If you don't know what "kitniyot" are, feel free to skip this

[drwex]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2016/04/22/some-rabbis-just-lifted-an-800-year-old-dietary-rule-that-may-rock-your-passover-world/?hpid=hp_hp-more-top-stories-2_kitniyot-acts-of-faith-750a%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

The rest of us can smile and relax.

(I do not actually have an "FUJT" tag because I don't post about them often, but Passover is still my favorite holiday and this is a Very Big Deal in this very small pond.)

ETA: And in case you had any doubt why Passover is my favorite holiday, it's because it brings me things like this:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/marijuana-is-kosher-for-passover-leading-rabbi-rules-a6995761.html

Comments

[frobzwiththingz.livejournal.com]

I am totally going to take advantage of this and bring a yummy Ethiopian lentil dish to the potluck seder i'm going to this saturday.

[drwex]

I recall your lentil dish being excellent when you made it for one of my past parties. I would just suggest checking with the host first, because Jews are weird.

[fidgetmonster.livejournal.com]

This prompted some interesting discussions last night. There were a few older folks who were like 'no way, i can't start eating rice during passover'. It's hard to change what you've been doing your whole life. Others welcomed the idea that this change might encourage more people to keep kosher for passover ... which led to the discussion of 'but if it's EASY doesn't that defeat the point??'. I kind of fall somewhere in the middle. It still feels like cheating, but I understand the logic behind the change and welcome being able to eat legumes.

[drwex]

I'm not sure "easy" is the point. I think "sensible" is where I fall.

One of the cool things about our kids getting older is we had real conversations this year about topics. I don't know if it was Halachically "studying" but we did talk over the story and ideas around it.

re: 'easy'

[fidgetmonster.livejournal.com]

Maybe if staying kosher for passover was a real trial because of the dietary restrictions it could really feel like you were aligning with the trials of your ancestors. depending on how you normally eat, the new rules could make it 'easy'; not as much a burden. ie, suddenly it's not too different from how I normally eat. So other than the ritual of a seder, what is differentiating right now from other weeks? But maybe that is where i am an 'old person' - that the discomfort of giving something up was part of the discipline, part of the point. And maybe that wasn't supposed to be the point at all.

It's very cool that you could have discussions with the kids this year. Passover is a big deal to me too, and I still feel like I learn something new, 40 seders on. (I'm not counting #1 - my mom went into labor with me during a seder and she was like 'ok, let's just get through this first'. But she said, 'when we let Elijah in, I left for the hospital.' )

Re: 'easy'

[drwex]

Yes, but... where does it say that we're supposed to align with our ancestors by making ourselves suffer in some specific way? Or am I missing something?

We eat bitter herbs "to remind ourselves" of the bitterness of slavery but that's obviously a highly symbolic association. Other things - such as eating while reclining - are symbols of our freedom from that slavery. So I'm not sure why we might choose to emulate something unpleasant.

I don't think that's called for - what I think is called for is understanding. But what do I know?

I do love the learning aspect. Part of what I love about Passover is how weird and complex it is. And thanks for sharing your story - I don't think I ever knew that before.

RE: Re: 'easy'

[fidgetmonster.livejournal.com]

I grew up in a heavily catholic area: I wonder if somewhere in my childhood passover suffering got conflated with lent. I guess I thought that the suffering part was to really hammer it home lest we forget. Does that sound more catholic to you? Your interpretation is sitting better with me. Thanks for the discussion!

Re: Re: 'easy'

[drwex]

It does sound more Catholic. From the Jewish perspective there are two very special holidays that are fast days. For those we say "May you have an easy fast" rather than "Happy $holiday". I forget who it was that first joked all Jewish holidays (except those two) can be summed up as "They tried to kill us; we survived; let's eat."

Suffering, and particularly people suffering today in connection with past suffering, really isn't a Jewish thing, at least so far as I know. But I'm a lapsed not-all-that-religiously-educated-secular-Jew, so what do I know?