From Exodus 12:14 and 15: “This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the LORD; throughout your generations, as statute forever, you shall keep it as a feast. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven out of your houses, for if anyone eats what is leavened, from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel.”
Well now that my brother lives in Israel, I rather not be cut off from the homeland, so I won’t be consuming any of the “5 forbidden grains”: wheat, barley, spelt, oats, rye—chometz, if you will. But what is this about an abandonment of rice, lentils, chickpeas, and now corn and thus corn starch and corn syrup? And don’t think that you can just drink away the pain of giving up your favorite corn-syrup treat, like chocolate Easter eggs in my case—ironic, I know—because all beer and most liquor are off limits as they were allowed to ferment, a luxury that the Ancient Egyptian fugitives did not have.
I think that limiting yourself to eating only foods that are not wheat, spelt, oats, barley, rye, legumes, corn, or rice is another way of agreeing to a seven-day starvation.
Exploring this further, I read that in the Middle Ages, rice, lentils, chickpeas, and fava beans were ground into flour, which put them in a state that could be confused with the true grains. That's unfortunate, but, as far as I know, the original trendsetters did not seem to have this problem. It seems unnecessary to make amendments to my Passover shopping list when the purpose of this holiday is for it to be a "memorial day," and not just something the French created with their mustard seed addition. Thank you France.
When deciding your own dietary restrictions this holiday season, I think it’s important to consider what Passover means to you. To me, it is a remembrance and honoring of the original miracle. So, bring on the hummus!
Great FOOD for thought...
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