Pesach

[YahChannah]

I would like to wish all Hag Sameach, Blessed Pesach, Happy Passover.

I would very much like to know how everyone else keeps this Feast of Remembrance.

I am also interested in when you keep it and how you come to your dates.

In HIS love
Sis YahChannah of Qumran Bet

http://qumran.com

[Sandy]

Can You Drink Coke During Passover?
By Emily Yoffe
Posted Tuesday, April 10, 2001, at 11:57 a.m. PT
click here

What foods are prohibited during Passover?

Passover, which is being observed this week, is the holiday that celebrates Jewish freedom from slavery in Egypt more than 3,000 years ago. Because the Jews fled so quickly, they didn't have time to prepare leavened bread. As a memorial to this, according to

Exodus 12:17,
"And ye shall observe the feast of unleavened bread."

But how this is observed is interpreted differently both by the three major branches of Judaism--Orthodox, Conservative and Reform--and the two major ethnic groups: the Ashkenazim of central and eastern European extraction, and the Sephardim, originally from Spain and Portugal.

The Orthodox and Conservative movements both prohibit any foods made from barley, oats, rye, spelt, and wheat. The Reform movement leaves it up to each individual to decide how to observe dietary rules. Ashkenazic Jews are also not supposed to eat corn, legumes, millet, or rice. Sephardic Jews can. Everyone can eat potatoes.

But aren't matzos, the staple food of Passover, made from flour?

Yes. But kosher-for-Passover matzos are made under strictly supervised conditions in which no more than 18 minutes pass between the mixing of the flour and water and the completed baking. In that way, the dough is considered unleavened because it didn't have time to rise.

Your last question seems to imply that not all matzos are acceptable for Passover. Could that be?

Yes. Matzos made during the year are prohibited because they are not made under such careful conditions.

If Jews are not supposed to eat anything that rises, how come they can eat matzo balls, which expand from ping-pong ball size to tennis ball size during cooking? And why are there special Passover cakes that rise when baked?

Because these are made from matzo meal, or ground matzos. The rule is once Passover matzos are baked, they are acceptable, even if they get mixed with other allowed ingredients and rise during rebaking. However, some Hasidic Jews, an Orthodox sect, forbid the eating of these products.

Can observant Jews drink Coke during Passover?

Coke is sweetened with corn syrup, which is forbidden if you're Ashkenazi. The company, however, makes special Passover runs of the product--as does Pepsi--sweetened with sugar. Either the bottle or the cap indicates its certification with the letters: OUP (Orthodox Union Passover) or KP (kosher for Passover.)

What if an Ashkenazi Jew is married to a Sephardic Jew. Do they both get to eat rice and beans during Passover?

According to Orthodox tradition, the husband's ethnicity would be the deciding factor. Conservative Jews should check with their rabbi.

Aren't any grains allowed?

Yes. Some Orthodox Jews have approved the use of quinoa, a grain introduced to the United States from the Andes in the past few decades.

What treat should you just forget about during Passover?

S'mores. First of all, graham crackers are not allowed. Second, marshmallows are extremely controversial. Since the main ingredient is gelatin, derived from cow parts, there is much debate on whether kosher marshmallows have really been made from cows slaughtered in kosher fashion. To get around this, there are now marshmallows derived from fish gelatin.

They Jews themselves are divided and diversified. Even they themselves do not seem to know accurately the way of keeping Passover and the seven days of Unleavened.

[Sandy]

Not everyone is required to keep Passover and the Feast of Unleavened and there are even some that are NOT to keep it.

EXODUS 12
2) This month (new moon) shall be to you the chief (first)of months (new Moons) it shall be the first month (new moon) of the year for you
3) on the tenth of this month
5) take a flock animal, a perfect male, a son of a year from the sheep or from the goats
6) keep it until the fourteenth day of this month kill it between the evenings
8) eat the flesh in this night roasted with fire and eaten with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.
9) Do not eat it raw or boiled, but roasted with fire; its head with its legs and with its inward parts.
10) Do not leave any of it until morning; you shall burn with fire that left from it until morning.
11) you shall eat it this way:
your loins girded
your sandals on your feet
your staff in your hand
in haste.
It is the PASSOVER to YHUH.

13) The blood shall be a SIGN on the houses where you are, and I will see the blood and I will pass over you.
14) The day shall be a MEMORIAL for you, and you shall celebrate it as a feast to YHUH for you generations.
You shall celebrate it as an appointed time forever.
15) You shall eat only things UNLEAVENED for seven days
the first day you shall remove anything LEAVENED from your houses,
anyone eating anything LEAVENED that soul shall be cut off from Israel, from the first day until the seventh day.
16) the first day shall be a holy gathering
the seventh day shall be a holy gathering
no work may be done on them
only what must be eaten by your soul
that alone may be done by you.
17) And you shall observe the UNLEAVENED, for on this day I brought you out from Egypt.
You shall observe this day for your generations,
as an enactment forever.
18) the first month
the fourteenth day of the month
at evening you shall eat unleavened
until the twenty-first day of the month at evening
19) for seven days LEAVEN shall not be found in your houses
anyone eating anything LEAVENED
that soul shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel
among the sojourner (1616) and among the natives of the land.

42) It is a night of celebration to YHUH, for bringing them out of the land of Egypt. This night is an observance for all the children of Israel to their generations.
43) And YHUH said...This is the enactment of the passover. NO son of a stranger (5236) may eat of it. But every slave man purchased of silver, you shall circumcise him, then he may eat of it.

45) A dweller (8453) and a hired servant may NOT eat of it.

48) And when a sojourner (1616) shall stay with you and will do Passover to YHUH, every male of him must be circumcised and then he may come to prepare and shall be as the native of the land. But any not circumcised shall NOT eat of it.
49) Torah is one, it shall be to the native and to the sojourner (1616), the one staying in your midst.

What was the purpose of the original Passover?

Exodus 4
22) And you shall speak to Pharaoh, So says YHUH, Israel is my child, my firstborn.
23) And I said to you, Send my child away and let him serve me, but you refused to send him. Behold, I am about to kill your child, your firstborn.

Exodus 12
26) And it shall be, when your children say to you, what is this service to you?
27) Then you shall say, It is the slaughter of the Passover to YHUH, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt when he struck Egypt and he delivered our houses...