Here is What is Missing From Our Passover Observance! Mimouna and Muffletas!

I always felt that something was missing from Passover. After all the “work up” to the holiday, the cleaning, the cooking, purging my house, truck and car of chumatz and all that effort to live in a “leaven-free environment,” Passover comes to such an abrupt end. After the “Sedar High” of being with friends and family and reliving the Exodus from Egypt, we go to the all time “low” of “chumetz - induced social isolation” and meals of “Kosher-for-Passover” ersatz food.

A few days before the end of Passover that little voice in the back of your head says, “ENOUGH ALREADY.” Then, you look at the calendar and try to figure what the LAST DAY actually is! Does your calendar know that Jewish holidays begin and end at sundown? Does it take into account that Jews in Israel celebrate fewer days than Jews in the Diaspora, or that Reform Jews observe fewer days than Conservative or Orthodox Jews in the US? Finally, you count the hours until the traditional end-of-Passover meal… PIZZA! Somehow, eating pizza, even as a communal activity, is just such a let down.

Well, I’ll tell you what is NOT on your calendar. The Jewish holiday of Mimouna! Not only isn’t it on your secular calendar, but it isn’t on your Jewish calendar either. It IS, however, a national holiday on the calendar in Israel and has been since the 50’s. Originally a Moroccan Jewish festival, it spread throughout the Sephardic (Jews of Spanish descent) and Mizrachi (Jews of eastern Muslim countries) communities in addition to those who came from the Mahgreb (North Africa).

Mimouna is a festive conclusion of Passover, as well as a celebration of Spring, renewal and CHAMETZ! Friends, family, and communities, gather to eat food that was forbidden during Passover. The key food is called a “muffleta,” which is a large, North African thin pancake (kind of like a giant crepe made from stretched dough and cooked in a frying pan) drizzled with honey-water. They are made in huge stacks and consumed in massive quantities. (While I sit eating Pizza from a cardboard box, my Sephardic friends send excited emails about their celebrations, I can only imagine the festivities while watching Youtube videos of women stretching and cooking their muffletas.)

What once was a friendly home observance is becoming politically and socially charged in Israel these days. National politicians flock to impoverished and unemployment-ridden cities like Lod and or Akiva, areas where Jews from Muslim countries were originally settled after being forced to flee their native Muslim homelands, as well as a variety of ‘development towns’ on Mimouna night for “photo ops” with local politicians wearing the traditional red tarboosh (fez).

But this year, there was a new and very positive twist on this very old tradition, or perhaps, a revitalization of the original custom. Originally, the Mimouna was a holiday that marked the good relations between Jews and their Muslim neighbors in Morocco. At the end of Passover, Jews would once again open their homes and their Muslim neighbors would bring presents and flour to prepare muflettas. In that same spirit, IRAC, the Israel Religious Action Center- of The Israel Movement for Pluralistic Judaism, is seeking to revitalize the original spirit of the festival as part of an initiative to create positive interactions between Jews and Arabs in Israel. They organized Mimouna festivities in Jerusalem and in Yaffo, where Jews and Arabs joined in eating mufflettas together. There was Eastern and Arabic music, and storytellers on hand to talk about the coexistence that once prevailed between Jews and Muslims in North Africa. It was a small step, but even small steps can bring people closer together, a little at a time.

I think we have a lot to learn from this festive moment on the Israeli calendar, a moment that should be reflected on all Jewish calendars in the Diaspora as well. We are a diverse people, with so much richness to share within the “multi-plex” that is Judaism. By only embracing the customs of Ashkenasic Judaism, we sell ourselves, and our joint heritage short, and miss the opportunity to expand our knowledge, our compassion, and our understanding of who we are, where we have come from, and where we are going.

Shabbat Shalom, Rabbi Rose