Nephew Gil and the Mystery of the Missing Challah
Posted by Esther D. Kustanowitz on February 26, 2010 | Tags:
When my nephew Gil was 3, the first night of Passover fell on a Saturday night. This meant that the house had to be free of all leavened bread before we lit Shabbat candles on Friday night, even though it was - technically - not yet Passover. If you think this is complicated for adults, you should try explaining it to a 3-year-old.
"Is this Shabbat?" He asked. Yes, we told him. Friday night would be Shabbat, and then Pesach would start Saturday night - then we'd have the seders and he would sing the Mah Nishtanah, the Four Questions, as he'd been preparing to do. Friday night = Shabbat. Saturday and Sunday night = Pesach. We thought it was clear.
Come Friday night, there were candles, over which we said blessings. Then the family gathered around the table, and there was kiddush, the prayer said over the wine. We washed our hands before saying Hamotzi, and pulled back the "challah cover" to reveal...two flat boards of egg matzah, the not-really-bread, not-really-matzah product that's considered OK by some people for this specific calendar situation.
My nephew looked puzzled, and before we could even utter "Hamotzi," he asked "Why is that not challah?"
Why indeed, is that not challah?
We all laughed, because that's exactly what we wanted to know - missing the chewy, delicious bread that's worth going off Atkins or South Beach for. But on a deeper level, that's what we're all supposed to be doing throughout the seder - noting the differences, the things that aren't quite the way they usually are, remarking about them, and pondering their significance.
Sometimes it's something as stark as finding something you didn't expect under what is traditionally a challah cover, and sometimes the difference is subtle - we still say "Hamotzi" over matzah, but add another blessing special for matzah. So it's all the same, even as it's markedly different. It's the same lesson you might learn looking around the seder table at members of your own family: the genetic connection is there, and we remember just by looking at our relatives that we have a context, a heritage and a legacy.
|
Esther D. KustanowitzJoined: February 3, 2008 Esther D. Kustanowitz is a writer, editor and social media consultant based in Los Angeles. She has many Dvar Torah writers in her family, and she can't wait to read contributions from Divrei Torah: The Next Generation (two nephews and a niece). Divrei Torah (3) |
