The “fish and the bread” ‘Gefilta and Matza’ (and): the age-old cry of: “Let My People Go”
(it does seem ^ like ‘an old familiar story’)
Today, if you are not too busy cleaning — we will have an extra-credit-special-session, what one might call a pre-Passover expose of Gefilte Fish and Matza — two foods that have excited and in some cases bedeviled the Jewish community, from time immemorial to this very day.
Let us remember, the very real possibility the Fruit Compote, which we so love at Passover time, was invented by Ashkenazi Jews in order to address the unintended effects (on our Kishkes) of these traditional foods of Passover, recalling not only the collective history of the Jewish people but also alluding to our original Pesach call to Pharoah to let our people go . . . please tune in today at 3:30 PM.
Gefilta Fish — (or ‘Al tee Dag’) — There’s more to this story than meets the eye — but not just any eye . . . . maybe even avoiding an evil eye.
Among religiously observant Jews, gefilte fish historically (and apparently even theologically) became a traditional Shabbat food — especially in order to avoid “borer,” which is one of the 39 activities prohibited on Shabbat outlined in the Code of Jewish Law, the Shulchan Aruch. Borer, literally means “selection/choosing” (some would say, separating), occurs when one picks the bones out of a fish, which somewhat resembles separating out the “the chaff from within any given food”.
The Gefilte Fish is often eaten on Shabbat (the sabbath) because separating bones from meat, as well as cooking (legally and religiously forbidden) is not permitted by Rabbinical law.
On a symbolic level, dag, the Hebrew word for fish, has a Gematria or numerical value of seven, symbolic of the day of Shabbat, further underscoring the serving of fish on that day. However, since Jewish law forbids separating the flesh of fish from its bones, a pre-made fish cake emerged historically in order to avoid the need to perform “separation,” thus making a preparation such as gefilte fish a regular (if not obligatory) Shabbat staple.
Side Note: Gefilta Fish also had a part in the early Polish Catholic Tradition
In Polish Catholic homes (more commonly in the northern regions near the Baltic Sea, gefilte fish (In Polish: karp po żydowsku or: ‘Carp of the Jews’) was a traditional dish to be eaten on Christmas Eve (for the Twelve Fish Supper, as these are traditionally meatless feasts.
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Matza and Bloomberg and us . . . .
Bloomberg visits the Streit’s factory in Orangeburg, N.Y., the country’s only still-operating mechanical matzah factory, as the company prepares for Passover, which begins next week…
Let’s now take a little extra peek behind the Passover Curtain,
or: As the blind man once said, as he ran his hand over the first sheet of Matza coming off the rack, “Who wrote this sh@t?”
https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2024-streits-matzo-factory-passover/?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTcxMzE4Mzk2OCwiZXhwIjoxNzEzNzg4NzY4LCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJTQlRUOEFUMEFGQjQwMCIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiI4RENBNTA1MjBBM0I0QUExQUM3NEQ4M0JERDFFOTI4OSJ9.lzEJC0H3eReeiKO-NmeLJkB_0ZUxOtW_sTxHrTos6Lk&sref=xhJDrP3t
Mah Nistanah ha’Lilah Hazeh:
Why are these times different from all other times?
Because ‘Am Yisrael Chai’ — is now.
