Onwards and Yeastwards
by Rabbi Sari Laufer
Talking about bread on Passover seems, if not heretical, than at least a bit torturous. It is, for Passover at least, the ultimate example of wanting what we cannot have, of feeling deprived, of missing that which was. And this year, entering our second “Pandemic Passover,” do we need another reminder of that? As we prepare for another Zoom seder, continued distance from family and friends, missing our old lives and routines—it does not seem like we need our no-carb week to remind us of much of anything.
But it is precisely for these reasons that I am thinking about bread—and specifically about baking it. Like every Instagram influencer out there, I became a bread baker over the course of this year. I started with challah, like any good Jewish baker would. I experimented with recipes, played with cooking times, and tried different braids.
Somewhere along the way, I was given a sourdough starter as a gift, and so—playing to type—I added that into the mix as well. As delicious as the sourdough might be (thanks, lifelong Wise member and Early Childhood educator Melissa Wilkenfeld!), it is the challah that has grounded me, that has carried me through this year, and who reinforced a lesson I’ve known, but which I hope to carry into this Passover and beyond.
In a year where days lasted months and months blended into one; a year during which each day was indistinguishable from the next, when routines and rhythms were upended; I marked time with my challot, with the rhythms and routines of yeast and flour and eggs and honey marking each and every Friday, often with my daughter Orli braiding the dough next to me. When the calendars of school and work felt tenuous at best, the Jewish calendar remained steadfast. When this Passover week is over, I will return to my challah baking (and eating) routine.
When we hold up the matzah on Passover, we name it as both the bread of affliction and the bread of freedom. This year and beyond, I imagine I will see challah much the same way. Years from now, I might look back on challah the bread of affliction— remembering this year (+) of pandemic life, of Shabbat after Shabbat passing alone in our home. But its taste will also be the taste of freedom, of the blessings of rhythm, new routines, and a stepping away from the tyranny of time.
Read more from the Wise clergy and congregants in What We Carry Forward, Wise’s 2021 Haggadah supplement.
