Miriam's Cup

It's too late for this to be useful for anyone's seder this year, but...

One of the most interesting innovations in seder observance among progressive Jewish types over the past, say, 40 years has been Miriam's Cup. Placed on the table alongside Elijah's Cup (which represents the promise of future, messianic redemption) and filled with water (to remind us of Miriam's midrashic role in sustaining the Israelites in the desert), it is, like most ritual innovations, a blank slate on which to draw signficance: the role of women, inclusiveness, creativity, etc.

That's part 1. Part 2 is that progressive Jewish types also get a slew of hagaddah supplements in the weeks leading up to seder, asking us to include various issues in our discussions at the table: human rights, Darfur, Israel-Palestine peace, immigration reform, the Michael Lerner kitchen sink, etc. etc. (Here's a page of them from the Religious Action Center.)

Part 3 is that I'm reading Annie Leonard's book The Story of Stuff, which is fantastic and which I'll review in a further post, but I started thinking that I'd like to add a Stuff component to the seder. But as I was preparing, the Miriam's Cup (which we've had on the table for years but which we've never done a whole lot with, ritually speaking) seemed like it needed something.

So this is what we did: we focused the Miriam's Cup section, way up at the beginning of the seder, on the bottled water issue. I don't know how much you know about this, but bottled water is really Bad. First, it's a manufactured need, in that most tap water in this country is perfectly fine, and if it isn't that's a motivation for political action to take care of it, not to abandon the system. Second, most bottled water is only filtered tap water anyway. Third, it is resource intensive in that it takes extra water and petroleum products to make the bottles, not to mention the transportation to get it where it's going. And fourth, it's more expensive than gasoline, not to mention the disposal of the bottles, which are mostly (80%) landfilled.

Access to clean sources of water is becoming a worldwide human rights issue, if it isn't already, and some say that water will be the oil of the 21st century, with wars being fought over it, and populations moving due to its absence.

The Rambam has a quote which I use quite often, to the effect that God gave us - for free and in abundance - what we need to live: air, water, etc. But if we go after things that we don't need, it makes the things we do need more expensive and less accessible. Here, I'll prove it:

[W]hen one endeavors to seek what is unnecessary, it becomes difficult to find even what is necessary. ...the more a thing is necessary for a living being, the more often it may be found and the cheaper it is. On the other hand, the less necessary it is, the less often it is found and it is very expensive. ... [The Guide III:12]

Bottled water, being unnecessary, is more expensive, and its pursuit makes tap water, which is necessary, more difficult to obtain.

More information and action items on this issue can be found at the Corporate Accountability International website, which includes a link to another great Annie Leonard video piece called the "Story of Bottled Water."

The takeaway message, in case you couldn't get it, is "Don't buy bottled water!"

Miriam is associated with the availability of fresh, sustaining water to a migrating population in a desert environment. It is exactly that kind of population which has the most difficulty getting access to clean drinking water, in large part due to the actions that we in the west take. May Miriam's Cup be a reminder to us that, as is so often the case, the simplest answer is best - for us, for those who travel this planet together with us, and for the planet itself.

Dayenu

One of the centerpieces of the Passover seder is the singing of Dayenu. I think most everyone knows a little of this, even if not the whole thing. The word "Dayenu" translates as "it would have been enough," and the message of the song fits very well with a simplicity lifestyle. "Each of these good things would have been enough to earn our thanks."

If God had taken out of Egypt and not divided us into tribes, dayenu...
If God had fed us manna but not given us the Shabbat, dayenu...
If God had taken us to Sinai and not given us the Torah, dayenu
If God had given us the Torah and not allowed us to enter into the Land of Israel, dayenu... etc.

This has sometimes striked me as rather forced. Would it really have been enough to take us out of Egypt if the sea didn't split? Even Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berdichev asked what would have been the purpose of bringing us to Sinai and not have given us the Torah.

I found a good insight into this in the Hagaddah for Jews and Buddhists, which I looked over in preparation for the seder this year.

You have to know the difference between more and enough (dayenu). We always want more... more freedoms, more love, more money, more... more... more...

What we have is sufficient. If there is more, it is a blessing and the Creator deserves thanks.

The message of dayenu is that life is not a path to a predetermined end, and the goodness of life is not dependent on where one ends up, either in accomplishment, prosperity, or spiritual achievement. Each step is important in and of itself. The ability to feel gratitude at each and every step on the path is itself a spiritual approach, as well as a necessary precondition of the next step, as well as a defense against believing that the next achievement or acquisition, or the ultimate accomplishment or achievement (whatever we may imagine them to be), are necessary for our lives and our paths to have value. In other words, feeling blessed in the present blessing is not dependent on what comes next.

In my case, if I had been given the opportunity to go to graduate school, and not been given the opportunity to work in the field, dayenu. If I had been able to work in the field but not been able to have a decent standard of living, dayenu. If I had a decent standard of living but not been able to pay down debt or save for college or retirement...

Well, actually, I haven't done those last things yet. And none of the things I've been able to do have been done without difficulty. But it's okay. I'm grateful for what I have been able to do, and for what I have today. When I look at my family, my reasonably happy wife and kids, the community I have the opportunity to serve, it really does feel like enough. It feels like dayenu. And that truly is a blessing.

Another Frugal Passover Hack

Here's one that was pointed out (which is not to say "insisted upon") by DW just today: if you're about to open a jar or package of something that can be eaten on Passover - don't! Why open something you're only going to have to get rid of in 2 weeks when you can hold on to it and have it for Pesah and after?

Because we don't buy things with HFCS, the jelly that I was about to open can be saved for the holiday. If I were to open it, I'd have to throw it away in two weeks and buy another one.

Simple Pesah Hacks

I posted a request on my Facebook page for suggestions for how to keep Pesah from breaking the bank. Here's what my friends came up with.

Thomas T:

As an outsider who comes from a tradition where the spirit of the rule is as (if not more) important than the letter, I've always been curious about the rule-skirting, lousy tasting, very expensive things like pesadich noodles, cookies, etc. Especially among those ... who only observe the dietary restrictions during seder meals. ... [I]t seems like the raw ingredients of pesadich foods, especially for those whose practice permits kitniyot, are pretty cheap in and of themselves. Plus, you can't eat out at all, which for some families, would make a big difference right there.

Sallie W.:

Don't buy the horrible breakfast cereal -- it is truly bad. Stick with matzah brei or, if in a hurry, a boiled egg and matzah (with butter, of course).

If you're a single person, buy the 5 pound matzah package on sale and split it with friends.

Judy G.:

1) I know a lot of people who throw out all their open condiments etc every year at Pesach, which is a very expensive way to manage one's pantry. Condiments shouldn't be kept forever but even if you don't use them on Passover, you can segregate them and use them afterwards.

2)The extent of the kosher l'Pesach foods available are amazing and ... See questionable--does your milk for that week really need a special Passover hechsher? [MR: answer: no]

3) Do you need all those special Pesach treats? I buy matzah, matzah meal and matzah cake meal and that's it. (Actually, I also buy one box of those awful jelly fruit slices because my husband insists on them and has convinced my kids they are essential.) But the point is--do you need all that special Passover stuff or can you just eat a low carb diet for the week?

If you observe the prohibition on kitniyot, you would want to add potato starch to Judy's list.

Daniel B:

Glass dishes can be kashered. KfP pasta is a waste of money. Don't buy KfP cereal, make Matzo granola.

Most processed foods are a rip off, but especially Pesah foods, which are usually very unsatisfying substitutes for whatever they're supposed to be imitating.

Preparing for Pesah: Eat yourself out of house and home!

Speaking of eating out of the cabinets, my first tip for keeping Passover from breaking the bank actually starts about 3-4 weeks out, which would be now: Don't do a full food shopping, buying a bunch of stuff that you don't need for the next few weeks. Buying a lot of boxes of cold cereal, or pasta or flour products or anything else that you're just going to have to put away or throw away in a couple of weeks just doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

Rather, this is exactly the time to do what I mentioned in the earlier post: eat up what you have in the cabinets. The more you use, the less you'll have to deal with at cleaning time. Remember, throwing away food is a shonda (as well as the antithesis of frugality), so this is exactly the time to figure out what's in all those tupperwares in the freezer, dig around in the back of the cabinets, and eat the natureburger mix you've been "saving" (read: avoiding). (Are you sensing a theme here?)

To get ready for a simple Pesah, the first thing to do, before the holiday even starts, is to eat yourself out of house and home!

Getting through on fumes

I'm not exactly sure how this happened, but we didn't stockpile enough food for the week. We have a good amount of Pesah matzo-meal rolls that DW makes every year, and a couple of boxes of matzo left. (I'm very big on cream cheese and jelly on matzo, it almost makes Pesah for me.) But we are out of cottage cheese, out of eggs, out of most veggies. I froze the leftover brisket because I was sick of eating it. We were long on potatoes, and I had an extra leek, so the other night I made potato and leek soup, and then tonight I made a potato fritter with a slice of hard boiled egg inside that I found in the Jewish Festival cookbook that we've been using this year. But I had to borrow an egg from a neighbor to make it, and now we're out of potatoes.

Because Pesah is so darn expensive we're basically out of money for 10 days, until I get paid next week. I had $15 in my wallet and DW had a $20, and we're basically buying as little as we possibly can to sneak through and avoid any further debting. But, you know, we've got to eat. I think I'm going to buy some ricotta cheese tomorrow and make some sort of cheese pie for Shabbat. I think we have some beets in the fridge. (This is the one cicumstance under which I will eat them without complaint.) Usually we spend another $200 on replenishing the kitchen right after the holiday to go with the $400 we spend on getting the kitchen ready for the holiday but this year we won't be able to do that - until Wednesday at least. Or maybe I should listen to my own advice and make beans and rice for Shabbat. I know I'll be eating them most of next week!

Pesah report - disposables

Because we keep Pesah enough to switch out our dishes, and because we don't have china or enough money to invest in a very good second set of kitchenware for a 7-day holiday, every year we are faced with the dilemma of whether to buy plastic or paper goods to get through the holiday or whether to spend the money (and the effort) to buy something more substantial and longlasting and green.

We have leftover ceramic plates from a previous set that we use for milk, but our seders are usually meat, and for those we have fairly durable plastic bowls and plates that we've been using for a couple of years. Not the highest quality place settings in the world, but it works okay.

We realized in preparation for the holiday this year that we didn't have hot drink cups or salad plates. My family, which was with us this year, also has a custom of serving eggs in salt water as an appetizer before the meal; this is not DW's custom and she has been trying to get us to stop it for years, but it's a custom that seems to be held pretty dear. This necessitated another bowl, so we would either have had to wash out the soup bowls in between courses or buy some more bowls.

My parents came home from the shopping excursion with plastic salad plates and styrofoam bowls and hot cups. Styrofoam was more than DW could stand so I was sent back to the Dillons to look for something else. I don't know if there's really any appreciable difference in greenitude between styrofoam and any other kind of disposable kitchenware but in any case there weren't any disposable hot cups that weren't styrofoam so I ended up buying 8 glass coffee cups (usable with both milk and meat). After another effort by DW to get the eggs served on a plate with the fish, we kept the styrofoam bowls and plastic salad plates. (This latter we'll reuse all week at least.)

The glasses cost $2 each, and that's our investment in Pesah kitchenware for this year. Next year perhaps we'll buy some more ceramics to replace the plastic we've been using. At least some more bowls. And anyway, if we're with DW's family next year, they don't serve eggs that way so they don't need 2 bowls.

Everybody needs a little liberating...

One way to make the seder more personally meaningful and spiritual is to think of some of the ways that we are stuck in our lives and could use some personal liberation. Here are some suggestions of places where you or I might need a good Exodus:

Debt - the result of past bad decisions. There have been few areas in my life where I have felt more trapped than when I have allowed my debt to accumulate - and this period is one of them. This isn't something where (most times) we're going to get led out of Egypt all at once. Liberation is a long, slow process. But the first step in leaving Egypt is deciding to do it!

Money / success - A key element of deciding to live a simpler life is realizing that "having it all" isn't worth the paper it's written on. If we could learn to define success less about our possessions and more about our contribution to community, our ethics, our spiritual progress, etc., then we would probably be happier as well as more in tune with our families and the earth.

Possessions - similar to the previous point. We are not what we own.

Financial worry - Things may look bad, and may in fact be bad. But - assuming that better decisions are being made, and the proper steps are being taken - lying awake at night worrying about it is not going to improve the situation. Do the right thing, and for the rest - trust in God.

At my seder sometimes I write out on slips of paper the above points and others, such as "Myself", "family of origin," "expectations" etc, and put the slips of paper under my guests' plates. Then when we get to the "We were slaves in Egypt" part we reveal the slips of paper and reflect on the impact of the matter on our lives. If you're feeling brave, share with the person next to you. Sometimes it doesn't apply (a childless person getting "children" for example) but you'd be surprised how many times it's right on point.

Free the Kitniyot!

On Pesah, Jews who observe these things refrain from eating any products made from grains: wheat, barley, oats, and the like. The Ashkenazi world has an additional level of prohibitions against what is called "kitniyot", which are beans, pulses, rice, corn, and the like. Supposedly these could be confused with grains, or get mixed up with grains, or something. (No one is quite sure where or why it came about.) Although kitniyot are not prohibited in the Sephardi world, are not prohibited even within the Ashkenazi world with nearly the same level of stringency as grains, and some authorities have even called it a "stupid custom," it persists in the Ashkenazic world due to a halakhic version of inertia - since it has always been perohibited, it is still prohibited. (A good explanation of the kitniyot issue can be found on Wikipedia.)

When we lived in Israel (95-99) we were aware that the Conservative movement there had published a teshuva (halakhic interpretation) that it was no longer necessary to observe the restrictions on kitniyot, basically because, due to the much larger Sephardi population in Israel, observing it would restrict the ability of Israeli Jews to eat together on the holiday, and since there was no real, compelling reason for it better the Ashkenazi should compromise (for a change).

Being rather a mild type I kind of went half-way with this. For the past several years my custom has been not to rice or beans in their original state, but also not to go crazy getting rid of everything (or buying new, pessadik versions of everything) that has corn in it. A couple of years we happened to buy some matzo that wasn't kosher for passover because it had a kind of oil in it that was kitniyot. And we ate it. I also don't use kitniyot products at the actual seder, more because I usually am hosting people who care about it more than I do.

The reason I'm talking about this on a simplicity blog is because one of the easier and more available ways we can make it through Pesah healthily and frugally, without having to eat meat or cream cheese and jelly sandwiches for a week would be to ignore, or begin the process of moving beyond, the prohibition on kitniyot. I remind you that there for no more compelling reason for this prohibition than that it has always been there. I think it's obvious that, just like during the rest of the year, the judicious use of beans and corn can make the food budget go a longer. And then there's the issue of having to replace a lot of stuff that is only prohibited because it has corn in it.

I'm always hesitant to come across as advocating a less stringent level of observance, because I'm afraid someone is going to say, He said kitniyot wasn't important, so I'm going to eat bread. That's not what I'm advocating, obviously. But if your level of observance is stringent but you are open to halakhic change, you might look at the reasons behind the prohibition against kitniyot, weighs the pros and cons, and maybe you'll might decide that this is a custom better left behind. And if you're a person who observes the prohibition against kitniyot more stringently than kashrut itself, then I would say, better to do the more important mitzvah than to observe something that isn't even a mitzvah.

And altogether I would say, for health, financial, ideological, and peoplehood reasons, the prohibition on kitniyot is something better left behind.

Frugal Pesah: Contradiction in terms?

High on the list of hard things to deal with when it comes to Jewish Simplicity has got to be Pesah. (Right after bar/bat mitzvahs, synagogue dues, Jewish fundraising, kosher food, day schools, etc etc.) First of all, you have to throw out all your food, or at least all your grain-based foods. This actually isn't so hard if you plan for it, meaning cutting down on your buying of pasta, cereal, etc. a month or so out so you don't have a lot of stuff to get rid of. If you observe strictly, you need a whole 'nother set of dishes, pots, pans, etc. for the 7 or 8 days of the holiday. But again, this is a one-time expense - as long as you stay away from doing all disposables, which you definitely should!

But then there's the scam that is Pesah food - apparently there is such a thing as a Pesah surcharge, when the same matzo meal that costs X amount in November (were you ever to buy it then) costs X + A LOT when you try to buy it in April. (I should put real numbers in there, but I'd have to do some research and I'd need to stand up to do it.) The House of Representatives had the gas industry over the coals the other day for the windfall profits; they should really get the Pesah food industry up there! Talk about windfall profits and gouging the consumer!

Then there's the incredible cost of doing a seder. We have, let's see, there's 5 of us (but 2 of my kids basically don't eat), my parents, my brother and his family, that's 11 already. We have another older couple coming, and possibly 2 Israeli students in town for a competition, that makes 15. If my cousin comes for the first night that's 4 more. The second night we'll lose the cousin, the Israelis and the other older couple but probably add a friend of DW's who's the parent of the peer of one of my kids, that's 5+4+2+4 = 15. So for those of you scoring at home, that's 34 people over 2 nights.

I went to KC and bought 7 pounds of brisket and 2 kosher chickens. It's probably not enough buy DW doesn't eat meat and like I said, the kids are picky. But the red meat alone was $100. (I told you, kosher is expensive.) I have to say in my own defense that this is quite literally the only time we serve red meat to guests the whole year.

So my plan is to make the meat the first night, make as much soup as I can from one of the chickens, and serve the boiled chicken along with the red meat on the first night, then the leftover meat and roast the other chicken for the second night. We may have to scrimp on the brand of gefilte fish we use.

I bought a 5-pack of matzo, some matzo meal and some potato starch. I'll probably need some kind of instant stock. But I think basically everything else we're going to make will be from fresh ingredients - soup, roasted vegetables, haroset - I'm not sure about dessert, that's DW's department.

So understanding that "saving money" is really not in the plan for Passover, the most importnat piece of advice I could give is don't buy too much prepared food. Take it from me, the Pesah version of cheerios will not fill you up. And do you really need a whole bottle of Pesah ketchup for an 8-day holiday? The more you prepare from scratch (fresh food doesn't need a special kosher certification) the healthier and more frugal it will be.

The other possibility is to have your guests contribute something to the meal - the wine, the flowers, if you're sporting the food it doesn't seem too much to take people up on the question "what can I bring?" (Note: if you are the guest, ask this question!) If kashrut is an issue you probably won't want to do the potluck seder, but if it isn't then why not?

I'm going to give this some more thought. I'll probably have more to add to this in the next few days. In the meantime, can anyone think of anything to add?

Pessah

Betsy put up a good post (a redundancy, when it comes to BPT) on what to do with the extra food when you clean your house for Passover. I actually feel more sympathetic to option 1 - giving the food away. Even if the shelter won't take it, certainly a frugal neighbor wouldn't be averse to a half-empty box of macaroni? It certainly seems more honest and worthwhile than feigning "selling" it to her.