace in the home is always paramount and if your wife wants to do it her way, join in. Turn on some good music, get the kids involved and with the right head space you’ll discover some family fun. And that’s a good crazy. -Yoc the Doc Submit your confidential questions to be printed in future issues of The Spark’s Yoc the Doc column at yocthedoc@sparkmagazine.org.
Kids come to us from all over the Greater Pittsburgh area to enjoy the our Jewish experience and they simply love the early learning services the center provides!
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By Tzvi Freeman
I’ll soon be sitting at the Seder table with family and friends and the same question as with every one of these holidays is going to come up: What are we celebrating? What are we all here for? My kids tell me that’s no question: We’re here to celebrate our freedom. That’s what the holiday is called, “The Festival of Our Freedom.” We were slaves in Egypt, now we are free. So let’s get to the meal and celebrate. I’m glad they feel so free. As for me, I’m still a slave and Pharaoh, king of Egypt, never died. I labor for him all week long. He tricked me into it: First, he let me have all these nice things I really wanted for nothing. Later he started demanding money for them. When, one time, I didn’t pay all the money, he demanded even more money. So I have to keep working real hard to give him all the money he demands. I carry a picture of Pharaoh
in his present incarnation in my wallet. It has his very intimidating new name engraved on it. He’s called “Master Card.” But my kids don’t go for that. They say that in the Haggadah it says Pharaoh let us go free. Well, I know the Haggadah a little better than them. The fact is, the Haggadah, like every other piece of Torah, is full of puzzles and seeming contradictions, there just so you’ll ask questions. If you read any piece of Torah, especially the Haggadah, and you don’t have any questions, you obviously aren’t reading right. (That’s why the “Son Who Doesn’t Know How to Ask
Questions” gets put at the very end of the table. Not the Wicked Son. Not the Simple Son. The “Unquestioning Son.” Not just because unquestioning is very unJewish, but also because it means you’re plain not paying attention to what’s going on.) To get to the point: We just finished making Kiddush, in which we call this “The Festival of Our Freedom.” What do we say next? “This is the Poor Man’s Bread...Now we are slaves, next year we will be free men.” Now is that a contradiction or is that a contradiction? Are we free or are we slaves?
So my kids tell me that we’re celebrating that once we were slaves and then we got free and so we’re celebrating. The fact that we all got into a mess and became slaves again, well, too bad. We can still commemorate the past. As long as the dinner is good. Let me tell you something: I’m not into commemorating the past. If I’m going through all this trouble in the year 5760, 3,312 years later to clean my house for Passover and make a big Seder, it’s got to have more significance than commemorating something that cancelled itself out with history anyway. The problem of being a slave with all these contradictions, coupled with the stress of cleaning for Passover, really bothered me. So I went to see a psychotherapist. The psychotherapist listened, took notes and then told me that MasterCard is not Pharaoh. I am Pharaoh. More specifically, my unreasonable demands upon myself is the Pharaoh. I told him my only real demand upon myself is that I should not be a slave. He said I shouldn’t use that word, “should.” The word “should” means I’m making an unreasonable demand upon myself. That causes stress. Stress, in his Haggadah, is slavery. Apparently, the Hebrews in Egypt were really stressed out. Building pyramids was nothing. It’s the stress that did them in. ”So,” I asked, “What should I do? I don’t want to be a slave.” He told me I shouldn’t do anything. Wanting is ok. I can want to not be a slave. Shoulding is bad. It’s unreasonable to should. Now I was really confused. I had always understood that “I should” was my liberator and “I want” was the one that got me in all this trouble to begin with. But the hour was up and there I was in the office showing my picture of Pharaoh to the psychotherapist’s secretary.
”In summary,” I thought, “I shouldn’t say should.” I needed to make another appointment with the shrink to ask whether I should or should not say that I shouldn’t say should. But, at these professional rates, I didn’t think my little Pharaoh would let me. At any rate, I decided, I don’t need a shrink to achieve liberation. After all, liberation is a form of enlightenment. When is the last time you met a spiritually enlightened psychotherapist? What I needed was a guru. An elevated, transcendent soul who is essentially liberated and could pull me out of
Are we free or Are we slaves? all this muck and mire. So I sat down and keyboarded out a letter, explaining everything, to the Guadalajara Rebbe. Then I fired it off to enlightenment@guadalajara.guru. I stayed online awaiting my reply. In the meantime, I electronically paid the bills I was incurring by staying online so long in order to get a swift reply. My little Pharaoh came in useful again. Then it came. Verbatim, as follows: ”We are all prisoners. The act of existence is our crime. The universe is our prison. Our bodies and our personage is our cell. The keys to liberation are held tight in the fists of our own egos.” Then a little note: “see Tanya, chapter 47. Also read Bringing Heaven Down to Earth by Tzvi Freeman.” I meditated, I sipped licorice tea, I meditated some more, and I got it. MasterCard is not Pharaoh. “I want” is not Pharaoh. Neither is “I should”. It’s not the want or the should, it’s the “I.” I looked in Tanya, the classic Chassidic work by Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, chapter
47. There he says that when G-d gave us the Torah, He gave us Infinitude. We connect to Him with the Torah and we are free because we are then infinite and unbounded as He is. And he writes, “...and so there is nothing stopping anybody except for his own will, for if a person does not want...” Again, the same idea. We are all free. But our egos clutch tightly the keys. How do I get my ego to let go of the keys? For philosophy you can go to an enlightened tzaddik somewhere in Mexico. For practical, real-time liberation, I need The Rebbe. The Lubavitcher Rebbe. This is the practical advice of the Rebbe, in a talk one Passover: ”Make a part of your life an act that takes you beyond your bounds, helping people that are not part of your family or circle of friends, doing something that does not fit within your own self-definition. Invite someone to your Seder who you’re not so comfortable with. At first, it may not feel so good. But you have set yourself free.” So, again this year, I come to my seder. I leave my own little world of my own puny self and I walk through the door into something infinite, timeless and eternal, because it is bound with an infinite, timeless and eternal G-d. I am no longer part of me. I am part of us and part of His Torah and therefore part of Him. And to prove it, I say, “Let all those who are needy come and join our seder. No matter who.” I have broken free. This year, we should all break free. Not just at the seder, but for every moment of our lives. Forever. Th i s y e a r i n Je r u s a l e m .
Rabbi Tzvi Freeman is the Senior Editor at Chabad.org, and also heads the Ask the Rabbi team. Spring 2014 • The Spark Magazine
By Georgia Atkin
WHERE EVERYONE KNOWS YOUR NAME AND THEY’RE ALWAYS GLAD YOU CAME: The Chabad Center at West Virginia University in Morgantown is the place to go for Jewish students who crave a delicious home cooked kosher meal or a warm, cozy environment in which something spiritually or intellectually intriguing is always taking place. Established in 2007 at the home of Rabbi Zalman Gurevitz and his wife Hindy, the Center is one of more than 160 Chabad campus centers around the country. Why come to Morgantown, a city of 30,000 with a dwindling Jewish population of about two hundred families? According to Rabbi Gurevitz, it was at the request of WVU Jewish students, most from NY, NJ or MD, who wanted a Jewish home-away-from-home that precipitated the opening of the Center. Enthusiasm for the Center has been strong and will grow even stronger in the months ahead with the purchase of a historic building, circa 1900, that is located on the cusp between the
campus and downtown. To be named the Rohr Chabad Center, for the generous half-million dollar donation by the Rohr Family Foundation, the Center will replace the present meeting place – Rabbi and Hindy’s residence, a home with a brisk twelve minute walk from campus. That distance has deterred a buzz from developing around Center events. The present Center, too far from campus for a walk-in visit, has made attendance at the Shabbat dinners and other events dependent on students spreading the word to their friends; not a fruitful enterprise in a school with a very small Jewish population. Rabbi Gurevitz is excited about the new facility. The building has three floors and parking behind it. The neighbors are enthusiastic about the Center and the church next door has already called to welcome Chabad. The Victorian exterior of the building is grand and there is stunning woodwork inside.
Chabad Center at WVU
There will be some interior renovations, including the addition of a Mikvah in the basement and rooms for student housing on the third floor. Rabbi Gurevitz is also optimistic about changes at the university. There is a new president, E. Gordon Gee, who was Chancellor at Vanderbilt University from 2000-2008, where he encouraged recruitment of Jewish students. Of course, there is much work to be done. There is a fund-raising campaign to raise the additional monies needed for the remainder of the purchase price and the renovations. Rabbi Gurevitz will solicit donations from students, professors and alumni, and donations can be made online. Rabbi Gurevitz stressed that any funds raised will go toward the WVU Chabad Center and he emphasized the importance of the project. “This Jewish experience at Chabad will last a lifetime and shape the students’ Jewish identity. The more they connect now, the better will be their Jewish identity in the future.”
Georgia Atkin is a writer for The Spark Magazine, living in O’Hara Township, PA.
Contact Us For further information on the Chabad Center at WVU, please visit www.jewishwv.org. You can contact Rabbi Gurevitz at Rabbi@jewishwv.org for more information or even to post your own questions about the project. All queries are strictly confidential.
LET’S MAKE A DIFFERENCE!
review
Chani Altein
has brought to life a most enticing rhyme created by Rabbi Yosef Goldstein. “Hashem is here, Hashem is there, Hashem is truly everywhere” holds and delivers the grounding principle of Judaism to our youngest in such an all encompassing and loving manner that no doubt is left in one’s mind that Hashem truly is everywhere. The rhyming will gently draw children into the enormous concept of Hashem’s vastness and yet enable them to visualize that Hashem is, indeed, right next to them. Altein’s use of a friend, Tzvi, to be the teacher and messenger reinforces the transfer of knowledge of Hashem to the next generation. Through graphics and rhyme, there is not a space that a child can imagine in which Hashem would not be present and available for them. The illustrations by Marc Lumer are delightfully vivid, expressive and engaging.
bio
Chani Altein was born and raised in New Haven, Connecticut, and from a young age, she enjoyed writing and dreamed of being an author. Hashem is Truly Everywhere is her third book published by Hachai;
(412) 421.3121
www.milkywaypgh.com 2120 Murray Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15217
The choice to incorporate Judaic elements into the art on each page makes this a treasure to explore. As an extra treat, the pages are laminated, guaranteeing continual use. This is a perfect book for use in an early childhood classroom, a religious school and certainly, a home. Hashem Is Truly Everywhere will stand as a classic read beginning in infancy and beyond.
she is also the author of five young adult novels. Chani currently lives in Pittsburgh, PA, with her husband and five children. She is the Co-Director of Chabad Pittsburgh and the Director of the Jewish Children’s Center for the Creative Arts.
Weight loss
has a funny connotation. I typically associate loss with a negative experience, loss of a loved one, loss of a prized possession…yet weight loss seems to be a cause for celebration. My personal journey to health and fitness has been a dramatic learning adventure. The challenges and triumphs, the successes and setbacks, have had as powerful an impact on my character and personality as it has had on the new and reduced self-image I see when I look at my reflection in the mirror. It was not long ago that I was a prisoner to the food I would encounter. No, I do not suffer from addictive behaviors that plague many in the overeating arena. I was stuck in the mind frame of “if I want it, I may as well have it.” Somewhere, somehow, my needs were replaced with wants and when it comes to wants, there are no limits. As the saying goes, “just because the wine is kosher, doesn’t mean you need to drink the whole case…in one sitting!” The physical benefits of healthy eating
By Ely Rosenfeld
and routine exercise are reason enough to discipline oneself and curb the speed at which food is consumed. Breaking loose of the “I can have what I want whenever I want” incarceration, that’s an accomplishment of a whole new degree. How do we define free and freedom? The shallow definition of freedom is “free to do as I wish.” A deeper more meaningful explanation is “free to be in service of ”. I am in service of my food, when I chose to eat what I need for my health and energy. I am in service of mankind and my community when I show up where I’m needed, not necessarily where I want to be. I am in service of HaShem, when I do as He wishes and recognize my blessings, not when I tell Him what he owes me for today (not to mention the back pay). My (new) self-image is smaller, my (renewed) spirit has never been to such heights. What “I need” has become a humble voice; “where I am needed” has become my passion and pursuit. I am small enough to know I play a big role. I am big enough to recognize the freedom of self discipline, the freedom of saying “I do not need that”. The freedom to live the life of a committed Jew is service of G-d, Who gives me the freedom to chose. Rabbi Ely Rosenfeld is the Director of Chabad Fox Chapel. He is a dedicated husband and the father of five. He enjoys spending time with his family, helping those in need and leading a healthy, spiritual lifestyle.
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