Put the Hummus Back!

If you want to see the closest thing in Israel to Manhattan's Penn Station during rush hour, come to the "Osher Ad" Chassidic supermarket in Ashdod during the week before Passover.

My wife and I were there making our large Passover purchase, with the grocery cart struggling under its load. We saved the dairy products for last as we always do, so that we can check out before the perishable stuff begins to grow a beard. A few meters away from the goat-milk section where I was picking out goat-milk yoghurts and cheese, is the refrigerated prepared-salads section, where you can find the ready-made hummus, tahina and eggplant salads that are the mainstay of Israeli tables and the common denominator of Ashkenazi, Sephardi, religious and secular families alike. Someone once joked that the symbol of Jewish unity in Israel should be a plate of hummus. Imagine an Israeli flag with two blue stripes on a white background with a plate of hummus in the middle…

At any rate, a conversation between an elderly Russian-Jewish husband and wife riveted me. The couple, in their late 70's, were browsing the prepared salads section in the refrigerator. Obviously secular, they shop at "Osher Ad" because of the inexpensive prices and the "soul-food" options like the thirty-two different types of herring that are difficult to find elsewhere. The husband and wife were obviously raised by Yiddish-speaking parents and grandparents, because they spoke Yiddish with each other rather than Russian. The wife picked up a container of hummus dip and put it in her shopping cart. Hummus is chickpeas in Arabic, part of the legume family like all other peas and beans, which Ashkenazi Jews refrain from eating on Passover as a matter of custom that goes back hundreds of years.

Grisha, the husband, impatiently asked his wife Sonia, "What do you need hummus for?"

Sonia snapped back, "To eat! To spread on my bread, like I always do."

Grisha said, "What are you talking like a Communist for? There's no bread on Passover; there's matza!"

"OK," Sonia said, "I'll spread it on my matza."

"Put the hummus back, Sonia!" Grisha barked. "It's forbidden on Passover."

"Since when did you become such a Chossid, Grishk'e – you eat pork sausage all year long that you buy from the Russian deli in town. And you're telling me I can't eat hummus?!"

Grisha's face turned bright red. The smoke fumes were coming out of his ears. He slammed his meaty fist on a carton of seltzer and declared in Carpathian-accented Yiddish, "Mittornisht essen kitniyus un Pesach! One may not eat legumes on Passover!" End of argument…

* * *

Wow, I said to myself, this is deeply profound, a poignant praise of the Jewish People. At surface value, the conversation sounded ridiculous: he eats pork all year long but he won't let his wife have hummus on Passover. Yet, let's delve below the surface.

Grisha and Sonia received atheistic education from the Communist regime that made every effort to destroy any trace of Judaism and Jewish custom. Obviously, they had righteous parents and grandparents who succeeded in embedding the Yiddish language in their brains as well as certain other customs from their childhood. Sure, Grisha probably served in the Red Army and ate what all the other soldiers ate, pork included. Yet, he remembered from his childhood that an Ashkenazi Jew doesn't eat legumes on Passover. Clearly, if someone would put a pistol to his temple and threaten to pull the trigger, he wouldn't eat hummus on Passover. This is the type of dedication that enabled the Russian Jews to weather seventy years of harsh tyranny at the hands of the Communists.

Parents, don't ever take any custom lightly. Anything we do in the service of Hashem will make a lasting impression on the soul of our children for years to come.

As in the case of Grisha, who according to Halacha is in spiritual terms considered a baby who grew up in captivity and therefore may not be judged, something expressly forbidden in Torah, such as eating pork or lighting a fire on Shabbat is fine. Why? He never learned Torah! He grew up learning Marx and Lenin rather than Rashi and Rambam. Yet, what he heard from his grandmother has remained embedded in his heart and mind forever; so much so, that he'll sacrifice his life for it!

The next time anybody thinks that he can turn up his frum nose at the Grishas and Sonias of the world, they had better be careful. No one can fathom the gratification that Hashem has from His beautiful children, who despite years of Communist indoctrination won't eat hummus on Passover. Mi k'amcha Yisrael!