(or Not the Yeast of Their Worries)
(or To Rise or not to Rise)
Hello from Jerusalem,
I prepared for Passover exactly the opposite of how my observant Jewish neighbors here did. I went out and stocked up on loaves of bread both sliced and pita (the latter I usually purchase fresh), and put them in the freezer. Starting on Saturday, no product with any sort of yeast or leavening of any sort will be available for purchase anywhere in West Jerusalem. My observant neighbors, the large numbers of Ultra Orthodox, and even some of my Reformed Jewish friends are preparing for Passover by cleaning out all such products. People go to great lengths to get the yeast out. They only eat peeled fruit during Passover (fruit is covered with natural yeast). They put special filters on their faucets, lest some bit of yeast get in during this time. I’m sure the observant take many more precautions I don’t know anything about.
I’m not going to get into a discussion of Passover at this moment except to say, because the Children of Israel were in a hurry to leave bondage in Egypt (actually, God told them to skedaddle), they didn’t have time to let yeast bread rise, so they hastily made a yeast-free variety to take on their cross-country journey to the Promised Land. A part of the celebration, I think, is proclaiming solidarity with those freed, former slave ancestors. Having a yeastless week is part of that piety. If you want to learn more, type Passover into Google for scads of information about the amazing lengths observant Jews go to properly clean their houses, kitchens, utensils, cars and more, to make them ritually clean for this major, festive, Jewish holiday.
Here’s a little vignette about the degree of concern many people here have about products containing yeast. A few days ago I read in the Jerusalem Post an article entitled, “This night will be like any other night” a playful reversal of a question asked during the ritual Passover meal called the Seder, “Why is this night different from all other nights? The article was about Viagra and the serious problem that its coating uses a yeast by-product and therefore, is not kosher for Passover. This was a real dilemma for some men, anxious to continue their Passover celebration, after the Seder with the family, in the bedroom with the wife. Thankfully, the rabbinical scholars determined that if you put your Viagra in an empty gelatin capsule, available at any pharmacy, then an observant Jew would be permitted to take it during Passover. Whew! Disaster narrowly averted.
Continuing the anti-yeast theme, a couple of days ago I was given a tour of a matzo factory. Matzo is the yeast free, almost tasteless (to me, at least), heavy sort of soda cracker-ish “bread” consumed by Jews during Passover and especially at the Seder. The “factory,” manned only by Hasidic men and teen-aged yeshiva students, really looked more like the large basement of a typical, oldish, off-white stone Jerusalem house. Outside the door was a sweet-smelling, sprawling stack of olive wood which, we were told, burns slower and hotter and is better for cooking matzo. We stepped in and were immediately engulfed in a flurry of forty or more workers vigorously doing various matzo making tasks. I was amazed and entranced by the whole thing, thrilled to see the small, crowded rooms of bearded, side-curled, ultra-orthodox men vigorously, energetically, making this important Passover food.
Here is the challenge of making kosher matzo. It cannot have yeast yet it must be made from grains which have the potential to ferment, or rise. At some point of history, the rabbis decided it takes 18 minutes after water is added to flour for fermentation to begin. Therefore, the entire process, from mixing water and flour, to kneading, to rolling, to baking, must be done within 18 minutes, after which any left-over dough is discarded and all the utensils are thoroughly cleaned so the whole process can begin again. In this factory it takes four minutes from flour to finish, therefore they can do eight or nine rounds from one bowl of mixed flour and water before having to clean everything and start with a fresh mix. Let me describe one four minute round of work.
It starts with specially grown, specially cured, guarded-since-it-was-ground flour, watched day and night lest a crumb of yeast bread, or worse, a drop of water, pollute it. Imagine a small L shaped room, divided into three still smaller rooms. The long part of the L is for flour storage. The short leg is the water room (the water is brought in daily from a special well), and the nexus of the two at the corner is a small square room where the two are mixed. First the flour room door is opened, the flour is put in the mixing bowl, and the door is closed. Next, the water room door is opened, the water is handed to a water pourer in the mixing room, and that door is closed. Then, the pourer pours it into the flour and the stirrer vigorously begins to mix while the supervisors start to keep time.
After thirty seconds of mixing, kneaders take hunks of dough to their small, eighteen by thirty inch stainless steel kneading tables. Mounted at the back of each table is a long, three inch light-weight pipe that swings and swivels. The kneaders bring the pipe down onto the dough on the table, pressing, pressing and pressing again the hunks of newly mixed dough. Some of them rhythmically bounce up and down with the pipe, 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 5 and 6 and 7. I enjoyed watching their athleticism and focus.
The kneaders then pass the hunks of now more unified dough to the scorers who divide the hunks into even pieces and give them to the rollers, seven on each side of a stainless steel table, twelve feet long, three feet wide. Roller One takes the lump, rolls it down to a certain thinness, and passes it to Roller Two who rolls it a bit thinner before passing it to the next Roller who continues the process until Roller Seven who finishes the now paper-thin, round piece of dough and tosses it, floating through the air, to the pricking table, where it slowly settles, an off tan circle of yeastless almost-matzo.
The prickers roll a barbed stainless steel rolling pin over the round, whispy pieces of dough. Why? Holes are poked in matzo as one more safeguard against it rising. As if this poor, leaven-less, beaten down, kneaded, rolled almost to oblivion bit of dough is going to do anything except lie there and get baked? After the pricking, the baker (whose job requires the greatest skill), places a long, ten foot pole on the pricking table so four raw matzos can be draped over it. He then uses the pole to put the matzo in the hot, stone oven which reminded me of the ovens you see in pizza restaurants.
Imagine my surprise when the dough, immediately after landing in the oven, poofed up momentarily, then sank back down. Was that rising? I don’t know and somehow it seemed impolite to even ask. I timed the next batch he put in which was done in eight seconds, hard, round, approximately one foot circles of tough, fresh matzo. The factory owner gave me a box with three in it. It was good to be able to taste the real thing, though it made me exercise my chewing muscles more than I wanted.
The Jewish faith does not reserve religious expressions or behavior to one day of the week. Piety enters all parts of life. I enjoyed these glimpses of Passover in Jerusalem where I have learned about measures taken to ensure both proper rising, and proper non-rising. While part of me thinks, at times, such extreme measures can border on the absurd, another part of me respects the fervent piety of those who seek to live lives of holiness before God.
