#karpas

Władze obszarów okupowanych nakazały natychmiastowe opuszczenie półwyspu Karpas przez kampery Agencja Ochrony Środowiska Cypru Północnego wydała ostrzeżenie, że noclegi są zabronione na terenie Specjalnego Obszaru Chronionego Karpas. Nakaz opuszczenia obszaru został już wydany 36 kampervanom. Jak wynika z oświadczenia agencji, ostrzeżenie skierowane było do właścicieli przyczep kempingowych,…

Zdaniem rolników z Karpas, osły to prawdziwy problem, którego trzeba się pozbyć

Zdaniem rolników z Karpas, osły to prawdziwy problem, którego trzeba się pozbyć Turcy cypryjscy rolnicy w Karpasii domagają się rozwiązania problemu swobodnie wędrujących osłów, które, jak twierdzą, rozprzestrzeniły się daleko poza ich wyznaczony obszar i stały się utrapieniem zjadającym plony. Dwie główne rasy dzikich osłów na półwyspie – jedna duża, ciemno umaszczona, z jasnym brzuchem,…

 YOU TOO CAN BE A POTATO!

Karpas, one of the ritual foods of the seder, is a vegetable that is dipped in salt water and then eaten. Our family has always used parsley for karpas, but Rabbi YY Rubinstein uses potato and we love his reason why. 

Certain animals (i.e. cows, fowl) have a holy quality that makes them suitable for consumption or sacrifice. But once the animal has a blemish, it is impure and can never be made holy again. God created humans differently. Throughout our lives we cycle up and down between holiness/joy and impurity/despair.

Now back to the potato. The humble spud spends its entire life underground, surrounded by dirt, but at Passover it is elevated to a place of high honor: the seder plate. Rabbi Rubinstein teaches that even if we spend the whole year stuck in the mud spiritually, or wallowing in the filth of a vulgar and materialistic society, Passover is an opportunity to elevate ourselves. As we recount the story of the exodus from Egypt, we personalize it by focusing on our own personal pharaohs (anger, envy, substance abuse, etc). We too can be like the potato, starting in the muck but reaching a higher level of holiness through the seder ritual.

I mentioned a couple of Pesach traditions in my previous answer, so now I will share some MORE! :D

For the past several years, I have made use of my talent at reading Hebrew texts disturbingly fast to buzz through the reading parts of the Seder so as not to keep people waiting for food for too long (and so as not to keep people awake / needing to get home safely too late) - we still do plenty of discussion, but we can do it while we eat, thank you very much.

Another Seder tradition my family has is to pass around boiled potatoes and hard-boiled eggs to eat in saltwater when we get to the Karpas (”eat a green vegetable dipped in saltwater”) stage of the Seder.

Two other fun Seder things we do: when the Haggadah follows up the list of the ten plagues (for which we spill a drop of wine each) with the acronym for the ten plagues (for which we spill a drop of wine for each of the three “words” of the acronym), we always add, attributed to my great-grandfather, the silly “pun” he would always make on the words. The acronym is “Datzach Adash Beachav”*; my great-grandfather (and now we) would add “dreitzich a Deutch by mein vaif” (”A German is hanging around my wife”)

And when we eat the Hillel sandwich of matzah, Charoset, and horseradish, explained in the Haggadah with the quoted words “al matzot u’merorim yochluhu” (”on matzahs and bitter herbs they shall eat it”), we always repeat the last word the way my great-grandfather used to say it in his Lithuanian accent - “yoichleehee”