Eric Hebrew Lesson 4/7
Vav parents, please see the “to-do” below, and help us help a needy family!
Hey, vavniks! I hope you enjoyed our LIVE Pesach Day!
Here’s some food for thought for you during Passover. The first thing we do at the seder (besides kiddush) is wash our hands (how appropriate!). But the first thing we say at the seder when we tell the story is:
הָא לַחְמָא עַנְיָא דִי אֲכָלוּ אַבְהָתָנָא בְּאַרְעָא דְמִצְרָיִם. כָּל דִכְפִין יֵיתֵי וְיֵיכֹל, כָּל דִצְרִיךְ יֵיתֵי וְיִפְסַח
. הָשַׁתָּא הָכָא, לְשָׁנָה הַבָּאָה בְּאַרְעָא דְיִשְׂרָאֵל. הָשַׁתָּא עַבְדֵי, לְשָׁנָה הַבָּאָה בְּנֵי חוֹרִין.
Ha lachma anya dee achalu avhatana b'ara d'meetzrayeem. Kol deechfeen yeitei v'yeichol, kol deetzreech yeitei v'yeefsach.
Hashata hacha, l'shanah haba-ah b'ara d'yisra-el. Hashata avdei, l'shanah haba-ah b'nei choreen.
This is the bread of affliction, which our ancestors ate in the land of Egypt. Let all who are hungry come and eat.
Let all who are in need, come and share this Passover meal with us.
Now, we are dreamers; next year, may we bask in our promised lands, wherever they may be!
So here’s a question: Why do we call matzah the “bread of affliction” if we only ate it after we were free??
Lemony Snicket has one answer (taken from the New American Haggadah): "It is altogether proper that matzah is called the bread of affliction, because it has been afflicted more than any other food on earth. It is born in a searing-hot oven and then completely ignored for fifty-one weeks of the year while people walk around shamelessly eating leavened bread. Then, Passover rolls around, and it is smeared with various substances, ground up into balls, and, in the morning, fried up into a counterfeit version of French toast. Everyone eats it and nobody likes it, and there's always one last box that sits untouched in a cupboard for months afterward, lonely, broken, and utterly unloved.
Of course it is practically impossible for free and fortunate people such as ourselves to envision a life of slavery, but as an exercise in imagining our ancestors, place a large square of matzah in your mouth and eat it. Listen to the cacophonous crunches in your ears like the blows of the slavedriver's whip. Feel the searing dryness in your mouth like the thirst of the Hebrew slaves for freedom. And then, with your mouth full of matzah, try to say the Shema, and watch the particles of oppression scatter across the table. Slavery spreads like a spray of crumbs, and it is very difficult to rid humanity of slavery, which is why, even thousands of years after the Exodus, there are so many people enslaved, and why, even weeks after Passover, there are so many matzah crumbs in the house.”
Does that answer satisfy you? Maybe you’d connect more with a social justice answer, like this one from songwriter Gabriel Mann, part of an end-hunger campaign:
However you slice it (just kidding - you can’t slice matzah!), matzah is a powerful symbol of how we can turn our painful past into a hopeful future - when we share our story with each other, and our bread with others in need.
To do:
1) Let all who are hungry come and eat! Every year, the vav class helps sponsor a needy family as part of the Lend a Hand project. This year, we continue to support a family adopted by RSNS for several years: Yolanda and Kenneth and their four children. The needs of this family we support with our help are great at this very trying and challenging time. To help this family, we started a group gift through eGifter.com to make it easy to give what you can simply and safely. The gift we are contributing to will go to the Lend A Hand organization and their office will use 100% of our donations to send a gift card for groceries and clothing to our family.
*We are asking all vav families who are able, to use this link to contribute to the gift for our family.
2) Take the #MatzahChallenge! The UJA's #MatzahChallenge, now in its third year, offers a chance to do some good and connect with the broader community in the best way we know how these days -- online. From April 8 to 16, all posts uploaded to social media using the hashtag #MatzahChallenge will be matched with an $18 donation to UJA to help people in need during this challenging time, thanks to a group of generous donors.
It's easy to participate:
1. Create a tasty treat featuring matzah.
2. Snap a pic.
3. Post it to Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, or TikTok using the hashtag #MatzahChallenge.
4. Nominate a friend (or a few) to take the challenge too.
Every post generates funds that enable the UJA to meet the critical needs of the larger community!
You can also email your #MatzahChallenge pics to Cantor Eric (And you can check out all the vav class creations from previous weeks here)!
I hope you’ll give generously to our Lend a Hand Family, and that everyone has a safe, healthy, happy Passover, and I’ll see you on the other side!
-Lotsa matsa and love,
Cantor Eric