Syd Belzberg, left, founder of Stable Harvest Farm in Langley, and farm manager Kristjan Johannson. (photo by Cynthia Ramsay)
The Jewish Independent visited Syd Belzberg at Stable Harvest Farm in Langley last week, taking a tour of the 65-acre property with Belzberg and farm manager Kristjan Johannson. Much has happened since the JI last visited, in 2021, just a year after the reimagined farm opened.
The land had laid empty for many years, having previously been a horse farm. An organic produce farm for the past four years, its focus is education. (See jewishindependent.ca/hands-on-learning-at-farm.)
About 100 students a day visit from late April to the end of June, then again from the first week of September to the end of October.
“We’ve got it down to a science,” said Johannson. “About an hour-and-a-half a session, two hours. They come in, they get a welcome speech. We have picnic tables up in the main season. We do a 12-station immersive tour, partnered with BC Agriculture in the Classroom [Foundation], so it’s all specific to the curriculum of the province.”
There are elementary and intermediate student groups who do the sessions. Participants receive workbooks and, every six or seven minutes, a cowbell rings and they move to the next station, where another agriculturalist meets them. University students lead the programs.
The farm also runs harvest projects for the kids. “Radishes were a big hit this year,” said Johannson. There were six beds of radishes planted and harvested.
Over the summer, it’s camp, church and other groups that come to the farm, said Belzberg, and they have different reasons for doing so: perhaps to see the bees, or the butterflies. “This summer, we kept the amount of guests down because we are developing and changing so many things,” he said.
The growing process begins indoors. “We’re able to push the season in that way,” said Johannson. “We start all our plants indoors in the nursery tunnel and that way we get a 30- to 60-day head start, and then it allows us, in a short season, to get two crops of most produce.”
Rows of produce are planted alongside rows of flowers, so that the flowers take the brunt of the bug activity. (photo by Cynthia Ramsay)
In addition to the planting beds, there are gardens. Belzberg’s friend David Bogoch, another member of the Jewish community, started the Biblical Garden, as well as a couple of other flower beds, which Bogoch maintains with the Stable Harvest Farm team.
“Rabbis normally spend 20 to 30 minutes in here,” said Belzberg of the Biblical Garden, which features four of the seven plants the Hebrew Bible uses to describe the land of Israel – wheat, barley, figs and grapes. “We can’t grow dates, pomegranates or olives, but we’re working on pomegranates and olives!” said Johannson, referring to a greenhouse that’s under construction.
Johannson also noted that there was a “very happy, healthy ‘Tree of Knowledge,’” an apple tree, but though the “Fujis are looking very good,” the fruit is not quite ready for harvesting.
Vancouver Talmud Torah probably brings the most kids to the farm, said Belzberg. Grade 3 students, for example, may come in and plant vegetables in spring and then they come back in the fall, as Grade 4s, to harvest what they planted.
When students participate in an education tour, they leave with something the farm produces. That might be honey from one of the 30 hives on the farm (1,500 pounds of honey was extracted a few weeks ago by 40 to 50 volunteers) or bee-forage bookmarks with seeds embedded in them.
“You take the bee off [the bookmark] and plant it in the ground and they [still] have our bookmark with all our information on it,” explained Johannson. “Basically, you have a bunch of kids guerrilla gardening, chucking paper and pouring water on it and having plants that turn into bee forage. Then, they also get popcorn from us or they get sunflower seeds, so, if you’ve got a garden at home, you can plant the corn and plant the sunflowers. If you don’t, you can eat the sunflower seeds and pop the corn.”
Johannson and Belzberg have been working together since the retrofit in 2020, when the farm was converted from housing horses to growing produce.
“We do lots of cover crops and set-asides,” said Johannson, standing next to a field (block) that is lying fallow for a year. “That’s how we build fertility here organically. There are three different types of clover … and all this clover fixes nitrogen from the atmosphere in the ground and then all of this down here will be our organic matter for the next season. We’ll do that on rotation. There are five blocks, so this block here was a cover crop last year.”
Farm heritage chickens and Nigerian Dwarf goats, as well as other animals that pass through or unofficially make their home somewhere on the farm, help keep the soil healthy. “They’ll end up eating all this down and then pooping it [around],” explained Johannson.
We drove past some wheat, which is grown especially for Lubavitch BC’s Model Matzah Bakery.
“Originally, we would just supply the wheat and they would do their thing,” said Belzberg. “In the last year, we changed it…. Everything here was planted by the kids in May. They’re coming back Sept. 8 to harvest it. Then we will store it for them and, at Pesach time, they’ll use it … [in] making the matzah with the bakery, so they’ve got the full cycle.”
For the Lubavitch BC program, some of the wheat harvested by the kids in September won’t be put through a thresher, but rather, in the weeks before Pesach, at the Matzah Bakery, the kids will learn how to remove the grain from the chaff by hand. They’ll put the grain in a stone mill and grind it into flour. “For the sake of expedience, we already have the dough ready,” noted Johannson. “And the kids grab it, it goes onto some sheets and then goes into a pizza oven. They are so good, very efficient,” he said of Lubavitch BC. “They’re the same as our [education] project out here, you’re in and out in an hour and 15.”
Stable Harvest Farm has Jewish and non-Jewish community partners. (photo by Cynthia Ramsay)
Stopping at several “tunnels,” in which there are rows of flowers alternating with produce – melons, tomatoes, cucumbers, etc. – Johannson picked some treats for the Jewish Independent while talking about the layout.
The flowers are good for pollinators, but also attract the aphids and other bugs, he said. “We come through when they’re all pest-affected, we bag [the flowers] up and remove the pests out of the game.”
There have been challenges over the years – notably, in 2021, both the heat dome and the atmospheric river – and there have been some less successful crops. Johannson pointed to a field of Phacelia. “It’s still going to flower, but … it was too hot when they went in. A lot of the time, with vegetables, with life, with people, if you don’t have a good start to things, things don’t end up well.” The area will become a different cover crop next year, he said.
And there have been other learning opportunities. “This we called the Coyote Area,” said Belzberg as we passed another part of the property. “But we had to change it about a month ago because we had a group of kids out and they were afraid to come [see it]. Now it’s called Beaver Park.”
Belzberg would like to see even more school groups come to the farm, and he’d like to see multiple events happening at one time. In progress are many significant initiatives, from planting more trees (for birds and shade), to grooming an area of the farm for scavenger hunts and orienteering, to building a nature-based playground, to creating an overnight camping section, to adding a picnic area, and to converting what used to be a riding arena into a place where kids can come and do educational projects when it’s raining.
The education aspect of the farm gives Belzberg the greatest satisfaction and enjoyment, he said. “That’s my passion.”
While all the activities at the farm are at no cost to visiting groups, busing kids out to Langley can be expensive, so the farm takes some of their programs to the schools themselves. Belzberg gave Talmud Torah as an example: a program held at the school can reach 500 kids in one or two days, he said.
As well, Belzberg and his team are trying to get funding for a program that would help schools with the cost of busing. “We’re looking to be able to subsidize some or all of that cost,” he said.
As to what Belzberg gets from all these efforts?
“It’s a work of love,” he said. “It’s coming out here, developing it and seeing it grow and become more beautiful [and], mostly, when you get the kids out here.”
A review released Monday about the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, the sprawling bureaucracy that for decades has played a central role in the lives of Palestinians, said Israel has not provided adequate evidence to demonstrate that UNRWA workers engaged in terrorism.
The review, headed by a former French foreign minister, dismissed Israel’s claims that UNRWA workers in Gaza were engaged in terrorist activities, including the Oct. 7 pogroms. It did, however, recommend several steps to ensure neutrality, transparency and third-party monitoring of UNRWA activities.
Regardless of the specifics in this particular accusation, UNRWA is deeply problematic. Critics contend that its mission is to perpetuate Palestinian statelessness and discontent, rather than ameliorate these problems.
Many Jewish and pro-Israel voices have long pointed to UNRWA, as well as the annual procession of anti-Israel votes at the United Nations General Assembly, among other examples, as “proof” that the United Nations is hopelessly anti-Israel, if not antisemitic.
This may or may not be true. In any event, the answer is to fix the United Nations, not bury it.
Hyperbolic, disproportionate, often ludicrous attacks on Israel at the General Assembly and from countless UN bodies undeniably demonstrate a peculiar obsession with this one (Jewish) country to the detriment of other serious issues. However, this inappropriate and biased approach must not blind us to the irreplaceable value of the organization that was envisioned as a world parliament.
Coincidentally, a new poll of Canadians and Americans indicates massive dissatisfaction with the organization – and rightly so.
The Association for Canadian Studies and the Metropolis Institute engaged the pollster Leger to survey North Americans on their opinions toward the United Nations. The poll was conducted about four months after the Oct. 7 attacks, and indicates that just over one-third of Canadians and just under one-third of Americans trust the UN.
Jack Jedwab, president and chief executive officer of both of the survey’s sponsoring organizations, noted a particular incongruity in the results. While only around one-third of respondents “trust” the United Nations, much higher numbers of people hold a “net positive opinion” of the body. In both countries, a majority – 58% of Canadians and 54% of Americans – view the organization as more positive than negative.
This is encouraging, because it suggests that, while people have issues with the UN in practical terms, we are not ready to give up on the potential of the UN or the ideals upon which it was founded.
There are many reasons to criticize the United Nations, but the clearly biased anti-Israel resolutions and reports that grab headlines obscure a panoply of crucial, often lifesaving programs and services delivered by UN organizations like the World Health Organization, the World Food Program, UNICEF and UNESCO.
To put this in a context that perhaps makes sense on a more localized level, giving up on the UN would be like eliminating the sewer systems, traffic lights and schools in your hometown because you can’t stand the mayor.
If we cannot muster idealism, let’s just be practical. Don’t take it from us, take it from Danny Danon, Israel’s former ambassador to the United Nations. Danon has a long history as a right-wing Israeli politician. In his 2022 book, In the Lion’s Den: Israel and the World, he reflects on his five years as ambassador, from 2015 to 2020.
He arrived, he admits, as a hawk and a hardliner, not expecting to fit into the world of diplomacy. Over his time there, he came to see the value of the UN, despite all the disappointments and wasted resources.
Even in the lion’s den at the head of the sprawling body, the General Assembly, Danon said it is possible for a seemingly unwelcome individual like Israel’s ambassador to “build bridges, forge friendships and create a space for understanding.”
The idea, expressed by some pro-Israel people, that Israel should simply walk away from the world body, would be to cut off our nose to spite our face. Why would we abandon the one small voice we have in that forum, surrendering it to the haranguing of Israel’s enemies without contest?
Likewise, if Canadians feel our government is not representing our values and ideals at the United Nations, we need to take that up with our elected representatives here and ensure that they do so. Throwing up our hands in surrender helps no one.
Is there a problem with UNRWA? Undeniably. Fix it. Is there a problem with the International Court of Justice? Many observers would say so. Fix it. Do numerous United Nations agencies obsess over Israel while millions around the world suffer in obscurity? Undoubtedly. Fix that too.
Is the United Nations perfect? It’s a ridiculous question. Nothing in human activity is perfect. But what is the role of Jews in the world, an obligation we reminded ourselves during our seders this week? Our obligation as Jews and as humans is to strive to make the world better – and, in that context, fixing the UN is central to that objective.
Is there a long way to go in this work? Yes. Are we free to abandon it? No.
Left to right: Joanne Belzberg, Henia Wineberg, Rabbi Yitzchok Wineberg, Arnold Silber, Tammi Kerzner and Syd Belzberg. (photo by Yaletown Photography)
For more than three decades, the Model Matzah Bakery, organized by Chabad Lubavitch in British Columbia, has offered a unique and interactive Passover experience for thousands of participants. What started in the early 1990s has blossomed into an event anticipated by children, high school students, adults and seniors alike.
The hands-on program immerses participants in the ancient tradition of making matzah, a significant element of the Jewish holiday of Passover. From separating wheat kernels to baking the final product, attendees go through each step of the process, gaining a deeper understanding of the cultural, spiritual and historical significance behind this unleavened bread.
One of the highlights of the Model Matzah Bakery is its emphasis on participation. Everyone is invited to roll up their sleeves and get involved in every aspect of the process. We begin by separating wheat kernels from the chaff, a task that connects us with the agricultural roots of this ancient practice. Next, we grind the kernels into flour, followed by meticulous sifting to ensure the purity of the ingredients. As the flour mixes with water, laughter and excitement transform the process into a joyful communal experience. With expert guidance from volunteers, participants roll out the dough, making sure to create holes to prevent leavening. And all of this must be completed within a strict time limit of 18 minutes, after which the dough may begin rising, which will create chametz, leaven, which is not permitted during Passover.
When participants left the Model Matzah Bakery, “they took with them not just matzah, but a sense of belonging and pride in their heritage.” (photos by Yaletown Photography)
This year, the Matzah Bakery got an upgrade as it partnered with Stable Harvest Farms. Not only did participants get to make matzah for Passover using locally grown, organic wheat, Stable Harvest Farms is also offering the chance for children to experience the process from farm to seder table – literally. Two family days will be hosted at the farm, where families will plant and then harvest their own wheat, which they will then use to create matzah for next Passover. Save the dates: May 12, a special Mother’s Day celebration, where the wheat will be planted, and Sept. 8, a pre-Rosh Hashanah experience, including harvesting the wheat and setting aside for Passover 2025/5785.
“Chabad is known for their innovative approach to Jewish education,” said one educator from a local Jewish day school. “This kind of hands-on, start-to-finish project will guarantee that the children remember the joy and excitement of the holiday for years to come.”
While initially designed for children, the Model Matzah Bakery has evolved to welcome participants of all ages. High school students and educators find themselves drawn to the program as an engaging way to learn about Jewish traditions, while adults and seniors appreciate the opportunity to celebrate their cultural heritage. This year, for the first time, children with special needs had their own opportunity to visit the bakery.
“It’s not just about making matzah; it’s about connecting with our heritage in a tangible way,” said Rachel Cohen, a long-time attendee of the Model Matzah Bakery. “The experience of being part of something so ancient yet so relevant to our lives today was truly special.”
Rabbi Dovid Rosenfeld, director of Lubavitch BC, which organizes this project, emphasized the importance of preserving and passing on these traditions to future generations. “Our goal isn’t just to teach about matzah making, but to create lasting memories and connections to our shared history through positive Jewish experiences,” he explained. “When participants left here, they took with them not just matzah, but a sense of belonging and pride in their heritage.”
There are numerous interpretations of Chad Gadya (One Little Goat), which ends the Passover seder. A cumulative song, like “There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly,” it starts with Father buying a goat, which is then eaten by a cat. Because it’s easier to summarize from the end, the last verse is, depending on your translation: then came the Holy One, Blessed be He, and slew the angel of death, who killed the butcher, who slaughtered the ox, that drank the water, that quenched the fire, that burnt the stick, that beat the dog, that bit the cat, that ate the goat. The Hebrew on the table in the cover image is the beginning of the song: Chad gadya, chad gadya, d’zabin Aba bitrei zuzei (that Father bought for two zuzim).
Often sung with different seder participants making the sounds of the succeeding aggressors, Chad Gadya is a cheerful song despite its violent imagery. With the numerous conflicts that mark human history and our present, I imagined the song’s characters, animate and inanimate, sitting down for a seder and what that might look like. This idea forms the centre of the cover scene.
While specifically about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Chava Alberstein’s 1989 version of Chad Gadya has always spoken to me more personally than politically. I have “been” the deer and dove of her song in my more empathetic and hopeful moments; her wolf and leopard in my more angry, fearful and hurt moments. As she sings – I, too, sometimes “don’t know who I am” in this world that can be so incredibly harsh. I, too, have thought, as Alberstein sings, and which I’ve written on the bottom of the cover art in Hebrew: “And we start again from the beginning …” each time one of us attacks another, with words or actions.
But giving up is not an option. So, while the characters of Alberstein’s song lie at the periphery of the seder image I created, 16 other symbols that might appear on a modern seder plate are scattered throughout. They represent what each of us can do to make ourselves better humans and the world a better place. They are not my ideas. I completely lifted all of them from “Beyond Bitter Herbs: Contemporary Additions to the Seder Plate” by Beverley Kort (with Leland Bjerg), which we ran in the Jewish Independent’s Passover issue last year.
Kort explains the meanings behind the fruit, acorns, chocolate, coloured light bulb, key, mirror, potatoes, banana, olives, basil, whole wheat matzah, vegetables, dried flowers, feather, rock and puzzle piece. For all the explanations, visit jewishindependent.ca/the-modern-seder-plate. Highlighting some of them: the acorns at the top of the picture represent an acknowledgement of Indigenous land rights; the rock above the dog’s head is symbolic of resilience; the key by the seder plate is about unlocking doors, embracing change; on the left side, the coloured lightbulb symbolizes the creative spirit; and the feather wafting off to the right is a reminder of the importance of kindness and compassion.
Passover is a story of survival and courage. At the heart of it, over these 2,000 years, our tenacity as a people and our willingness to stand up to those who would do us harm have remained steadfast.
One of the most widely observed Jewish holidays, Passover is a cherished opportunity for families and friends to gather and conduct the seder, a retelling of our ancestors’ story, beginning with a call from Moses to “let my people go” and concluding with the Jewish people’s freedom from slavery in Egypt.
But, this year, hundreds will mourn losses of family and friends murdered on Oct. 7. More than 100 families in Israel will have empty seats around their seder table, as their loved ones remain captive, held by Hamas terrorists in Gaza. And hundreds of thousands, from both the north and south of Israel, will celebrate our ancestors’ return from exodus away from their homes, having been displaced by the violence so heartbreakingly started on Oct. 7.
During the seder, we count the 10 plagues that G-d wrought upon the Egyptians. Today, one is confronted with the modern-day plague of antisemitism and Jew-hatred at levels never seen. The recent surge in online antisemitism continues to gain force, as misinformation, disinformation, lies and age-old conspiracies about Jews and Israel’s past and present capture the attention and play on the credulity of many around the world.
Since Oct. 7, even more online Jew-hatred and anti-Israel vitriol has been spilling onto streets across the world, endangering Jewish lives and, among our most elderly, evoking comparisons to a pre-Second World War Europe they witnessed firsthand and prayed never to see again.
Online hate engenders real-world threats and violence, and Canada is not immune. In some predominantly Jewish communities in Canada, there have been bomb scares in synagogues, bullets fired at Jewish schools, attacks on Jewish businesses and hateful graffiti on Jewish homes.
We have seen a wave of protests rife with violent hate speech – calls for “Free Palestine” or “From the river to the sea” – often strategically located to target Jewish neighbourhoods, schools, community centres and businesses.
On campuses nationwide, Jewish faculty, staff and students have been made to feel unsafe, insecure and even threatened.
These problems are not small. But neither are they new or insurmountable. CIJA’s mission to protect the quality of Jewish life in Canada has never been more meaningful, even crucial. Our team – across Canada and Israel – has been meeting with government officials, providing interviews and information to media, intervening with school boards and university administrations, working with local federations and grassroots Jewish community groups, and planning events and rallies, all to ensure the voice of the Jewish community is heard – to combat antisemitism, safeguard the security of the Jewish community and our institutions, educate Canadians about the important role Israel plays in Jewish life and identity, and advocate on behalf of Israel and for the return of the hostages.
We are working with government to advocate for long-overdue legislation to address online hate, demanding accountability from social media platforms, institutions and organizations. We are asking for – and receiving – grassroots help to participate in action alerts demanding change. We are using – and training community members and allies to use – social media to change the narrative, to educate, counter disinformation and inform.
Over these past months, CIJA has been involved in many battles – some lost, but many won. There have been moments of fatigue, sometimes even tears, and days when the weight of our work felt overwhelming. But we have drawn strength from the resilience of our brothers and sisters in Israel and from the courageous heart of the Jewish communities we serve in Canada.
As we recall the story of Passover at the seder table, let’s take a moment to remember both our ancestors’ journeys and our personal responsibility to ensure that, as it has for countless generations, our historic resolve to fight oppression will sustain us today.
Judy Zelikovitzis vice-president, university and local partner services, at the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs.
“Landscape with Moses and the Burning Bush,” by Domenichino (Italian, 1581-1641), painted sometime between 1610 and 1616. The Maggid, the storytelling portion of the Haggadah, is lengthy, yet it seems to dispense with the story of the Exodus in the barest of details. Where is Moses, or any of the other major characters? If telling the story of the Exodus is our essential task at the seder, it might seem that the Haggadah is more of an impediment than a facilitator. (image from Metropolitan Museum of Art)
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Even if we were all sages, all wise, all learned in Torah, we would be obligated to tell the story of the Exodus. And anyone who tells the story of the Exodus in greater depth is to be praised. Once [five sages] sat together in Bnei Brak and went on telling the story of the Exodus from Egypt the entire night….
Retelling the grand drama of our departure from Egypt, discussing it and probing it, and looking for new ways to relate to it: almost every commentator writing about the seder begins by emphasizing that the central obligation of this night is to tell the story, ideally at great length. Whether through acting or analysis or making connections to our own experience, we look for ways to immerse ourselves in this story. These lines from the beginning of the Maggid section define the seder and drive home the point: there is no such thing as too much story. It is sometimes even a point of pride to announce how late into the night one’s seder lasted.
But the Haggadah, the seder’s ritual script, is strikingly ill-matched to the task of retelling. The Maggid, the storytelling portion of the Haggadah, is lengthy, yet it seems to dispense with the story of the Exodus in the barest of details and go on to other things. Where is Moses, or any of the other major characters? Where are the moments of high drama? If telling the story of the Exodus is our essential task at the seder, it might seem that the Haggadah is more of an impediment than a facilitator.
It might help to remember that the Haggadah is, like many liturgical texts, a composite that cannot be expected to flow in a simple, linear fashion. But I will argue that the main problem is that we are actually misunderstanding what it means to “tell the story” of the Exodus. We see this when we step back to think historically.
The Haggadah first developed around a guiding principle very different from our contemporary expectations, one that closely reflects earlier biblical and rabbinic sources. In short, the original task of the seder was not to tell our story but to tell God’s story; it was not to talk about how we were slaves but rather to appreciate and celebrate the fact that, by the grace of God, we are not and will not be slaves.
In the conceptual world of the Torah, this version of the story is not only the focus of the seder but also the linchpin of Jewish tradition; our entire commitment to serving God is an expression of our gratitude for God’s salvation. The critical task of the seder is to make that salvation personal by conveying to our children that not only our ancestors but we ourselves, in the present, owe our freedom and our very identity as a people to God’s kindness. As long as we are busy looking for a story that was never meant to be there, we risk overlooking this key theme at the heart of the Haggadah.
From haggadah to sipur
Rabbis throughout the medieval and modern periods consistently present the central mitzvah of the seder as lesaper, to retell or to recount the story of the Exodus. The term suggests a detailed narrative, a sense reinforced by the idea that the more we draw out or elaborate on the story the better. Maimonides, in the 12th century, for example, begins his discussion thus:
“It is a positive commandment of the Torah to recount [lesaper] the miracles and wonders wrought for our ancestors in Egypt on the night of the 15th of Nisan.… Whoever recounts at greater length [marbeh lesaper] the events which took place is worthy of praise.” (Hilkhot Hametz U’matzah, Laws of Hametz & Matzah 7:1)
Indeed, recounting the story of the Exodus is the only element other than eating matzah that Maimonides designates as essential.
The chasm between our expectations for seder storytelling and what our text has to offer opens up as soon as the Maggid begins. Right when we are settling in for a story to answer the four questions, the Haggadah offers these two sentences:
“We were slaves [avadim hayinu] to Pharaoh in Egypt, but Adonai our God brought us out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. And, had the Holy One not brought our ancestors out from Egypt, we, our children and our children’s children would still be slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt.”
This very, very short version of the Exodus story, a rephrasing of Deuteronomy 6:21, notes the Israelite enslavement but emphasizes God’s actions, in line with the commandment of lehaggid … for us – and our children, in particular – to celebrate Passover because God saved us from slavery.
Let’s put this in the context of the Mishnah’s guidelines for teaching children about the Exodus at the seder. The four questions we find in the Haggadah draw from Mishnah Pesachim 10:4, which provides detailed questions that the child may (or perhaps must) ask about the seder ritual. But for the parent’s response, the Mishnah provides only the following guidelines:
“According to the son’s knowledge, his father teaches him.
“He begins with genut [disgrace] and concludes with shevach [glory/praise].
“And he interprets [doresh] the passage: ‘My father was a wandering Aramean,’ until he concludes the entire section.”
The first line tells us that the response should be variable, tailored to the understanding of the particular child. The second sets the story’s basic framework: it should have a starting point, an end point and a narrative arc, leaving the rest to be filled in. The third line of the Mishnah identifies a passage from Deuteronomy 26 that briefly recapitulates the events of the Exodus and instructs us to interpret or study it closely in the manner of rabbinic midrash. Each of these is indeed a key part of the Maggid: the tradition of the four children expands on the idea of teaching each child according to her needs; two different proposals for texts that go from genut to shevach are included, “avadim hayinu” and a text from Joshua 24; and the longest section of the Maggid is a phrase-by-phrase interpretation of the passage, “My father was a wandering Aramean.”
“Avadim Hayinu” is intended to fulfil the second guideline. The words at the centre of that guideline, genut and shevach, suggest that the story we tell should trace the Israelites’ journey from disgrace to glory, from oppression to triumph. In Exodus 1-12, which traces the experience of Moses and the Israelites suffering from and then breaking free of Egyptian oppression, is indeed such a story.
But by this measure, the “avadim hayinu” passage in the Haggadah falls woefully short. It has the proper beginning and end, but that’s it. There is no middle and no elaboration to fill in what is missing. This has long been a major source of confusion for commentators. They posit that it is only intended as an opening, that it only indicates the starting point of the story rather than the whole story, or that it is a summary or abstract that precedes a fuller retelling. But these proposals merely highlight the simple fact that this is not the story we were led to expect. And none are at all convincing, since these two sentences clearly read as a self-contained unit, not as an introduction to something more expansive.
Detail from Seder Aravit ve-Haggadah, Corfu, 1877; engraved by A. Heinemann. When the Torah commands that we tell our children about the Exodus, it is referring specifically and exclusively to the wonders that God did on behalf of the Israelites. And the purpose of this commandment is to ensure that the next generation, recalling those acts, keeps an unshakeable faith in God’s love and a devotion to God’s mitzvot. (image from Library of Congress, Hebraic section)
Let’s take a step back and return to the Mishnah and, more specifically, its directive that parents teach their children a story that moves from genut to shevach. Although the word shevach can mean “glory” and, at first glance, seems to mean just that in the Mishnah, it is more typically used to signify “praise,” specifically praise of God. Understanding shevach as praise of God changes our understanding of the story the Mishnah wants us to tell. Rather than a story of Israel’s transformation from degradation to glory, we are to tell a narrative that begins with Israel’s degradation and concludes with a celebration of God’s might and love, as evidenced by the miracles of the Exodus. Looking back at “avadim hayinu” with this expectation, we can see that, indeed, it begins with the Israelites’ slavery and ends by describing the wonders God performed in the course of leading them to freedom. But we can go further, because these two elements are in fact the whole story. Perhaps, then, the directive is not “go from disgrace to glory” but only “mention disgrace and glory.”
In fact, the four times the Torah commands us to tell our children of the Exodus (Exodus 12:27, 13:8 and 14, Deuteronomy 6:21), it follows a similarly simple paradigm: (1) we were oppressed, but (2) we are no longer oppressed, thanks to God’s mighty and wondrous deeds. Degradation and praise are the only necessary points. Unlike later traditions, the goal of this telling is to instill in the children a sense of gratitude to God that will move them to join in the ritual and celebration, for which these two points suffice.
This affirms our sense that “avadim hayinu” was proposed as a complete fulfilment of the Mishnah’s mandate to tell a story that ends in praise of God. The Haggadah makes this clear in the next sentence, when it goes on to specify the moral of the “avadim hayinu” story: “Had the Holy One not brought our ancestors out from Egypt, we, our children and our children’s children would still be slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt.” This claim is implausible, living as we do, generations and centuries later, but it highlights the true purpose of lehaggid. It suggests that, had God not stepped in forcefully to alter their trajectory, the slaves would not have become a nation and the story of Israel would never have truly begun. This phrasing brings the story from the distant past closer to home. Real gratitude comes from the experience of having been personally saved. We need to understand and convey to our children that salvation is not a relic of the distant past, but that our own freedom is directly attributable to God’s wonders in Egypt. This reinforces the idea that the point is to teach about God’s actions, not the Israelites’ experience. Slavery serves only as the backdrop against which we learn to appreciate our freedom.
This message is, in fact, the foundation not only for one festival but for all of Torah: at Sinai, God’s identity as “the one who brought you out of Egypt” becomes the basis for God’s right to impose divine law. This connection is further expressed in the original setting from which “avadim hayinu” was taken, Deuteronomy 6. Here, the parent is commanded to teach about the Exodus in response to a child asking, “What are these rituals, statutes and laws that God commanded you?” This child is asking about the entire system of divine law, not the rituals of Passover, and yet the Exodus is still the answer. The message is the same: we were in need and God saved us with mighty deeds – and, it adds, led us to the Promised Land and gave us the law.
A wandering Aramean
Let’s turn now to the longest section of Maggid, an exegesis of Deuteronomy 26:5-8. This is the passage that begins with “arami oved avi,” “my father was a wandering Aramean,” in line with the third instruction we find in the Mishnah. The exegesis is written as a midrash, explicating phrase by phrase the biblical passage, which reads:
“My father was a wandering Aramean. He went down to Egypt with meagre numbers and sojourned there; but there he became a great and very populous nation. The Egyptians dealt harshly with us and oppressed us; they imposed heavy labour upon us. We cried to Adonai, the God of our ancestors, and Adonai heard our plea and saw our plight, our misery, and our oppression. Adonai freed us from Egypt with a mighty hand, with an outstretched arm and awesome power, and with signs and portents.”
This text does indeed begin at the beginning, with Jacob and family settling in Egypt and then being enslaved by the Egyptians; and it does end at the end, with God striking the Egyptians with “signs and portents.” What is conspicuously absent again is the middle, including everything that we would typically consider the drama of the narrative: the fear and bravery of Moses’s family; Moses’s crisis of identity and flight from Egypt; God giving him his mission at the Burning Bush; and Moses and Aaron’s confrontations with Pharaoh and their own people. Even the plagues, which in Exodus are a prolonged battle of wills and wits, are only briefly noted.
Many commentators, both traditional and modern, have struggled with the question of why this passage is chosen as the text for interpretation instead of a more robust summary from elsewhere in the Bible, or even portions of the original text of Exodus 1-12. Some propose quite implausible theories. Joshua Kulp offers refreshing clarity in the Schechter Haggadah with a simple and practical explanation:
“The passage was chosen because it is the briefest and yet still comprehensive passage in the Torah which tells the story of the descent to Egypt and the redemption. Such a short passage is prime material for midrash, a literary genre which focuses on individual words or phrases and connects them to other portions of the Torah. Exodus 12, or any other part of Exodus, is too long, digressive and not as comprehensive.”
In short, Kulp argues that the rabbis’ goal was to simply present a single, adequate review of the Exodus story for close reading. The limiting factor in the choice of text was that for the rabbis, close reading means midrash, a style of interpretation that works through a biblical text phrase by phrase, and, therefore, requires a fairly concise base text as its focus. These considerations made Deuteronomy 26 the obvious choice for the seder ritual. It would be impossible to read and interpret all of Exodus 1-12 within a single evening, while other summaries in the Bible are even briefer than the “arami oved avi” passage.
Kulp’s proposal is clearer and simpler than the alternatives, but it shares the basic assumption that this text is a less than ideal choice, that we should be telling a more complete version of these events, yet are saddled with one that leaves out key details. The distortions we find in how the story is told, with some elements described in detail and others passed over in silence, are an unavoidable but still unfortunate consequence.
I agree with Kulp’s assessment that other biblical reviews of the events of the Exodus (there are, depending how we count, at least 10 others) share the key features of the Deuteronomy passage. But I would argue that reading it in the context of these other passages actually reveals clearly what the Haggadah is doing and what it is not. It illustrates the distinction between recounting the Exodus as a story of the Israelites’ triumphant escape from slavery, and using it to enumerate praises of God – precisely the difference between lesaper and lehaggid.
These lists come in various forms, from songs of praise to speeches urging Israel to show gratitude, to confessions of Israel’s ingratitude. Psalm 136, known as the “Great Hallel,” is simply a list of God’s wonders across the full range of biblical history. It begins with the creation of the heavens, then describes God striking the Egyptian firstborn, bringing Israel out of Egypt and drowning Pharaoh’s army, followed by God defeating other kings in the desert and, ultimately, bringing Israel into the Promised Land. In Joshua 24, God speaks in the first person to highlight the wonders, including the Exodus, God did specifically on Israel’s behalf; while Psalm 106, a prayer of confession, emphasizes that God did these wonders despite Israel’s ingratitude and frequent rebellions. All of these focus on God’s actions, whether presenting them as evidence of God’s might, God’s kindness or God’s faithfulness.
“Arami oved avi” offers its own nuance on this theme. Originally a prayer of thanks to be said by Israelites bringing the first fruits of the Promised Land to the Temple, it describes in detail Israel’s descent, first to Egypt, then into oppression, and their cry for help. It describes Israel’s disgrace in order to frame God’s intervention as heroic, leading them up out of bondage, out of Egypt and back to the Promised Land, coming to their rescue in their hour of need, deepening the personal sense of appreciation and indebtedness. Even so, it is closely parallel to the other lists of God’s wonders. All of them recall the Exodus from Egypt specifically to present it as the preeminent example of God intervening in history, dramatically and publicly, on Israel’s behalf. The only relevant elements beyond the list of God’s acts are Israel’s need for them or response to them.
I want to emphasize how different this is from the original narrative in the book of Exodus. That text chronicles the human experience of slavery, following both the Israelites and the Egyptians, with a spotlight on Moses, Aaron and Pharaoh. God’s role is marginal until the final scenes. These other texts, by contrast, tell us only what God did, and notes human roles only to highlight God’s role.
The most illuminating example, though, is Psalm 78, which explicitly declares that it is the fulfilment of the mandate in Exodus to “tell your children.” Here are the key lines:
“We will tell the coming generation the praises of God and His might, and the wonders He performed. He established a decree in Jacob, ordained a teaching in Israel, charging our fathers to make them known to their children, that a future generation might know – children yet to be born – and in turn tell their children, that they might put their confidence in God, and not forget God’s great deeds, but observe His commandments.” (Psalms 78:4-7)
The psalmist is quite clear about both exactly what we must tell our children and why. When the Torah commands that we tell our children about the Exodus, it is referring specifically and exclusively to the wonders that God did on behalf of the Israelites in their time of need. And the purpose of this commandment, of repeatedly recalling those wonders, is to ensure that the next generation, recalling those acts, keeps an unshakeable faith in God’s love and a devotion to God’s mitzvot. The alternative, the psalm goes on to say, is also made clear in the Torah: the Israelites repeatedly lost that faith and rebelled during the desert journey, always with disastrous consequences.
And thus the picture comes into view in full clarity. It is true that “arami oved avi,” like the other reprises of the Exodus across the Bible, tells a very different story than Exodus 1-12. But that does not make any of these versions a deficient fulfilment of the Torah’s command, lehaggid. They are in fact fully in line with the lesson the Torah wants us to convey. Psalm 78 is literally the Bible’s prototype for how to properly fulfil it.
This is also the way almost the entire Haggadah approaches this command. It does not tell a tale that progresses from disgrace to praise, but one that includes only these two elements: we were in a place of disgrace and God redeemed us. And the point of this explanation is not the story itself but the lesson it teaches: God came for us in our time of need and did wondrous, astonishing, supernatural things on our behalf to bring us to freedom and make a place for us in the world. What we must do in the present is be thankful for those acts, acknowledging that they were done not just for our ancestors, but for us. Our devotion to God, which we show by performing the Passover ritual, celebrating the festival and observing all of God’s laws, flows directly from that awareness.
This framing opens up a whole new way to read the deeply evocative but enigmatic statement that concludes Maggid: “In every generation we must see ourselves as if we personally left Egypt.” Many explanations of this line take it to mean as if we had personally been enslaved, and this can be a springboard for cultivating empathy for all who are oppressed. But the Haggadah’s focus is not on slavery; it is on coming out of Egypt. Here, too, slavery recedes to the background and the Exodus is what matters. It is the Exodus, the exhilaration of being carried to safety in God’s hands, that always needs to feel like it just happened to us.
This is the real point of the seder ritual, for the Exodus to be happening in what we can call the Eternal Present. Like Moses’s paradoxical claim that all future generations stood/stand at Sinai, the seder is meant to make us feel for a moment that we are there on the banks of the sea, living that ecstatic moment of finally knowing that we are fully and irrevocably free. Look back and you will notice that the crucial claims in the Haggadah are in the present tense. If God hadn’t saved us, we today would still be slaves. In every era, including our own, there is an enemy pursuing us and, true to God’s promise, God saves us from their hand. Our freedom now is thanks to the Exodus; we are kept safe now because of God’s promise; and when we see that, when we really get it, we will be able to see ourselves as if we now are standing on the banks of that sea, that God’s salvation happened to us personally and thus makes a direct claim on each of us. We did not all experience slavery, but we have all been saved from it.
And the ritual prescribes that we respond to that awareness just as we did the first time, with an instinctive and unrestrained outpouring of song. This is the moment of transition in the seder: we go from the story of our disgrace to an intense song of praise filled with the intensity of those who have just escaped oppression. We, in this moment, know that we owe all we have to God’s salvation and, therefore, cannot help but begin pouring out songs of thanks. If we have done Maggid properly, Hallel will simply burst forth. This is where the night reaches its apex, when we are ready to relive the joy of salvation and to sing praise to God with the same intensity and gratitude as the Israelites who sang at the sea.
A time for singing
I have tried to demonstrate that the reason we often find it hard to engage meaningfully with the Haggadah is that the text is focused on a fundamentally different purpose than the one we typically bring to the table. Part of my goal has been to unlock the mystery in this familiar text, so we can see it anew and read it on its own terms; I have also tried to reclaim this earlier mission, which has been largely displaced by sipur. I would not wish to argue that storytelling should be removed, that we hold back from discussing slavery, from remembering Moses, Miriam and Aaron. Sipur enables us to include and engage children of all ages by filling in the missing narrative – playacting Moses’s showdown with Pharaoh, marching around like Israelites in the desert and making the plagues colourful and silly. In this way, our children are engaged and they come to know the story as their own. And the challenge of finding new layers of this story adds richness and creativity to the ritual.
But I also hope I have convinced you that the story is not an end in itself. A ritual’s sole function cannot be limited to retelling a familiar story, even if it is a great story. Even if it is our story. The goal of the seder ritual is for us to notice and to celebrate how far we have come; and to move us to joy, to gratitude and, ultimately, to hallel, to praising God.
So, the seder can be a time for telling wonderful stories or for reflecting on evils yet to be overcome. But don’t worry if you don’t get to the whole story. Don’t fret about its moral ambiguities. There is a time for self-critique, a time for feeling the weight of the world’s burdens. But not on this night. The seder is not the night to relive the suffering of being slaves. It is the night to relive the joy, the elation of that moment when we left slavery behind to embark on a new journey, full of promise and possibility. Looking at the open vistas around us, knowing that we were once slaves, how can we keep from singing?
Joshua Cahan compiled and edited the Yedid Nefesh Bencher and the Yedid Nefesh Haggadah. This article appears in the Spring 2023 issue of Sources: A Journal of Jewish Ideas, an award-winning print and digital journal (sourcesjournal.org) published by the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America (hartman.org.il) that promotes informed conversations and thoughtful disagreement about issues that matter to the Jewish community.
Chef and dietitian Micah Siva’s new cookbook, NOSH: Plant-Forward Recipes Celebrating Modern Jewish Cuisine, proves that plant-forward meals can be bursting with flavour and colour. (photo by Hannah Lozano)
“This is really good,” said my wife, as she tasted the steaming hot Spiced Cauliflower Chraime I had made from the new cookbook NOSH: Plant-Forward Recipes Celebrating Modern Jewish Cuisine (The Collective Book Studio) by chef and dietitian Micah Siva.
“‘Plant forward’ is a way of cooking and eating that emphasizes plant-based foods without limiting one’s diet to being vegetarian or vegan,” writes Siva. “This book is meant for anyone who follows a plant-based diet or is looking to adopt a plant-forward way of eating.”
It’s also for anyone who appreciates delicious food, from what I can tell from the plates I tried. Nonetheless, Siva does offer solid advice for meat-eaters wanting to become more plant-forward. In that regard, she talks about getting enough protein and iron, what can be substituted for eggs, etc.
On the Jewish side, she gives milk and butter substitutions to make a recipe pareve (permissible for observant Jews to eat with milk or meat dishes) and offers sample holiday menus. I found the Shabbat Matrix interesting – the cooking time required (little, more and lots) is on one axis and the effort involved (low and high) is on the other. Siva offers some ideas to think about
depending on the time and effort you can put into the meal. So, you can buy store-bought challah or make your own, make spritzers or just buy a bottle of wine and/or grape juice, for example.
Given that Passover is approaching, I focused on a few of the recipes Siva highlights for the holiday. Her list comprises Turmeric Vegetable Matzo Ball Soup, Vegan “Gefilte” Cakes, the aforementioned Spiced Cauliflower Chraime, Herbed Horseradish Salad, Cast-Iron Potato and Caramelized Onion Kugel, Passover Black and White Cookies and Passover Coconut Macaroons. In addition to the chraime, I made the kugel and the macaroons. For fun, and because I have a huge bag of sumac from another cooking experience, I also made two Olive and Sumac Martinis – though neither my wife nor I are hard-liquor folks, we enjoyed our sips.
The production quality of this cookbook is high. The layouts are beautiful, with lots of colour photos and easy-to-follow instructions, which are supplemented by dietary labels (ex. vegan, gluten-free, Passover-friendly), the time required to get the food or drink on the table and clearly listed ingredients, as well as a brief introduction to each recipe and notes about certain ingredients that may be new to some cooks, or variations that could be used, possible substitutions.
NOSH includes a glossary and I learned a lot perusing it. Amba, for instance, is a “tangy, spicy, pickled mango-based condiment or sauce of Indian-Jewish origin” and toum is a “garlic sauce, similar to aioli, made of garlic, oil, salt, and lemon juice.” Siva gives some hints about measuring, choosing ingredients and shopping efficiently. There is an index at the back of the book, plus conversion charts for liquid and dry measures, and a Fahrenheit-Celsius temperature table. Acknowledgements and a bit about the author round out the publication.
In the few recipes I tried – and Passover-friendly ones at that – the expansive flavour palette on offer was evident.I look forward to making some of the 80+ other recipes in this cookbook, which illustrates the global diversity of Jewish culture. Siva may have grown up in Calgary, but her repertoire travels well beyond, to the Middle East, India, Africa, Europe and elsewhere Jews live or have lived. Her blog, at noshwithmicah.com, is worth checking out.
The cauliflower chraime was packed with spices – all of which I miraculously had in my cupboard! – and I will definitely make this dish again, as it was not only tasty but also easy to put together. According to Siva, it “is typically made with a whitefish poached in a tomato broth” and is often served in Sephardi families instead of gefilte fish during Passover. The recipe suggests serving it with couscous or rice, neither of which observant Ashkenazi Jews can eat during the holiday, so I plated it with mashed potatoes, which are OK for all Jews on Passover, and the two paired well.
It is worth sharing Siva’s note in the cookbook, acknowledging that the recipes “that are ‘Passover Friendly’ will have kitniyot,” even though “Ashkenazi Jews typically prohibit kitniyot, which includes rice, corn, millet, and legumes (beans), as they look too similar to grains. While customarily left out of Passover menus, it is not technically prohibited by the Torah.” So, “[i]f a recipe is listed as suitable for Passover, please use your discretion, and do what feels more comfortable for you and your family.”
In the recipes that follow, all of which I recommend, I don’t include (for space reasons) the informative introductions that appear in the book. I made only one adaptation, choosing not to dip the coconut macaroons into chocolate, my personal preference being to just enjoy the richness of the coconut, brightened by the splash of lime juice and zest.
SPICED CAULIFLOWER CHRAIME (serves 4, on the table in one hour)
The Spiced Cauliflower Chraime from NOSH will be an immediate favourite. (photo by Micah Siva)
2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil 1/2 medium white onion, cut into 1/2-inch pieces 3 garlic cloves, finely chopped 3 tbsp tomato paste 4 tsp smoked paprika 2 tsp ground turmeric 1 tsp ground coriander 1 tsp ground cumin 1 tsp ground ginger 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon 1/2 tsp red chili flakes 1/4 tsp sea salt juice of 1 lemon (about 2 tbsp) 1/2 cup canned diced tomatoes 1 1/4 cups vegetable broth (low-sodium, if preferred) 1/2 cup golden raisins 1 small head cauliflower, cut into 6 wedges (if using a large cauliflower, cut into 8 wedges) 2 tsp date syrup or maple syrup 1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro,for serving Cooked couscous or rice, for serving (I used mashed potatoes)
Heat the olive oil in a deep skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and cook until it begins to soften, 5 to 6 minutes.
Add the garlic, tomato paste, smoked paprika, turmeric, coriander, cumin, ginger, cinnamon, chili flakes, and salt, stir until combined, and cook for 2 to 3 minutes. Pour in the lemon juice, canned tomatoes, broth and raisins and stir to combine.
Place the cauliflower in the pan, cut side down in a single layer. Bring the liquid to a boil, decrease the heat to a simmer, cover and cook until the cauliflower is tender, 15 to 20 minutes.
Drizzle with the date syrup and garnish with the cilantro. serve with cooked couscous or rice.
Note: Store in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 5 days.Reheat in a pan, oven, or microwave until warmed through.
Variations: Substitute chopped dried apricots or figs instead of raisins. Looking for more protein? Add a can of drained and rinsed chickpeas along with the canned tomatoes and/or crumble some feta cheese on top.
CAST-IRON POTATO ANDCARAMELIZED ONION KUGEL (serves 10 to 12, on the table in 2 hours)
Micah Siva’s Cast-Iron Potato and Caramelized Onion Kugel can be a side or a meal. (photo by Micha Siva)
5 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil, divided 2 medium yellow onions, cut into 1/2-inch pieces 1 1/2 tsp salt, divided 2 pounds (3 or 4) russet potatoes 4 large eggs 1/2 tsp black pepper 1/4 cup matzah meal sour cream, coconut yogurt, crème fraîche or labneh, for serving (optional) fresh chives, chopped, for serving
In a 9-inch cast-iron pan, heat 2 tablespoons of the olive oil over medium heat until the oil is hot but not smoking. Add the chopped onions, spreading them evenly over the bottom of the pan. Decrease the heat to medium-low and let cook, undisturbed, for approximately 10 minutes.
Sprinkle the onions with 1/2 teaspoon of the salt and cook, stirring occasionally, until browned and broken down, 30 to 45 minutes. Once golden and caramelized, transfer the onions to a large bowl.
Preheat the oven to 350°F.
Add the remaining 3 tablespoons of olive oil to the cast-iron pan and place it in the oven to heat up while you prepare the potatoes.
Fill a large bowl with ice water.
Using a food processor fitted with the shredding disk, or a box grater on the largest hole, grate the potatoes. The potatoes will oxidize, so be sure to shred right before use.
Add the potatoes to the bowl of ice water. Let sit for 10 minutes to remove excess starch.
Drain the potatoes, transfer them to a clean kitchen towel, and wring out any excess liquid. The more liquid you can remove, the better! Add the potatoes to the bowl with the caramelized onions.
Add the remaining 1 teaspoon of salt, eggs, pepper and matzah meal and stir to combine.
Carefully remove the cast-iron pan from the oven and spread the potato mixture in the pan, pushing it down to compact the potatoes. It should sizzle on contact with the pan. Return the pan to the oven and bake for 1 hour, or until deep golden brown on top.
Serve with sour cream and chopped chives.
Note: Prepare this kugel up to 4 days in advance and store in an airtight container in the fridge.
Variation: Add 1/2 cup chopped parsley to the kugel along with the matzah meal.
Substitution: This recipe uses russet potatoes, but you can use Idaho potatoes instead.
PASSOVER COCONUT MACAROONS (makes 12 [large] macaroons, on the table in 45 minutes, including 10 minutes resting time)
Lime juice and zest make Micah Siva’s Passover Coconut Macaroons special. (photo by Cynthia Ramsay)
2 cups unsweetened shredded coconut 1/2 cup sugar 1/3 cup potato starch 1/2 cup canned full-fat coconut milk 1 tbsp lime juice 1/2 tsp lime zest 1/4 tsp sea salt 6 ounces (about 1 cup) dark chocolate chips 1 tbsp coconut oil
Preheat the oven to 325°F. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper.
In a medium bowl, combine the coconut, sugar, potato starch, coconut milk, lime juice, lime zest and salt until well combined.
Using a cookie scoop or ice cream scoop (large enough to fit approximately 2 tablespoons), scoop up some of the coconut mixture and pack it very firmly into the scoop. Use your fingers or the back of a spoon to press it into the scoop. Gently remove the coconut mound from the scoop and place it onto the prepared sheet pan. Tap the back of the cookie scoop to release it, if needed, and reform the mounds after placing them on the pan. Repeat with the remaining coconut mixture.
Bake for 22 to 25 minutes, or until golden. Let cool on the sheet pan. Once cool, remove them from the pan and place them on a plate. Line the sheet pan with wax paper.
While the macaroons are cooling, combine the chocolate chips and coconut oil in a microwave-safe bowl and microwave in 30-second increments, mixing well between each increment, until smooth.
Once the macaroons are cooled, dip the bottoms into the melted chocolate and place them on the prepared sheet pan. Refrigerate the macaroons until the chocolate is set, about 10 minutes.
Note: Once the chocolate has set, store the macaroons in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days or in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks. Store them in the freezer for up to 3 months.
Variation: Add 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract or 1/4 teaspoon of almond extract to the mixture in place of the lime zest and lime juice. Fold in 2 tablespoons of rainbow sprinkles and dip them into melted white chocolate.
OLIVE AND SUMAC MARTINI (serves 1, on the table in 10 minutes)
An Olive and Sumac Martini is one of the unique drink options in NOSH. (photo by Cynthia Ramsay)
1/2 ounce olive juice, plus more to rim the glass 1/2 tsp sumac, plus more to rim the glass 2 1/2 ounces gin or vodka 1/2 ounce dry vermouth ice 2 or 3 olives, pitted
Pour a little olive juice into a shallow dish. Place some sumac in another shallow dish. Dip the rim of a cocktail glass into the olive juice and then into the sumac. Gently shake off any excess sumac and set aside.
In a cocktail shaker or a jar with a lid, combine the gin, vermouth, 1/2 ounce olive juice and 1/2 teaspoon sumac and fill with ice. Stir or seal and shake until well chilled, 20 to 30 seconds. Strain the liquid into the rimmed cocktail glass and garnish with olives.
Passover is coming. Its themes of freedom from oppression, the Exodus and Jewish identity stories are ready for the telling.
More Jewish people participate in Passover than many other holidays. A 2013 Pew Research study indicated that 70% of Americans who identified as Jewish attended a seder in the year, far more than any other Jewish practice, such as fasting on Yom Kippur, lighting Shabbat candles or attending synagogue services.
This statistic rings true for me, even though it’s a decade after the survey. I’ve hosted or attended many seders over the years where Jewish relatives or acquaintances turn up even if they’ve long since abandoned any other Jewish ritual. Some of these people hesitated to call themselves Jewish, even though they were raised Jewish or weren’t actively something else. How we identify is a complicated topic. It’s one I explore when I write a bio at the end of an article or introduce myself to someone at an event. As you might expect, the description provided by a writer is a shape-shifting event. I don’t advertise my religious identity in some publications. In others, I might mention where I graduated from university or what I write about.
I’ve told stories for a long time. Identifying as a writer came not long after. When the opportunity arose for me to go to the Young Writers’ Workshop at the University of Virginia as a teenager, at 13 or 14 years old, I was thrilled. I grew up in Virginia and Charlottesville wasn’t far away. My parents dropped me off. I stayed at the dorms. Mostly, I had a great experience and enjoyed myself. However, it was also the stage for some antisemitic moments that I haven’t forgotten.
I’d volunteered to set up chairs for a poetry reading, since a charismatic blond, older teen was also on the committee. Soon after arriving, he proceeded to tell antisemitic jokes, one after another. I silently kept setting out chairs as others crowded around, snickering. They snuck looks at me as I worked, ignoring him. That was the last time I chose the same committee as he did.
When this kind of bullying hate happens, oftentimes, the advice includes “Ignore it! His hate says more about him than it does about you.” That was little consolation for me. Despite the friends I made and all the learning experiences I had at that camp, it was also the source of several hate-filled moments. Later, I visited a camp friend at her home. I sat with her in the back of the family car. Her dad (much older than her mother) made languid conversation as he applauded Henry Ford’s union-busting and antisemitism. Then, he stopped to speak to “the boy” (a middle-aged, distinguished Black man) who managed his farmland. It was another moment I couldn’t erase from my memory, as my family believes strongly in unions and civil rights.
On Passover, we celebrate our identity and our journey, as if we, too, had been slaves in the land of Egypt. We use a story that shapes Jewish identity to help us coalesce into a grateful, free people. We discuss standing up for what we believe when it matters, the way Moses did.
All this came to mind when I took a research survey online. I agreed long ago to participate in occasional research surveys so that Canadian academics or government offices can learn how “ordinary Canadians” feel about things. This particular survey seemed to be about workplace psychological health. At the beginning, the authors gave their names, contact information and other details. By the end, lulled into complacency by harmless questions, I got to this question, which was something like: “We know that race is a cultural construct and isn’t genetic, but some people suffer on account of their race nevertheless. Please let us know how you identify for the purposes of this survey.”
What followed was a long list of categories, including “White, European descent” or “Middle Eastern, Arab” and various other categories, which you can probably imagine from your own survey experiences. I was stymied. In the past, I’d likely have ticked off “White, European descent” because, although my family has lived in the United States for the last 110 to 200 years, the places they came from were European. Yet, as anyone who has studied Jewish history knows, Europeans didn’t consider Jews to be in the same category as they were. Many centuries before the Second World War, Jews were being expelled from parts of Europe, murdered, raped and charged large extra taxes just to remain in some areas. The same can be said about much of the Middle East, where Jewish people have lived for millennia. Jews were heavily taxed, forced to wear identifying garments and had to cope with all sorts of other restrictions if they wanted to live as dhimmis, “under the protection of” Islam. Even in Virginia in the 1970s, Jews weren’t always considered “white.” We weren’t eligible for memberships in some social settings.
With current rising antisemitism, many slurs against Jews are conflated with issues surrounding Israel, our historic homeland. The Jewish population in Israel is in fact mixed, with Jews of all colours or races. Some Israelis are from families who have always lived in Israel. Also, yes, immigrants from all over the world have sought refuge by returning to Israel. Yet the antisemitic, race-driven comments online suggest that only white settlers from Europe “colonized” Israel.
That leaves a person with few options when the survey is about to “time out” online. One could just pretend and say “White/European” or “Indigenous” or “Middle Eastern,” “Asian,” “African,” or whatever one’s skin tone is. There’s often a “prefer not to say” category, which is a safe spot some choose. It offers anonymity, but it muddies the waters a bit for some research studies. This time, there was an “Other” category. Since the survey was aimed at an academic audience and anonymous, I checked off “Other” and in the box, I wrote Jewish, with a brief note that said, “In a time of rising antisemitism, please don’t leave us out.”
Was this the right thing to do? I won’t ever know. The Canadian Jewish population is very small. We’re only a little more than 1% of the population, based on recent Census numbers. Even so, if we are to tell our own story – the Exodus from Egypt, or the story of Jewish identity, we should have the chance to do so. Many people don’t feel safe enough to self-identify as Jewish. I certainly know the relief of blending in as “other.” Sometimes in risky surroundings, I feel safer with my nondescript last name and features that could be Greek or French but aren’t identifiably Jewish. We all have to decide when to tell our stories. Some seek freedom through erasing their ethnoreligious identities. Others relish the freedom that comes from proclaiming their “otherness” as Jewish.
I don’t have the answers here. I’m still wondering which survey boxes to tick off myself. In any case, have a wonderful Passover, with a delicious, meaningful seder where you can explore your identities, stories and life journey to freedom.
Joanne Seiffhas written regularly for CBC Manitoba and various Jewish publications. She is the author of three books, including From the Outside In: Jewish Post Columns 2015-2016, a collection of essays available for digital download or as a paperback from Amazon. Check her out on Instagram @yrnspinner or at joanneseiff.blogspot.com.
Pesach is approaching, and the connection to addiction is obvious – we were slaves in Egypt, we are slaves to substances and behaviours to our detriment. Sadly, we hear daily about the perils of addiction – certainly the news of the toxic drug supply and deaths as a result are constant reminders of the struggle many face.
In the same way that Pesach teaches us that the possibility of redemption exists, that the oppressed can survive and ultimately triumph over their oppressors, so too can we remain hopeful that there is a pathway out of addiction. The struggle is hard, but with perseverance and critical support along the way, recovery is certainly achievable.
Our work at JACS is multi-faceted – we meet new people weekly who are looking for recovery support and those who are not sure yet they are ready to address the struggle. We meet people wherever they are.
While the challenge is real, we wanted to share what some of our clients have told us – the gifts of sobriety.
Life is simpler – I used to have to steal to feed my addiction. It took time and I would wake up wondering when and where I would find my next “fix.” Now I celebrate each day knowing I am free of that struggle.
I feel better about who I am – I no longer have secrets that I have to keep from those I love.
I am present to my feelings – I recognize the urge to use drugs as just that – an urge. I am able to reach out for help as I need it.
I feel physically better – I appreciate my physical, mental and emotional health. Yes, it has been work and I am worth it.
I am part of a healthier community – the people I used to connect with were struggling with addiction as well. Now I surround myself with people who want to be healthy, living lives filled with meaning.
I live with purpose – by helping others who may be struggling with this challenge, or just being present to whatever I am doing or whomever I am with.
I feel the freedom to have fun – I enjoy a walk in the rain or the sun, I know that my joy and happiness is up to me.
We continue to be inspired by the clients we have the privilege of working with and supporting on their journey. May their courage and strength serve as inspiration to us all.
For the this year, Steveston, B.C., artist Merle Linde, chose to create a Haggadah cover that would look old and hand drawn. To achieve this authentic feeling, Linde used Taiwan linen paper, traditional Chinese watercolour paints and brushes.
The calligraphy letters in solid black Hebrew-like text feature peacock blue flashes, often seen in antique manuscripts. Yom Tov candles sit on candleholders that borrow their design from ancient Egyptian columns. The traditional Four Cups of Wine are inspired by a set of old silverware featuring raised grapevine leaves and grapes. And a silver seder plate holder has space for the three traditional shmura matzot, the shank bone, the burnt egg, haroset, bitter herbs, green vegetable and salt water for dipping.
