Pairing of Jewish Holy Days Poses a Culinary Challenge

Observant Jews this week face the holiday version of mission impossible: prepare a Passover Seder for Saturday night--the work equivalent of a Thanksgiving dinner--without being able to cook for 24 hours before the meal.

The culinary quandary is just one challenge posed by this year’s back-to-back pairing of the Sabbath, which begins Friday night, and Passover, which starts Saturday night.

The Sabbath-Passover conjunction isn’t all that rare--it has happened twice since 1981. But Orthodox and Conservative rabbis have been busy advising concerned congregants on how to perform the rituals of both holy days without violating Jewish law.

“People have had the remarkable reaction that this hasn’t happened before,” said Rabbi Yosef Kanefsky of B’nai David-Judea in Los Angeles, who sent a three-page e-mail to his congregation covering the holiday rules. “And every rabbi and his brother has put out a pamphlet on what to do.”

Passover celebrates the exodus of the Israelites from bondage in Egypt more than 3,000 years ago, and the traditional Seder--which Jews outside of Israel will repeat on Sunday night--is as ritualistic as Jewish meals get.

And before the multi-course feast, traditionally including gefilte fish and matzo-ball soup, begins, there is an hours-long ceremony around the Seder table retelling the story of the Exodus, so that even the youngest family member can have a sense of the Jews’ flight to freedom.

Ceremonial foods such as parsley, horseradish and a mixture of crushed nuts and fruits designed to resemble brick mortar are eaten in various combinations, evoking the senses as the tale is told of the transition from slavery.

This year’s preparations can be inconvenient, requiring the cooking of a large holiday meal a day in advance because work cannot be performed on Shabbat, or the Sabbath.

“The logistics are a real bear,” said Rabbi Joel Landau of Beth Jacob Congregation of Irvine. “But nothing should diminish the sanctity of the Sabbath. It can’t be compromised in any way for the next holiday.”

Other challenges can be quite tricky, such as keeping leaven, or hametz, out of a kosher home during Passover when bread is traditionally used during the rituals of Shabbat meals that immediately precede the holiday.

For the eight days of Passover, observant Jews don’t use any leavened products, in remembrance of their forefathers who had to flee Egypt before their bread had a chance to rise. Passover refers to the night when the angel of death passed over the houses of the children of Israel, sparing the Jewish firstborn during the plagues God cast on the Egyptians.

Kosher homes must be thoroughly clean. Boiling water is poured over pots and pans, Passover-only china is brought out from storage boxes, pantries are cleared out, and even car interiors are vacuumed clean.

The goal is to eliminate any hint of bread crumbs or other traces of leaven found in foods that are allowed under Jewish dietary laws all other weeks of the year but this one.

Sharon Chase spent the past week cleaning her Irvine home.

“It’s the busiest week of the year,” said Chase, a Conservative Jew. “You’re supposed to clean everything, and I’m cleaning as much as I can. When you’re done, it really makes you feel good.”

Rabbis have developed a few strategies for keeping a home ready for Passover while eating bread for the Shabbat meals.

One is to simply eat a small roll on an outside patio. Another is to carefully eat a small amount of bread on a paper plate--with a napkin at the ready so no crumbs fall to the floor. And a third solution is to eat egg matzo, which doesn’t contain leaven and also won’t violate the rule of refraining from eating regular matzo on the days leading up to Passover.

“I think it’s a challenge for every household,” said Stanley Sigal, a Los Angeles pharmacist. “It requires a little bit more attention to the situation. It’s a reminder that one doesn’t go about the rituals by oneself.”

Many synagogues are holding Saturday morning services earlier so congregants can eat the last of their Shabbat bread at least two hours before midday Saturday, when the Passover prohibition against leavened products begins.

And events usually planned for Passover eve have been moved up a day to keep the Sabbath holy.

If this all sounds complicated, it is.

“The arena of Jewish law is our holy space,” Kanefsky said. “We develop it, we delight in it. The more we can do with it, the greater our sense of the divine. The Jewish law is our temple. We make it complex. We like it that way.”

Some Reform Jews and outside observers might view all this as legalistic hairsplitting, but observant Jews find profound meaning in the rituals.

“It’s not ritual for sake of ritual,” said Landau, an Orthodox rabbi. “The goal is to appreciate the meaning of the ritual and try to enrich your life because of it. And if that’s not happening, you’re missing the boat.”

Sigal says he follows the customs because he believes that’s what God asks. “It makes you closer to God,” he said.

Rabbi David Eliezrie sees another benefit of this year’s dual observances.

“When you usually come to the Passover Seder, you’re exhausted by the work,” said Eliezrie, of Congregation Beth Meir HaCohen-Chabad Center in Yorba Linda. “This year, you can’t do any work. So when it comes, you can relax, take a nap and enjoy the day.”

But the 24-hour ban on cooking before Passover has one drawback, especially for the gourmet cooks.

Said Rabbi Elie Spitz of Tustin: “For someone like my wife who takes her cooking seriously, it makes things much harder.”