A Sweet and Kosher Pesach

Rabbi Alan W. Bright

So here we are once again with Passover 2023 well on the horizon. As we get ready for Pesach, after we’re done with all our preparations, as in years past, it is customary to wish each other a “Zissen and Kosher Pesach,” a sweet and kosher Pesach. Did you ever wonder why we use such a greeting? Sure, we dip an apple in honey on Rosh Hashanah and wish each other a sweet New Year. But a sweet Pesach? What makes Pesach sweet? It certainly couldn’t be the maror! Who knows? Maybe the phrase was invented by Manischewitz as a way of promoting its sweet wines.

Harvard University professor of Jewish and Yiddish literature Ruth Wisse was asked this question and responded: “In my experience, the adjective zis was usually reserved for Rosh Hashanah, as in the expression a zis yor, ‘A sweet year.’ The most familiar Yiddish Passover greeting is a kosher Pesach, while a freylakhn Pesach is also something I’ve heard most of my life. But who knows? Maybe the greetings for one holiday passed into another.”

Another explanation I’ve heard is that over the years, as traditional observance has waned, wishing someone a “Kosher” Pesach when they don’t keep kosher seems hypocritical or insincere. Therefore, a new, more modern, more neutral greeting was added. Hence a “Zissen Pesach.”

So now we have three theories for the origin of this term. It either originated as advertising copy, it could have been a spontaneous transference from another holiday, or it’s a way to compensate for an otherwise lack of observance.

But I’d like to offer another reason for the use of this term. One that gets to the heart of the holiday, whether one is observant or not. As we know, Pesach involves much hard work. The cleaning, the cooking, the preparations, everything down to the smallest detail. And then we have the Seders and Yom Tov and a whole week of eating differently. It takes a lot out of us. We might look at it as drudgery. But when we are finished with the cooking and the cleaning, when the Seders are over, don’t we look back and realize how worthwhile and enjoyable it was? Don’t we look back and savour the experience? Of course, we do. We wouldn’t have it any other way.

And so, by wishing someone a “Zissen Pesach”, we are saying, in advance, that all the hard work will be worth it. We will enjoy the special foods and being with family and friends at the Seder. It will be a sweet time. And just like the Israelites of old went through years of slavery before they experienced the sweet taste of freedom, we too know that Pesach will also be a memorable and sweet time in our lives. Therefore, from Elizabeth, me and the children, may you have a happy, kosher, and, most of all, a Zissen Pesach.

Do You Remember?

Cantor Boaz Davidoff

Shalom and Happy Passover.

A few days ago, after minyan, a member from shul said to me: “Was there a Covid 19 virus?” It was another way of saying – life is back to normal and the virus is far behind us, almost totally forgotten. After this conversation, I thought to myself – Jewish faith tells us that everything that happens to us – comes from above and sends us a message: How to behave in life?

When Covid was at its peak in Israel (and the whole world), minyans were taking place out in the streets. We were separated, standing, two meters apart, wearing masks and hardly breathing. I remember a Rabbi that said a comment during prayer: “I wish we will all behave after the virus with the same humbleness, respect and honesty as we do now”.

It looks like life’s back to normal, as if we’ve forgotten what happened in the world only a few months ago. I understand it was a horrible time, and we want to put it far away in our minds. However, I think that we should remember, and learn from the time, when the world stopped completely. Every person then stopped and asked the question: “What’s happening here? Where do we go from here…?”

This is what we, as Jewish people, specialize in: remembrance, Gedenk (in Yiddish). It is because we remember our past (and learn from it) that we will always survive the future (this is not my quote but NAPOLEON’s –when he was in Israel and witnessed the strength of the Jewish tradition despite the horrible conditions they were living in at the time).

We remember Passover, we remember being slaves, we remember being freed of slavery and bursting into independence and rebuilding our wonderful flourishing country and home, Israel. In all times, we remember all of our history and our past.

Do you remember? Are you holding the long chain of Jewish tradition? Do you belong to it?

YES YOU DO! Every Kiddush we remember exiting Egypt, every time we put on Tefillin, every time we kiss the Mezuzah, every Passover Seder, every prayer, every night, and every day, every moment forever. Chag Sameach.