Communal Seder Awards

Forget about the Oscars - this is what really counts. The Jackson's Row Communal Seder Awards ... announced here!

For Best Song - Rabbi's rendition of Chad Gadya complete with all animal noises and more besides.  Almost without getting mixed up in the last verse!

For Production - Pam, Selena, Rachel and helpers for delivering our seder with exceptional charm, cheerfulness and efficiency. Kol Hakavod to you!

For the most inappropriate conversation at a seder table - the Swerdlow/Laithwaite table for discussing which N Manchester bakery sells the best bagels

For Unsung Heroes - Phil and the security team, and Jack and Brian

For taking care of the youngest person present - Rivka Myles

For the brightest, sassiest dress - Mandy Bernhardt (as ever!)

For best Kosher for Pesach dessert in Manchester - the chocolate pudding provided by Marc Cooper (the rest of the meal wasn't too bad either!)

For Insight - the new MRJ Haggadah, for making the seder meaningful, inclusive and comprehensible

For best choral singing - absolutely everybody for our roof-raising Who Knows One (thanks to the Kiddush wine too!)

Net year in .... who knows?!

Anyone For Coffee?

Here's Rabbi Silverman's sermon for Shabbat Hagadol, best read while sipping a cappucino, or maybe a latte ....

Chag Pesach Sameach!!

                       Pre-Pesach 5776/ 2016   ANYONE FOR  COFFEE ?

A rabbi walks into a coffee shop. (This is not a joke). The rabbi gets into trouble for being in the coffee shop. Why? It wasn’t Pesach. It wasn’t Shabbat. It wasn’t the sort of place we are familiar with: Starbucks, Costa or Cafe Nero. It was one of the original such places, in London, in 1728 and they were called coffee houses. They were meeting-places for conversation, commerce, journalism, politics, learning and gossip: they have been called everyman’s university, quenching the thirst for knowledge. Your coffee would cost a penny, your social contacts could be invaluable. The Rabbi was Jacob Emden, one of the most outstanding halachic scholars of the 18^th Century. He was visiting London from Germany. Why did he get into trouble?

There were Jews in London who didn’t approve of him being in the coffee house, the company he was keeping, an issue about kashrut in a gentile establishment, and someone, probably seeing him through the window, challenged him on the spot. They said it was against the rabbinical rules of the community.  He apologised, but finished his coffee, saying he did not want to insult the proprietor by leaving immediately. Back in the German Jewish communities there was no such problem. Emden however then gave a judgment supporting London’s minhag hamakom, erring on the side of strictness. It was not long however before Anglo-Jewry relaxed on this matter. In Europe there were general bans against coffee drinking and against Jews trading in it: competition with beer for one thing. Beer-drinking was for men; coffee for men and women. Puritanical attitudes crept in, but not amongst Jews. It’s all in a book called ‘Jews welcome Coffee’ by Robert Liberles.

In Judaism there is  a creative tension between strictness and enjoyment of life. Pesach is strictness to the nth degree. Rabbinical strictness kicks in hard at Pesach time. Rabbis did not always preach to their congregations. I mean preach rather than teach, or give a derashah. Preaching in the sense of dictating behaviour was mandatory only on two Shabbats  in the year: Shabbat Shuvah between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur and  Shabbat Haggadol which was for reminders about keeping kosher lePesach.

Coffee is a great example. Orthodox advise only buy what has a Kosher lePesach label. Or ask your rabbi. Reform: look at the ingredients label and use  common sense informed by tradition, and some knowledge about production.  Ground coffee: no problem. All instants including decaf – there is the possibility of chametz/leaven; decaf has been produced with alcohol.  The greatest success story in Kosher lePesach Coffee is Maxwell House. In 1934 they hit on the idea of a Maxwell House Haggadah. To  this day it’s the most popular Haggadah in the world and ensured sales of their coffee over Pesach.

Then there was a debate over whether coffee is in the same category as rice, beans, peas, sweetcorn (legumes or pulses - kitniot) Ashkenazi Jews won’t have them on Pesach; Sephardim will. Rabbi Jacob  Emden ruled in favour of coffee. His point on the kitniot issue was that coffee is from beans yes – but they grow on trees rather than in the ground therefore they are not legumes but fruit.

Whatever your practice on this point for Pesach what’s  important  is the need to know why. Basically, these products were kept in open sacks and there was a concern that chametz would get mixed in. Not all communities had this concern, hence the differences in observance. One further point: Jacob Emden, when asked about coffee being roasted in a pot that had not been koshered for Passover made a bold sweeping reply; he said ‘surely, he who is lenient is rewarded and one who is stricter loses out on enjoying the holiday for no reason’ (Discuss!)

It is important that we don’t get bogged down in the detail and fail to see the wood for the trees. Pesach is about Exodus from slavery to freedom. Jews were highly involved in importing coffee to Europe from Latin America. There was the issue of slavery. And this one has not gone away.

Coffee is the second most valuable traded commodity worldwide, second only to Petroleum. Production of it is highly exploitative. Child labour is widely employed in coffee cultivation. As the price of coffee rises, you take your kids out of school and send them to work. When coffee prices fall – poverty also keeps children from school. No school, no advancement, so - a cycle of poverty over generations. A solution is for farmers to be paid a living wage not based on the price of the commodity.

I am annoyed at my  local Tescos for ceasing to stock Fair Trade Coffee on their shelves. Amongst Reform rabbis now there’s a consensus:  Pesach is a good time to push, yes preach, for ethical kashrut. We urge giving our chametz to food banks.   It can also be an issue for  the EU referendum. There  are EU directives; contract incentives for fair trade companies – and so whilst we debate the pros and cons of  Free Trade outside the EU, there is also the imperative of Fair Trade to be considered, which might involve restrictions best advocated by a union of nations; strictness for the sake of humanitarianism. EU action against Starbucks’ Tax avoidance in the Netherlands is another highly topical case in point.  Outside such a union we could be free from directives and restrictions. But freedom in Jewish terms is not merely being free from restraints but free to act responsibly.  If we want Fair Trade for all we can best be of influence inside the EU.

It is important what you do on Pesach: making it a different and special time – enhancing family and social contact, immersing yourself in the values behind the festival. The details of observance are important. More important is an awareness of why we keep them, our freedom, physical and spiritual, and our vision of a freer and fairer world.