To Bean or Not to Bean? Rice is the Question.

I promised you all that I would engage in a post about the consumption of kitniyot before the Pesach holiday begins tomorrow evening. Given the fact that I am consumed with cooking and other seder preparations, I will attempt to do this with as much brevity as I can possibly muster. The eating of kitniyot has become one of the most polarizing issues surrounding the celebration of Pesach. It is so contentious in fact, that most Jews cannot even agree on an appropriate translation or definition of the actual word. From Rabbi Richard J. Israel:

In general, kitniot are those small (kitniot - from katan) seeds or beans which look a little like grains and which need to be cooked to be eaten. Though frequently translated as legumes, aside from peas and peanuts, they are NOT legumes. And some legumes, like alfalfa leaves which can be used for salad, ARE NOT kitniot. Legumes are plants whose root nodules make nitrogen. Since "teensy-weensies" or "tinies" are not translations that are very likely to make it into ordinary English parlance, the most appropriate translation for kitniot, it seems to me, is kitniot.

At Pesach, all Jews are to refrain from the eating of chametz, (leaven) and the Torah is quite explicit as to which grains are to be included in this category. From the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR):

"It is a mitzvah to abstain from eating leaven (Chametz) during the entire seven days of Pesach."[2] By "chametz", the tradition means those grains from which matzah may be baked: wheat, barley, oats, rye, and spelt.[3] No other foodstuffs are regarded as chametz.

It has also become customary for Ashkenazi Jews to adhere to a prohibition on rice, corn, seeds and legumes in a somewhat misguided attempt (my opinion) to expand the observance of the festival and build fences around the Torah to impose safeguards for the public for their own chametz protection. In other words, let's assume that the people are so stupid as to not know what they are or are not eating, that they require salvation from the evil consumption. In a word, horseshit. More from Rabbi Israel: 

By the 18th century a halachist like the Korban Nathaniel (you have never heard of him) writes that there is no need to outlaw these cooked products just because they may appear similar to other cooked products which are actually chametz. One may, for example, use flour made from lentils, because it cannot become chametz, and there is no need to worry that people will confuse it with other flour which is really chametz. However, Ashkenazic (though not Sephardic) Jews have accepted a great stringency regarding these products, despite the fact that they are not chametz, and despite the permissibility of these items documented by earlier sources. The reason for the prohibition is based on a gezeirah, a preventive decree, from Ashkenazic rabbinical authorities.

The familiar and relatively late explanation for this gezeirah goes exactly contrary to what the Korban Nathaniel says. The gezeirah was justified on the grounds that people can too easily confuse a product cooked with kitniyot, with a similar product cooked with one of the five grains, and if the kitniyot product is allowed, one may come to allow a grain product, which is really chametz, as well. Moreover, kitniyot are similar to the five grains in other ways too, including the fact that some people make bread out of kitniyot as they do from the five grains, and people who are not knowledgeable may end up making a mistake and eat real chametz.

The prohibition on kitnityot runs contrary to the opinions of every single Talmudic and Mishnaic sage with the exception of one, (R. Yochanan be Nuri, Pesahim 35a) and is in direct contradiction to the decision in the Babylonian Talmud. (Pesahim 114b) This responsa is from the Conservative rabbinate in Israel. 

This custom is mentioned for the first time in France and Provence in the beginning of the thirteenth century by R. Asher of Lunel, R. Samuel of Falaise, and R. Peretz of Corbeil - from there it spread to various countries and the list of prohibited foods continued to expand. Nevertheless, the reason for the custom was unknown and as a result many sages invented at least eleven different explanations for the custom. As a result, R. Samuel of Falaise, one of the first to mention it, referred to it as a "mistaken custom" and R. Yerucham called it a "foolish custom".

This craziness has been perpetuated for centuries and has continued to this day. The reason that my Ashkenazi relatives in Poland ate potatoes instead of corn or rice at Pesach, is simply because of supply. Whoever heard of sushi in the shtetl? Rice and corn are foods that were unknown to my ancestors in the part of the world that they resided. When they did come in contact with these foreign substances, their rebbes reflexively banned them from consumption at Pesach as much out of ignorance as anything thing else. In my neighbourhood, which I have lovingly referred to as the "North Jewish Ghetto", the cost of observing the holiday in a kitniyot-free environment has become astronomical. It is not unheard of nor is it unusual to hear stories of families spending upwards of $2000.00 on Pesach preparations. The purchasing of products like kosher for Pesach Coke and ketchup (the high fructose corn syrup in these products has labelled them kitniyot!) has become a strange game of "Keeping as Kosher as the Steinbergs". There was even a midnight madness sale at our resident grocery store this past Saturday evening. The image of observant men and women fighting over the last box of matzah meal is one to behold. Once again from the Conservative responsa in Israel: 

Therefore, the main halakhic question in this case is whether it is permissible to do away with a mistaken or foolish custom. Many rabbinic authorities have ruled that it is permitted (and perhaps even obligatory) to do away with this type of "foolish custom" (R. Abin in Yerushalmi Pesahim, Maimonides, the Rosh, the Ribash, and many others). Furthermore, there are many good reasons to do away with this "foolish custom": a) It detracts from the joy of the holiday by limiting the number of permitted foods; b) It causes exorbitant price rises, which result in "major financial loss" and, as is well known, "the Torah takes pity on the people of Israel's money"; c) It emphasizes the insignificant (legumes) and ignores the significant (hametz, which is forbidden from the five kinds of grain); d) It causes people to scoff at the commandments in general and at the prohibition of hametz in particular - if this custom has no purpose and is observed, then there is no reason to observe other commandments; e) Finally, it causes unnecessary divisions between Israel's different ethnic groups. On the other hand, there is only one reason to observe this custom: the desire to preserve an old custom. Obviously, this desire does not override all that was mentioned above. Therefore, both Ashkenazim and Sephardim are permitted to eat legumes and rice on Pesah without fear of transgressing any prohibition.

It seems to me that the only reason to continue the practice of forbidding the consumption of kitniyot is tradition; Bubby didn't eat corn so we don't eat corn, and while I certainly think that this should always be a matter of personal conviction, I cannot abide. I need to feel that religious practice has some basis in logic and law in order for it to remain a religious practice in my world. The spirit and the celebration of Pesach is enhanced and maintained by the prohibition of the chametz. Anything else must be defined, in my opinion, as a religious fiction and cannot be taken seriously. My Passover includes rice and corn. I will give the final word to the CCAR. 

We do not accept the orthodox argument that a customary observance, once widely adopted, can never be annulled. This notion is questionable, in general, as a matter of halakhah,[19] especially when the observance is based upon a mistaken interpretation of the law.[20] In our specific case, moreover, there is absolutely no evidence that this customary prohibition was ever ratified by rabbinic decree or accepted as binding in the form of a vow. Had a decree or a vow existed, after all, those authorities who criticized the practice down to the eighteenth century would never have spoken so bluntly against it. We think, rather, that some rabbis resort to these arguments in order to support practices and customs whose original purpose--if there ever was a legitimate original purpose--no longer holds. When a religious practice has outlived its purpose, when its retention is perceived by the community as unnecessary and burdensome, Reform Judaism affirms the right of the observant community to alter or annul that practice in favor of a new standard which better expresses our understanding of Torah and tradition and the religious sensibilities of our age.

Chag Sameach to all observe and may your time with family and friends be sweet and peaceful.

Pesach: Spiritually Uplifting or Soul Crushing? Discuss!

Well folks, it's that time of year yet again. It is the time when the thoughts of all good Jews turn to the hellish nightmare of Passover preparations. (This is a warning to my friends of persuasions other than those of the "tribe" that I will henceforth be referring to Passover by its Hebrew name of Pesach. It is just something that I am far more comfortable with!) It is a time of cleaning, of cooking, of detailed menu preparation, of extreme grocery shopping, of baking with ingredients so foreign sounding and tasting that one cannot help but wonder if the end result will spew some new incarnation of cardboard, and of course the endless patter of family dynamics.  Pesach in a word, is work. A lot of work. A shitload of work. Work that is seemingly endless and most often expected, yet wholly under-appreciated. Ask anybody who is hosting a seder or even contributing to one, how they are planning to spend the next week, and the answer will surely be cooking and cleaning. Pesach is an anal-retentive individual's wet-dream, as the details are so intricate and the juggling so precise as to demand total concentration and full attention. Is this what The Divine One and Moses really had in mind when they led our people our from Egypt?

I find it hard to imagine that God and Moses really cared if we drank the Kosher for Pesach Diet Coke or the everyday regular stuff. I find it impossible to believe that Moses, or even Mrs. Moses for that matter, (her name was Zipporah-just in case you thought that my Bible skills were left wanting!!) cared what brisket recipe we used or if Aunty "Golda" will be offended because we are letting Aunty "Basha" make the fish this year. Does anybody honestly believe that our ancestors intended for us to spend thousands of dollars "koshering" our home for the holiday, simply because some maven somewhere determined that this brand of matzah was the "only" brand of matzah, or that the Israeli matzah meal (which is many dollars cheaper!) is not kosher enough? I cannot fathom that my foremothers and forefathers even knew what rice and corn were, (not a lot of that stuff hanging around in the desert!) let alone consider their prohibition. (The whole issue of the kitniyot is a discussion that I plan to take up before the start of this year's holiday, so please check back.)

No, Pesach is not about all of that stuff, at least it shouldn't be. Pesach is a spiritual and a physical reawakening. We as Jews need to look at Pesach as a basic evocation of why we are still here, what we as a people have been through and what we need to achieve in order to move forward. We need to remember what the purpose of the seder is (to teach our children and remind ourselves of our history) and not to see how fast Uncle Moishey can get through it so that we can finally eat. We need to look at the Haggadah as a living and breathing document that includes all and requires revision on a yearly basis (within its set framework of course!) in order to incorporate the every changing circumstances in which we find ourselves. We shouldn't be looking for ways to "cheat" the system by buying into the "matzah bagel" mentality, but rather taking the time and energy to understand why it is we do what we do. Pesach isn't about deprivation, it is about renewal. It isn't about denial, it is about affirmation. It isn't supposed to be stomach churning, ulcer inducing, or soul crushing. It is supposed to be spiritually uplifting. Let's all try and remember that as we enter into our preparations this weekend.  

Chag Sameach!

(By the way-please follow me on twitter! @dawnbe1229)

For Me, It's all About the Sauce

The Husband and I are not real restaurant goers. Given the fact that we live in a city with literally thousands of dining choices running the gamut of every possible cooking style and ethnicity, this is probably to our culinary and cultural detriment, but it is a fact of our palate-challenged lives. Due to dietary restrictions (mine) and shlep-factor (usually his), we much prefer to eat at home or frequent a few local haunts nearby.  The North Jewish Ghetto is not known as a hotbed of fine cuisine, so we have become, for better or for worse, creatures of habit. One of our favourite joints has been a neighbourhood pizzeria called Dante's. (For regular readers of this blog, I would like to point out that I rarely, if ever, use real-life names for anything or anybody, but this time I feel the need to express myself fully. Who would have thought that pasta-sauce would aid in smashing this fourth wall of blogging?) 

Dante's could only minimally be described as a restaurant. The place was truly a "joint"! For over 30 years, this wholly family-operated dive has been a fixture in the area north of Toronto. It was small and cramped and there were garlic-oil stains on the threadbare carpet. The tables while clean, always rocked from one odd-sized leg and the chairs were grossly uncomfortable. Paper place mats with maps of Italy adorned the tables along with the requisite Parmesan cheese and hot chili flakes shakers. Because of its size, waiting became the norm at Dante's, so take-out was often a more palatable option. The Dante's vehicles became recognizable friends in the area and one of the big jokes about the place was that they had more delivery cars than tables. The ordering experience was something to behold or "hold". Here was a typical ordering experience at Dante's.

Dante's operator: "Thank you for calling Dante's. Please hold!"

The Husband: "I have been holding for 15 f%*&@^g minutes!!!"

Dante's operator: (15 minutes later)" Thank you for holding. How may I help you?"

The Husband: (after placing the order) "How long will that be?" 

Dante's operator: "Well we are extremely busy this evening. (They were extremely busy every evening!) I would guess anywhere from 45 minutes to 2 hours!"

The Husband: "Ok, then!"

Why would we wait for up to 2 hours for pizza and pasta from a joint that is less than 5 minutes from my house? It was all about the food and especially the ambrosial tomato sauce. The food was to die for. The pastas were heavenly, in portions large enough for a family of four, the pizza divine (The Ying to the Lil Bro's Yang would often trek 1/2 hour out of her way to the northern part of the city in order to retrieve a pizza for her family) and the salads and sandwiches out of some other-world recipe book. For me, it was all about the sauce. If I could have figured out how to mainline the stuff, I would have. And then, the unthinkable happened. Dante's went upscale.

A year ago, we in the neighbourhood became aware of a new and decidedly un-Dante's like menu. Gone were many of the take-out favourites, (although you can still get some of the pastas at the eat-in restaurant) every pasta came in platter sizes that were ridiculously priced, the salads were generic and the pizzas bland. The food began arriving cold and wilted and the sauce seemed to have lost its zing. The prices have gone up while the quality of the food has decreased. The money seems to have been spent on sprucing up the restaurant. Gone are the rug stains and paper place mats, only to be replaced by a wine menu, soft lighting and wooden flooring. They have also opened up a second location. Recognizing that change can be difficult, The Husband and I have attempted to remain loyal to our favourite joint, but our last meal there on Saturday was truly our last. The pasta was cold and the chicken greasy. The salad looked like it was 2 days old and the sauce so very disappointing. When The Husband attempted to send an e-mail complaint, he was greeted by an automated response that was obviously being re-directed to a corporate hack. They still have not responded to his concerns. We think that some larger restaurant entity has bought a huge chunk in the family business and is now controlling the show. How very sad. 

Dante's was one of those places that was a constant; a neighbourhood landmark that remained for decades despite bad economies, changing food tastes and diets. In their zeal to clean up the location, they forgot the basic tenet of running a successful restaurant-"IT'S ALL ABOUT THE FOOD, STUPID!!!"

The Passover Seder Symbols Song

A little something to get us into the Pesach planning mood. Enjoy!

Gloria Steinem on Outrageous Acts

Happy 75th Ms Steinem. You continue to inspire, challenge and motivate women everywhere.
http://outrageousacts.org

We Canadians Can Take a Joke-When It is Funny!

There has been much made of the tasteless, wholly insensitive and grotesque segment that aired on Fox News' semi-satirical crapfest known as Red Eye. On the same day that we as a nation lost four more soldiers to the conflict in Afghanistan bringing the ignominious total to 116, some pinheads over at the "faux news" network decided that it would be a laugh riot to ridicule Canada's contribution to the military struggle in that hellhole of a country. Well, guess what Big Brother? We here in the Great White North aren't laughing. We find it difficult to laugh at the images of flag-draped coffins coming home. We tend not to chuckle when our contributions to aid our allies are lampooned. It is true that we are quiet, peace-loving, hockey rabid, and a bit pedantic, but we tend to get pissed off when such blind ignorance to our existence is shown by our nearest and supposedly dearest friends. While it may be true that we are not a country that is well-known for our military prowess, we have a long and proud history of  engagement that would make the morons at Red Eye blush with ignorance. 

• Canada enter the fray in both World Wars ahead of the Americans. In World War I, we followed Great Britain (we were bound as a subservient) to arms in August of 1914. While we were not at liberty to refuse the call, we did have the independence to choose our level of involvement. The United States did not enter the war until April of 1917. The per capita death casualty rate for Canada during the Great War was approximately .9% while the US had a per capita loss rate of approximately .54%. During World War II, Canada declared war on Germany a mere week after Great Britain did following the invasion of Poland in 1939. This time, it was not incumbent upon us to follow the British, but we did and in huge numbers. 1.1 million Canadian men served with the allied forces, and more than 45,000 lost their lives. The Americans didn't come into the war until after Pearl Harbour in December of 1941. On June 6th, at the Battle of Normandy, Canadians landed on Juno Beach. Resistance was fierce and casualty rates were high, as much as 50% in the first waves. "By day's end, however, the Canadians had made the deepest penetrations inland of any of the five seaborne invasion forces."
• We were a major part of the UN forces in Korea. Almost 27,000 troops were deployed to Korea and there were over 1,500 casualties. 
• We have a long and proud history as participants in peace-keeping deployments from Somalia to The Balkans to the Middle East.
• It is true that we did not actively provide military support in either Viet Nam or Iraq, but that was mostly because a case could not be adequately made to Parliament that our chief ally was being threatened by either country.

Canadian forces have been deployed in Afghanistan since the very early days of the mission. Our soldiers have been in one of the most dangerous regions of the country and have suffered 4 times the casualty rate of any country with troops there, including the Americans. We are sensitive about this war. Thinking and feeling people should be. So forgive us if we find it a wee bit difficult to laugh at the shit that was spewed on Fox. 

41 with 3 Kids and Apparently Over-the Hill!

I have never been a huge Julia Roberts fan. I have enjoyed a few of her movies and I have been bored by many others, but I certainly recognize that the woman has had a remarkable movie career. She broke through a glass ceiling in terms of compensation at a time when Hollywood was all about male action stars and adolescent testosterone-driven teen comedies. She was one of the first female stars to be recognized as having the ability to carry a film on her name alone, and she was one of the few female stars who carried enough clout to get pet projects to the screen. There was a time, not so long ago that Julia's name alone was enough to drive the numbers at the box office. But, that was so last century. 

You see, Julia has taken a couple of years off from the movie making business in order to attend to her personal life. Over the past several years she and her husband have had 3 children, and she has effectively scaled back her professional responsibilities to a few small roles and some voice-over work. She has done what millions of working women the world over have done-choose. Yes of course, Julia's financial situation makes her choices easier. She has options that most women can only dream of, but in Julia's business face time is money. She knowingly removed herself willingly from the public consciousness in order to parent, and she had to understand that there might be professional consequences. Hollywood is, after all, nothing if not amnesiac and cruel. 

This week marked Julia's return to the big screen. Her movie, Duplicity hit theatres this past weekend and in the minds of the Hollywood press, is a bit of a box-office disappointment. Despite fairly decent reviews, (Rotten Tomatoes has its average at 65% fresh!) the unbelievably hot Clive Owen and a smart and sexy plot, the flick finished third behind the universally panned Nic Cage stinker (A quick commercial message. Older Son saw that this was a piece of crap coming down the pike in his online column Trailer Trash) and the undoubtedly hysterical bromance I Love You, Man. There are probably many reasons as to why Julia and Clive finished third in this week's box-office. (Young men are the target audiences for most movies and a romantic thriller is probably not their idea of a cool 2 hours.) But, the most offensive and totally misogynistic theory  that I have heard today, is that she is too old, too maternal and no longer viewed by the public as available and sexy. Julia Roberts??? I get that the entertainment business is a youth-driven environment, but this is Julia Roberts! Angelina Jolie has six kids and she has never been accused of being viewed as maternal. Jennifer Aniston is 40 and she seems to have the sexy-thing going! Why is the Hollywood press feeling the need to justify perceived disappointment of a fairly decent 14 million dollar box office, by using Julia and her age as the apparent scapegoat? Maybe the not so ideal weather on the east coast kept women and the intellectual elite (we are way too smart to go out in the rain, snow and cold!) at home? Maybe the financial crisis has hit this target audience pretty hard and movies have become somewhat of a luxury? Maybe, just maybe (although I cannot fathom a reason why!) audiences don't like Clive Owen as opposed to Julia? 

I am so very weary of feeling that as a 46 year old woman, I am totally ignored by the media. I rarely see depictions of women like me in magazines, movies, TV shows, commercials and the like. I am tired of feeling like these images are what passes for some Hollywood mogul's skewed view of reality. But, if a woman like Julia Roberts is now feeling the heat, then I know that I am in some fairly respectable company. I am now making plans to see Duplicity, not because I have a burning desire to be entertained by Ms. Roberts, but because I feel a kindred need to add to her box-office totals. Come on girls! Show the assholes in the suits who is boss!