Fearing Holiness as Pesach Approaches

By: Rabbi Yehoshua Grunstein

Published: March 15th, 2012

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Making matza by hand in Jerusalem
Photo Credit: Kobi Gideon/Flash90

The big 7-8 day Holiday is approaching. The one that seems to get people more uptight than happy (as they should be –Rambam, Laws of the Holidays, 6:17), to the extent that when you are actually brave enough to utter the word “PESACH,” it often feels like you’ve put people on edge.

These less than “30 days before the Holiday” offer us an opportunity to evaluate the above phenomenon, which seems to be more and more commonplace in our times.

It amazes me that Pesach comes just a month after Purim. More than anything, what makes Purim unique is that it is a day in which the edict that “one should become inebriated on Purim till one doesn’t distinguish between the curse of Haman to the blessing of Mordechai” proclaims it a day in which…everything goes, in which one has very loose – to non-existent – borders regarding what is permitted and what is forbidden. In a word, it’s a day in which the word “fear” seems to be put into a drawer for 24 hours, as we permit ourselves to do things otherwise unthinkable – in terms of what we wear, what we say, which jokes we crack, and of course, how much alcohol we allow ourselves to consume.

And then, right after the hangover passes, the costumes are put away for next year, and the last cookie from the “Mishloach Manot” is eaten, we get…fearful and nervous; just 30 days to clean the house, buy the (new and expensive) groceries, and cook for Pesach!

From too much courage to neurotic fear, and all this in two months!

Leaving aside how much one needs to clean for Pesach and how crazy one must get (based on the Torah’s dictates, without the “extra’s” of cleaning the windows as well…), I’d like to comment on just one point – the “fear” of it.

I believe that something has crept into the Religious Jewish community over the last few years that shouldn’t be there – our fear of holiness. Let’s introduce it with the following episode, usually read right after Purim in the weekly Torah reading (except in a leap-year). The Jewish people have just been forgiven for the elevated sin of the Golden Calf, and Moshe is coming down Mount Sinai…with one small change to his face:

29. And it came to pass when Moses descended from Mount Sinai, and the two tablets of the testimony were in Moses’ hand when he descended from the mountain and Moses did not know that the skin of his face had become radiant while He had spoken with him 30. that Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses and behold! the skin of his face had become radiant, and they were afraid to come near him.31. But Moses called to them, and Aaron and all the princes of the community returned to him, and Moses would speak to them…..

Reading these verses, I would have thought it wonderful – the people behold Moshe looking holier than ever, and thus maintain their distance, knowing that they are not on the level. After all, we don’t just barge into a shul, open the ark and greet the Torah Scrolls with a “Hello Mate…,” nor do we ascend the Temple Mount without proper preparations! And so, the Jewish people recognize Moshe’s new, elevated radiance/holiness and keep their distance from his holiness.

But then we get to Rashi’s read, which offers a radically different interpretation:

and they were afraid to come near him: Come and see how great the power of sin is! Because when they had not yet stretched out their hands to sin [with the golden calf], what does He say? “And the appearance of the glory of the Lord was like a consuming fire atop the mountain, before the eyes of the children of Israel” (Exod. 24:17), and they were neither frightened nor quaking. But since they had made the calf, even from Moses’ rays of splendor they recoiled and quaked. (from Sifrei Nasso 11, Pesikta d’Rav Kahana, p. 45)

What forces Rashi to see the above in negative terms rather then the positive? Why not just applause the people for their reverence of holiness?

Seems to me that Rashi wants to give us a message: We dare not stay away from holiness. Quite the contrary – we should embrace it and try to get a “piece of it.”

Our Torah is full of commands to “be holy” (Vayikra 11:43-44, 19:2, 20:7), or “to be for me holy” (20:26)! Moreover, when the Torah commands that we shall go to “the place” in order to sacrifice and more, it adds the edict that “you shall inquire after His dwelling and come there” (Devarim 12:5). The Ramban explains (ad-loc) that “the reason for ‘you shall inquire after his dwelling’ is that you shall come from afar, and ask: ‘where is the house of God,’ and say to each other: ‘Let us ascend and go to the mountain of God to the house of the God of Jacob.’” In other words, according to this interpretation, we should not only be holy but should actually pursue it, seek it out, and make “an issue” of asking people how we can arrive at holiness.

But alas, in 2012, it seems that we have been doing just the opposite in so many ways. Let’s start with your kosher wine bottle. Usually, under it’s Kosher stamp, you have a long “description” of the level of kashrut of this wine, reading something like this: “Lelo chashash Tevel, Oral VeSheviit” (“Without any suspicion of [containing grapes that are] untithed, within the first three years of the Tree’s existence and not from the 7th year’s crop”). While the first two are clearly prohibitions that we should stay away from, is the 7th year’s fruit a prohibition? Is it a “forbidden fruit” that we should stay away from?

Seems like quite the contrary: “And [the produce of] the Sabbath of the land shall be yours to eat for you, for your male and female slaves, and for your hired worker and resident who live with you” (Vayikra 25:6). Not only can we eat the 7th year fruits, but the Ramban (additions to the Book of the Mitzvot of the Rambam, no. 3) suggests innovatively that this is not just an allowance but rather, a positive commandment. Any way you cut it, there is a clear indication that the fruits of the 7th holy sabbatical year are not forbidden!

And yet, on your wine bottle, it’s no less then presented as wine without a “chashah” of containing these fruit?

Wouldn’t it be an honor, or privilege, to eat them?

True, you have to treat them properly and can’t discard them as you would other foods. But equating them to untithed fruit and vegetables?

Indeed, we recall the last 7th year in which the most “Mehadrin” kosher method to continue eating fruit and vegetable salad was considered by many to be avoiding the holy fruit entirely and eating fruit from fields of gentiles. Assuming that they don’t contain holiness, is this how we should educate our children – “when you see holiness stay away from it” ?!

I would rather see a bottle of wine that says that it is kosher, and if it contains wine from the holy grapes of the 7th year, then state: “Yayin Kadosh Meshnat Hashmita” (Holy wine from the 7th year). I would embrace, rather than fear and avoid, the opportunity to have some of this holy wine in the four cups (though, without dipping your finger into it from the 10 plagues) and add holiness to my Seder table.

Pesach is a 7-8 day opportunity to immerse oneself in holiness, far beyond the mundane Wednesday or Thursday of a given week. Holiness is indeed accompanied by restrictions, and thus the prohibition of Chametz, together with the mitzva to eat Matza (see Tractate Pesachim 91b, Baal-Hamaor ibid 26b, and Masse-Rav to the Gr”a, Laws of Pesach 185/208-209; though after the Seder it’s just an option- Ibid 120a), creates days of Holiness (Tosfot Moed Katan 19a regarding why some don’t wear Tefillin on Chol-Hamoed) with endless opportunities in the realms of family, spirituality, and more. And yet, in a world in which holy Shemita fruit becomes something we tend to avoid, is it any wonder why uttering the word “Pesach” in front of a anxious Mother or Father would put a frown, rather then a smile, on someone’s face?

I believe we need to get back to the basics. Holiness is something we should embrace rather than stray from, and thus we should “look” for more opportunities to become holy rather then stay “safely” away from it. True, with every act of holiness comes restrictions and I can already feel the backache of cleaning the pantry from Chametz. But shall this hardship turn Pesach into the Holiday of misfortune rather than happiness?

Do hope and pray that once again, we can say -and mean- what we chant thrice each day: “You are Holy, your name is Holy, and the Holy ones each day will praise you”! Let’s fulfill the plan that God has for us with motivation rather then deprivation. “The Lord will establish you as His holy people as He swore to you, if you observe the commandments of the Lord, your God, and walk in His ways” (Devarim 28:9).

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