Serve food for thought at Passover

What I am referring to goes beyond the normal kind of spiritual reflection that people engage in just before a big holy day or even the massive shopping effort that is needed to put together a one-night culinary extravaganza. Getting ready for Passover is like taking one's entire existence and turning it inside out before putting everything back in order. Why is this so?

From the biblical narrative and a subsequent millennium of rabbinical commentaries, we learned that God commanded us to remove every grain and tidbit of yeast or leaven product from our houses for eight consecutive days. We also eat a special kind of unleavened bread called matzah. You can purchase it in most chain grocery stores.

According to the Exodus story, when the Israelites had little time to dally in Egypt, they could not afford to let the bread rise and so they were forced to consume unleavened bread. (History's first fast food!) In a rush to get out of Egypt, the Israelites ate the matzah, and so we do the same today as did our ancient forbearers. You would be amazed how creative Jewish chefs can be with matzah meal and how they incorporate it into our delicacies during the Passover holiday.

We go to the grocery stores to make sure that whatever foods we purchase have no leavening products. Our tradition is trying to teach us that by expunging the leaven from our pantries, we are also casting out the leaven from our hearts.

We use leaven as a metaphor referring to the spiritual burden of enslavement. Everything we are trying to do with the Passover dietary observances as well as the actual Passover Seder meal on the first night aims to elevate the soul of the Jew from slave to free person.

The traditional foods enable us to pretend that we are in Egypt, witnessing all the events ourselves. We sit down on Monday and Tuesday night with family and friends, and focus in particular on the children with songs and stories of the power of deliverance by telling them the story of the Passover Exodus. In a special holy book called the Haggadah (the Narrative) we read portions from the Jewish religious tradition that explain all kinds of ancient and contemporary interpretations of Passover. We sing songs of deliverance and remember other events in Jewish history which triumphed over prejudice.

At the same time we hold out the hope that in the end life tells us that the cup is half full. We look to the Promised Land, today the state of Israel, as the fulfillment of what our people had dreamed of since leaving Egypt. At the end of the seder (order) of the ritual service we say, "Next Year in Jerusalem."

One of the most important underlying themes on Passover is that we must never lose touch with the historic experience of the Exodus. We tell our children that our teachings remind us that we are to never forget that we were slaves in Egypt.

Passover is wonderful because its theme of deliverance and freedom is crucial for today. It is important to remember that so many other peoples have been through genocide, pogroms and wars. They were enslaved to the rule of the self-declared God -- Pharaoh of Egypt.

Many rabbis interpret Passover as a moral and spiritual drama that serves to teach us all about servitude to the vices we have in our personality.

On this level, Passover is about resisting the demand to give in to our weaknesses and embrace a deeper psychological and spiritual dimension toward improving our character.

God's angel passed over the Israelite houses and saved them at the cost of the first born of Egypt. We teach our young how that event and the Sea of Reeds (or the Red Sea episode, as some translations have it) drowning the Egyptian soldiers, did give us reason to celebrate our freedom but not the right to gloat over the deaths of the Egyptian taskmasters and pharaoh's soldiers. Our rabbis taught us to be humble and respectful of all human life even when it is so clearly corrupt.

As I go shopping this year, I pray that all the major grocery stores on Hilton Head Island will have the necessary ingredients for our community to make those eight days of Passover not just the dietary pathway toward the ancient world of the Passover story.

I hope it will raise our spirits to see changes in a world where so many are enslaved to emotions and behaviors that hurt others. This is our time to start with ourselves and work for the freedom that so many who can only dream of it in their lives can one day see as their reality.

Happy Passover.

Rabbi Brad L. Bloom is the rabbi at Congregation Beth Yam on Hilton Head Island. He can be reached at 843-689-2178.