A-Z OF JEWISH VALUES -

EFOR ETHICS & F FOR FAIR TRADE

It’s the countdown to Pesach- or Passover: the Feast of History, the Feast of Freedom, the Family Festival

So many aspects to it-

Chag haMatzot, (the Torah also calls it) – the Feast of Unleavened Bread.

Most of us associate it with food. For some it’s for fressing. For sure also for refraining, restricting your diet quite drastically. And some would say, it’s the Jewish Grocer’s Bonanza season.

For the spiritual among us – it’s z’man cherutenu, period of our liberation, inner freedom, rejoicing in one’s Jewish religious identity

For others it can be quite secular – I have a Kibbutz Haggadah which celebrates the festival of Spring (Aviv) with no mention of God at all.

It’s an occasion for a great community celebration; or a warm family get together.

And the home atmosphere is special, following the spring cleaning and the change-over to new Pesach utensils – a special air of freshness.

All these values are aspects of Pesach:
Family, Feasting, Fressing, Food-restrictions, Festivity, Freshness, Freedom…

And -Fair Trade- our national youth movement RSY Netzer has made Pesach this year into the Festival of Fair Trade. Actually it isn’t only our youth movement. This is a joint project between RSY-Netzer, LJY-Netzer, Noam (Masorti) and- wait for it- Bnei Akiva. (the Orthodox Youth Movement). The aim is to educate all synagogues in the UK in the hope that they will all become fair-trade. They are saying that the simple move of agreeing to buy Fairtrade tea and coffee is a great thing for a synagogue to do, and reflects Reform Jewish values. If as a spin-off, it creates co-operation amongst budding junior community leaders of the different wings of Judaism, that can’t be bad.

On this issue, I have always upheld buying kosher lePesach products. And I have also maintained that there is no such thing as kosher lePesach Tea. Coffee without additives I would argue the same for. My authority for this is Rabbi Louis Jacobs.

To be kosher lePesach in the sense of being true to the Festival of Freedom I would say the best Kosher le-Peasch label is the Fair Trade one.

This is the statement of the youth movements:

Fair Trade goods include products like Café Direct, Tea Direct and Traidcraft brands, where the producer is guaranteed a fair and stable price, and any surplus is invested back in the developing world producer communities. Fair Trade is helping tens of thousands of small farmers in poor countries to build a better life for themselves, their families and communities, and helping build links of friendship and solidarity across the world.

The Fairtrade mark independently guarantees:

Decent wages
Minimum health and safety standards
A fair minimum price and benefits for the community
A longer term trading relationship
A commitment to better environmental standards and working towards sustainable production
And supporting the right for workers to join trade unions.

Synagogues and individuals have been backing this campaign around the country. Pesach is but a focal point for a year round concern.

Supporting the Government’s Make Poverty History Campaign is part of it too, with it’s plans of trade justice debt relief and more aid to suffering countries.

Such campaigns have been going long enough and strong enough for supermarkets to take notice. (It involves other products like fruit and vegetables too of course).

There’s a famous story of a congregant who came to his Rabbi and said: "Rabbi- every week you talk about things like Human Rights, Social Justice, Ethics, Environment, Spirituality." "Yes," said the Rabbi, "so what’s on your mind, what would you like me to talk about?" "Well," he said, "don’t think me presumptuous, Rabbi, it’s just that I’m used to hearing Rabbis talk about Judaism!"

In the coming weeks I will be addressing some of the internal Jewish issues surrounding Pesach from a Reform point of view – in particular how do we keep true to tradition taking into account our varying degrees of belief and observance.

What is essential for us is that we don’t lose sight of the wider human values of all that we do. All the aspects of Pesach are valid and worth promoting. Even those sceptical about the Exodus – you may have seen the documentary on TV this week- Archeologists like Finklestein and Silbermann (no relation) say that evidence shows that the whole of Sinai was so heavily surveyed by Egyptian fortifications there’s no way 600,000 could get through. Moreover in the 13^th century BCE Canaan was under Egyptian control. They would have been going from Egypt to Egypt.

My response is: that even if it was a myth developed centuries later Pesach still has ethical value. It is the story which has sustained through years of exile and real slavery- and it’s lessons are for all humanity.

The Pesach lesson of fair trade and ethical business is nothing new. There was the case of the Salanter Rebbe, founder of the Musar Movement.

When asked to inspect a matzah-making factory, he was asked to:

look through the check list of tasks –

ingredients yes, supervison, yes, machinery checked,yes, clothing yes, - no extraneous foodstuffs brought in, yes

baking procedure yes, timing 18 minutes baking time no more, no less – yes.

OK – what’s missing? No-one could answer him.

Make sure the staff are paid a decent wage for the job, he said, or you’ll lose your Kosher le-Pesah certificate!