{"id":73312,"date":"2020-04-14T15:49:28","date_gmt":"2020-04-14T12:49:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=73312"},"modified":"2020-04-14T15:49:52","modified_gmt":"2020-04-14T12:49:52","slug":"this-is-really-the-bread-of-affliction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/this-is-really-the-bread-of-affliction\/","title":{"rendered":"This Is REALLY The Bread Of Affliction"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[],"acf":{"old_id":"73312","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":73310,"related_cahpter":"459","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"One last message about the holiday, our limitations and anxieties \u2013and dreams for next year.\r\n\r\n","content":"

Noble message aside, the Aramaic prayer Ha Lachma Anya<\/em> (“This is the bread of affliction”) \u00a0recited dutifully and often mechanically near the start of the seder, has always been a bit of a head-scratcher.<\/p>\n

An ostensible invitation to the vagabond hungry (“let all who are ravenous come and eat”), the prayer seems designed for failure. It is said in a language now unknown, recited only to the people already at the table and hours away from the actual meal.<\/p>\n

Maimonides appears not to have included the prayer in the Haggadah liturgy of Israel. Noting the omission, the 16th-century physician and scholar Eliezer ben Elijah Ashkenazi offers that the prayer was conceived at the start of the exile that followed the destruction of the Second Temple circa 70 A.D.<\/p>\n

This leads to a radical reinterpretation. The prayer’s claim that “this is the bread of affliction our forefathers ate in Egypt” is no longer a callback to the Exodus but a sharp comment on a new reality \u2013 a bitter reminder that after the Temple’s destruction the Jewish people have reverted to a sad state of diasporan servitude. \u201cThis <\/em>is the bread of affliction.” Don\u2019t be surprised if it tastes a little more sour this year.<\/p>\n

And the invitation for everyone to come and eat? It\u2019s not a half-hearted callout to stray passersby of acute hearing, but a heartfelt pining for the camaraderie of Jewish settlement in Israel. It was there, after all, that Passover offered not only ritual but community — families bringing their Paschal lambs to the Temple essentially formed a giant block party. The call is an attempt to re-create that moment of socialization and even one-up it; while Jerusalem gatherings were segmented by family, the composers in this new Temple-less world poignantly beseech any and all to join them — to recreate the community, to relieve the loneliness. At heart the prayer was an attempt by newly exiled Jews to silver-line their way to better days.<\/p>\n

The echoes to our own affliction are loud. This Passover–with Seders reduced to immediate families or individuals atomized and singing to themselves around the world \u2013 we\u2019ve lost the holiday\u2019s communal joy. We\u2019ve become slaves, not to a king but to anxiety, and geography. In a sense we’ve flipped the narrative of the early Ha Lachma-ites: many Jews live in Israel, but we can\u2019t be together.<\/p>\n

Still, our own light peeks through. Cut off from families, we dial in to communal seders, meet new teachers, celebrate with friends we\u2019d never ordinarily connect with. Robbed of our ability to move, we are nonetheless afforded the chance to zoom.<\/p>\n

The prayer concludes with a rueful wish. “Now we are here, next year we are in Israel.\u201d The composers are expressing not an abstract Zionist aspiration but a concrete yearning for a return to social times. It is a statement that vibrates with relevance. Now, with the pandemic, we are here, in a lonely state. Next year may we enter a better one.<\/p>\n","image":{"ID":73313,"id":73313,"title":"matza","filename":"matza.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/matza.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/this-is-really-the-bread-of-affliction\/matza\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"matza","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":73312,"date":"2020-04-14 12:49:17","modified":"2020-04-14 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