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Last night, Shosh and I were cleaning out our fridge in preparation for Passover. We composted shriveled carrots, yellowed kale leaves and some moldy anchovies. We wiped down sticky shelves and tossed old condiments. Towards the top of the fridge door Shosh found my secret stash, aka ice box apothecary. A shelf dedicated to homemade bitters, including cough cordial, fire cider and a roots and shoots tonic. I rinsed the bottles and returned them to their shelf, not wanting to waste a drop.
Bitter herbs have been known to get a bad wrap. Of the many tastes, most people prefer things sweet or savory, if not spicy and salty. Few people fall in love with bitter. But I have known the healing power of bitter herbs. Dandelion root and burdock to cleanse the liver. Horseradish with cider vinegar and honey to clear a relentless cough. I have a soft spot in my heart (and even a tattoo) for bitter herbs. According to Jewish time, yesterday was the 10th of Nisan. This is an auspicious date in Jewish time, a date marked by many miracles. According to the Babylonian Talmud, it was the date of the original Shabbat HaGadol. The Israelites were believed to have left Mitzrayim on a Thursday, which would have been the 15th of Nisan. Therefore, that last Shabbat before their flight to freedom, known as Shabbat HaGadol/The Great Shabbat, would have been 5 days prior on the 10th of Nisan. Why then don’t we celebrate the anniversary of Shabbat HaGadol with its own festival on the 10th of Nisan? Because some 39 years after the Exodus, it was miraculously also the day that Miriam the prophet died. In reverence for her yahrzeit, the rabbis established that Shabbat HaGadol would be celebrated on the Shabbat immediately preceding Passover, regardless of the date. Miriam was one of the 7 prophetesses in Tanakh. She is counted among Sarah, Deborah, Hannah, Abigail, Huldah and Esther (B.T. Megillah 14a). She was the elder sister of Aaron and Moses. Among her many merits, she is credited with having saved Moses’ life, led the Israelites in song and dance as they crossed the sea, and drawn forth a well of water for 39 years in the desert. Every year I look forward to the moment at our seder when we fill a glass of water for the Prophet Miriam and sing her song. I am proud to have danced at the original women’s seders with Debbie Friedman herself, z”l. That said, this year, I am realizing that maybe Miriam was always present at the seder, albeit not explicitly. Miriam’s name actually means bitter, from the same root as maror. What medicinal wisdom might be held in her roots? There is no question that Passover this year, and perhaps every year, is bitter/sweet. It is dreadful and devastating to sing of freedom with Gaza and Ukraine under siege. And yet we are called to find a way to see ourselves as if we are personally leaving a narrow place. The Passover story is at once a very political story, and a very personal one. Both are important. Hope is important. It occurs to me this year that perhaps more than the 4 cups of wine, or even the story itself, it is the bitter herbs that are essential. As we journey into Shabbat HaGadol and Passover seder(s), I offer you the prophetic words of the Puertorriquena poet Aurora Levins Morales, in her reflection on Bitters. “Eat bitterness. Eat bitterness and speak bitterness and share bitter herbs upon your bread, for in bitterness we empty ourselves of poison. Bitterness cools the boiling blood, dries the festering wound, tightens, reduces, expels, rejects, empties the toxic wastes that cruelty deposits on our souls. Here are stories to be taken with horseradish on dry, unleavened bread; with gentian root, six drops of tincture in a glass of water, a dash of angostura in your orange juice; a tea of goldenseal and sage. Without bitters you will sicken. Your liver will ache. You will not digest what is true. So take these stories as bitters, as tonics for the centuries of lies. Let your own pain dissolve into the larger streams of the world. Find comfort with these women, those who lived, those who died. The poison they took in, that made them retch and burn with fever, is the same poison you live with every day. But if you eat bitters, drink bitters, speak your bitter truth, your liver will unclench, your tongue come alive, your fever, the fever of the wronged, will break into luminous sweat. Come clean. Come home. Be healed.” And in the words of Cathy Cohen's newest poem "This Fragile Moment: Breaking the Middle Matzah", “Each of us must emerge from this year, this story and bring to the table our pieces to share what’s luminous among us.” To fully prepare and observe Passover, we can’t just clean our fridges. We need to clean ourselves from the inside out. So consider grating your own horseradish. Indulge in arugula and romaine lettuce. Put a brave portion of maror on your korach sandwich. Tell your story, speak your bitter truth, share what’s luminous among us. f you have ever sat in the shade of an old olive tree, you know its like being embraced by an elder or even an ancestor. Ancient olive trees are known for their twisted, gnarly trunks and silvery leaves. The first time I encountered olive trees that were hundreds of years old was in the West Bank of Palestine. I placed my hand on the tree’s limb and was instantly transported into the arms of my nana, who used to gently scratch my forearms with her knobby fingers, joints gnarled from years of arthritis, skin paper thin.
It says in the Torah that when you go to war (why must we go to war?!), you are not to cut down the fruit trees. Consider them like human beings, consider them civilians, says Torah. I thought of this verse earlier this week when I read that 48% of all of the trees in Gaza have been destroyed, most of them fruit trees, many of them ancestral. It will take generations for the earth to regenerate. This week marks six months since October 7. Six months of kaddish for the 1200 Israelis who were murdered. Six months of relentless siege displacing 2 million civilians in Gaza, killing more than 32,000, and starving the rest of them. I do not know the words to describe the horror of this genocide. This week also marks the beginning of the month of Nisan and the coming of Spring. There is a special blessing that can only be recited under the moon of Nisan called Birkat Ilanot, the blessing of the trees. It is specifically designated that we should bless the flowering of fruit trees in Nisan: Blessed are You, Source of all Life, whose world lacks nothing and who made wondrous creations and beautiful trees for human beings to enjoy. With the cherry blossoms popping off and their flowers frosting the sidewalk, I feel called to gratitude, wonder and delight. And also to disgust and disgrace and despair. What is the blessing for a felled fruit tree? What is the blessing for fertile ground turned to “sand, shit and decomposing flesh”? Every year at this time, at the same time as I seek out trees to bless, I return to words of Ada Limón, in her poem, Instructions on not giving up, “More than the fuchsia funnels breaking out of the crabapple tree, more than the neighbor’s almost obscene display of cherry limbs shoving their cotton candy-colored blossoms to the slate sky of Spring rains, it’s the greening of the trees that really gets to me. When all the shock of white and taffy, the world’s baubles and trinkets, leave the pavement strewn with the confetti of aftermath, the leaves come. Patient, plodding, a green skin growing over whatever winter did to us, a return to the strange idea of continuous living despite the mess of us, the hurt, the empty. Fine then, I’ll take it, the tree seems to say, a new slick leaf unfurling like a fist to an open palm, I’ll take it all.” This year I need these words more than ever. Despite the mess of us, we must find courage and endurance in the slick leaves unfurling all around us, green skin growing over what this winter has done to us, and to mother earth herself. Join me, let the greening of the trees really get to you. Find the strength to bless this brutal, beautiful world. Today and everyday. I am a lover of the moon. I got married on Rosh Hodesh Tammuz. My first child was born and named for Rosh Hodesh Iyyar. We try to celebrate the new moon every month. To the embarrassment of my family, I have been known to shout “Shalom Aleichem” at the waxing crescent. We even have the phases of the moon on our shower curtain and posted on our refrigerator.
So you can imagine my excitement that this coming Monday a total solar eclipse will trace a path across 13 U.S. states, known as the path of totality. I have been delighted by the many people I have spoken with this week who have mentioned their plans to travel to see the eclipse in the path of totality. One of my favorite things about Jewish time is that it uniquely follows both the sun and the moon. This is in contrast to the Muslim calendar which is entirely lunar and the Gregorian calendar which is entirely solar. The holidays roam the days of the week but are set in their season. While it leads to many scheduling inconveniences, it also creates a kind of spiritual tetris in time that I love to play. One might think that a total solar eclipse would be the ultimate celebration of Jewish time, given our connection to both great luminaries created on the fourth day in Genesis. Imagine my surprise when one excited/concerned congregant texted me, “Why don’t we get to say a blessing over the eclipse?” I must be honest, this was news to me. Which led me to do some research. Apparently solar eclipses are as old as time and are referenced throughout Tanakh. Earlier this week, Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg noted that “There was an eclipse known as the Bur-Sagale eclipse (well-documented in Assyrian records) that likely took place on June 15th, 763 BCE– and a partial eclipse occurred over the relevant patch of land 60 years later, on March 5, in 702 BCE. The first one is most likely responsible for Amos' writing. Either or both could be the cause of the reference in the Book of Joshua.” Eclipses are actually a natural phenomenon that illustrate a deeper spiritual power struggle. One midrash that imagines back to the fourth day of creation when the Holy One created these two great luminaries. “They were equal as regards their height, qualities, and illuminating powers, as it is said, "And God made the two great lights" (Gen. i. 16). Rivalry ensued between them, one said to the other, I am bigger than you are. The other rejoined, I am bigger than you are.” Avinu Malkeinu, our ancient parent, steps in to resolve this celestial sibling rivalry, explaining that one will govern the day and the other night. Except for occasions when one eclipses the other. About which there is great spiritual ambivalence which is best illustrated by a teaching in the Talmud: In masechet Sukkah, “The Sages taught: When the sun is eclipsed it is a bad omen for the entire world.” It is this ancient teaching that leads the rabbis to decide that one does not say a blessing over eclipses. I can imagine their feudal fears. I wonder if they thought perhaps the light might never return, like the first human thought during the first winter. Which brings me back to my text message and the question of blessing the eclipse. Given that now we do know that eclipses are actually amazing moments when we see clearly the relationship between the sun and the moon, I would personally be inclined to bless it along with the other great miracles of nature, Oseh ma’aseh v’reishit. It is hard to overstate the spiritual significance of this shabbat for our community and for the natural world. It is Shabbat HaChodesh - the Moon’s Shabbat! Which is the special name for the blessed shabbat that precedes the new moon of Nisan. It calls us to spring and renewal, to possibility and liberation. According to the Torah, this is the first new year, a time of beginnings. That Shabbat HaChodesh coincides with the total eclipse of the sun and the first shabbat in our new home is incredible timing. There is a well of blessing opening to us in the universe. May we have the courage to open to the light and the dark, the new and the ancient, and to encounter it with caution and awe. |
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General Questions: (267) 702-6187 or [email protected]
Shabbat Services: 5300 Whitby Ave, Commercial #1, Philadelphia, PA 19143