The really big questions at Pesach are all about food

I really love a Jewish festival. I think, talk about and plan the food of festivals more than the usual person. I have always found the seriously unfunny, definitely irreverent Jewish festival joke, “they tried to kill us, we survived, let’s eat,” quite funny. Each time a festival rolled around, I said it and laughed. It was the truth laced with dark humour about stories from long, long ago. 

In a nutshell, in each story, the Jews survived an attempted annihilation or restriction of freedom/religious practices. This survival was a cause for celebration which, in turn, became a festival. In true Jewish (food obsessed) style, food was then created around the story of that failed bid and resulting celebration. The trifecta of these particular festivals, and best known, are Chanukah, Purim and Pesach. 

Chanukah (2nd century BCE) celebrates the victory of Judah and his Maccabees over the Syrian Greeks, against all odds. The story focuses on the miracle that followed the destruction of the Jewish temple: to re-dedicate the temple, the Maccabees needed to light the sanctifying candle and found only enough oil for one day.

They lit the candle and it lasted for eight days, enough time to replenish the oil supply. Today, we spend a joyous (and I mean joyous!) week eating food fried in oil (as a symbolic gesture) - potato latkes and doughnuts - to celebrate survival.

Pesach (Passover) is the jewel in the “kill, survive, let’s eat” crown and one of the biggest festivals in our calendar. It celebrates the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt (14^th century BCE), when Moses saved the people from slavery and guided them through the desert back to their ancestral homeland. They picked up the Ten Commandments and the first Jewish laws along the way.

So what do we do to mark this moment? We eat like there is no tomorrow. No joke. We also eat a ridiculous amount of matzah (unleavened flatbread) over the eight days to remember that the Israelites fled without time for their bread to rise. It is a challenging time for many as this symbolism leads to even more digestive issues than those already suffered by many in our community. Oy.