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 18th 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.
