Greene on greens

by Gary Greene

Nothing is insignificant when it comes to the seder.  Each symbolic food has a deeper meaning, something more than just meets the eye.  Some are more obvious than others.  Matzah is the bread of affliction which our ancestors ate in Egypt.  It is poor man’s bread.  A little goes a long way so matzah is a cost efficient means of feeding slaves.  It is also the bread of freedom for matzah was the first bread baked because the Jews couldn’t tarry and let the dough rise as they left Egyptian slavery.  I like what Rabbi Jonathan Sacks saw in this double meaning of matzah.  “The difference between freedom and slavery does not lie in the quality of the bread we eat, but the state of mind in which we eat it." 

Others foods’ meanings are not as obvious unless they are mined for the diamonds contained within the depths of the symbol.  Take Karpas, the greens we dip into the salt water, for example.  Karpas symbolizes spring and indeed Passover is the holiday of springtime, Hag Ha-aviv.  What is the deeper meaning of the Karpas?

For me, Karpas or spring represents God’s love for the Jewish people.  The Holy One was most thoughtful when He redeemed the Jewish people.  If he redeemed us during the raining winter months, the joy of the Exodus would have been dampened.  This past winter was one of the rainiest in recorded Israel’s short history.  It rained 27 days out of 31 during the month of January alone!  Although Israel needed the rain because the Kinneret, the Sea of Galilee, has been at its all time low, no tourist is thrilled to walk through all that rain and ensuing mud.  When we were in Israel as part of our Israel Seminar, we were blessed with beautiful tourist weather for the most part.  Certainly the weather added to the enjoyment of our trip.  Can you imagine how the Israelites would have complained about leaving Egypt during the rainy season?! 

If God would have redeemed us during the hot summer months, the Exodus would have been just as unbearable.  I know how the heat zaps a person as he travels for when I rode my bike from Jerusalem to Eilat back in October 2010. The first day out on the road the temperature hit 113 degrees F!  I remember sitting on the ledge of the water truck for over a half hour just guzzling water so I could continue on until the next water stop. Can you imagine how the Israelites would have complained about leaving Egypt during the hot summer months?

But the spring months are a delight.  The rains have stopped falling. Every thing is green and the wild flowers are blooming thanks to the rain.  The weather is neither too hot nor too cold.  It is just right for a tiyul, hike, or an Exodus from slavery.  God choose this perfect time of year for us to leave Egypt because He loves us so and wanted us enjoy our freedom in every way.   

Disciples of Rabbi Menachem Schneersohn collected and adapted his teachings as a commentary on the Haggadah called The Kol Menachem Haggadah. They offer another Karpas diamond for our consideration.  In the commentary on Karpas, the Lubuvitcher Rebbe wrote: “According to the Kabbalah, tibul, is symbolic of bitul (or negation) of the self, which is why in Hebrew we find that one word is an anagram of the other: kuchy=kuyhc.  And one does not need to be a mystic to appreciate why.  The purpose of dipping a food into a flavoring agent is so that the food should surrender some of its own taste and “give away’ to a more desirable quality found in the flavoring agent. (page 25)”  “The only way we can transcend the limitations of our own existence is by surrendering to something greater than ourselves.  This is the inner message of dipping, where one food surrenders its flavor into the liquid in which it is dipped.” (page 23)

I quoted Rabbi Sacks in an earlier blog: “A free society is always a moral achievement.  It rests on self-restraint and regard for others.”  The Lubuvitcher Rebbe is teaching us freedom demands even more than just self-restrain and regard for others.  Free human beings who want to live a meaningful life, need to pay attention to what’s really important in life.  The focus of our being shouldn’t be on us, our needs, our ego, but rather the focus should be on the needs of the other.  When we give our lives over to a cause greater than ourselves, we achieve the ideals of Passover, living a meaningful life as free human beings.

The Karpas asks us where our true passions lay, what noble causes animate our lives, when do we do transcend our own limitations by surrendering to something greater than ourselves, and why we must take an active role in those causes for the sake of our future redemption.  These are certainly worthy 4 questions to ask at the seder table and other every night.