A short talk for the Germantown Jewish Center morning prayer service
Thursday April 2, 2015
The second half of Parashat Shemini (11:1-47) of the Torah that is read this week introduces the
topic of everyday Kashrut, the Jewish dietary laws.
Now with
Pesach coming, we also add on the layer of Kosher L’Pesach the dietary laws to help to fine tune this
practice for the 8 days of the Passover holiday. We live in a place with easy access to foods and goodies to
make our seders festive. But I want to tell you a story of a time during the
Civil War when it was not so easy to find everything needed.
To set the scene: April 3 is the 150th anniversary of the fall of
Richmond which would soon lead to the various surrenders in 1865. I have been studying this for a year to
prepare for a trip to experience the reenactments of Lee’s retreat and surrender
at Appomattox on April 9. It is there where Lee and Grant sat in a simple house
to write the words that would give the confederate soldiers the freedom to return
to their homes. This year the anniversary is smack in the middle of Pesach. In
1865, Pesach was celebrated on April 11.
So here is
one story during the Civil War when 19-year-old
Private Joseph Joel of the 23rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry organized a seder in
1862 with 20 others in his regiment who were encamped in West Virginia. (which
split off from Virginia to be a free state)
Their commander, Rutherford B. Hayes (the future 19th president) gave them permission to take the time to celebrate. To begin the soldiers sent someone to Cincinnati, Ohio. They found a Jewish merchant who sent them “seven barrels of Matzos” along with “two Hagodahs and prayer-books.”
A number of the Jewish soldiers were dispatched to the countryside to find various food items for the festive Seder meal while others stayed behind “to build a log hut for the service,” a possible reference to a temporary synagogue.
They improvised the rest.
For maror they found a weed, whose bitterness, Joel wrote “exceeded anything our forefathers ‘enjoyed.’
Instead of Charoset he wrote, “ We got a brick which, rather hard to digest, reminded us, by looking at it, for what purpose it was intended.” That evening, Joel and the 20 other Jewish soldiers sat down and conducted the Seder. “There, in the wild woods of West Virginia, away from home and friends, we consecrated and offered up to the ever-loving God of Israel our prayers and sacrifice,” he wrote.
The ceremonies were passing off very nicely, until we arrived at the part where the bitter herb was to be taken. We all had a large portion of the herb ready to eat at the moment I said the blessing; each eat his portion, when horrors! what a scene ensued in our little congregation, it is impossible for my pen to describe. The herb was very bitter and very fiery like Cayenne pepper, and excited our thirst to such a degree, that we forgot the law authorizing us to drink only four cups, and the consequence was we drank up all the cider. Those that drank the more freely became excited, and one thought he was Moses, another, Aaron, and one had the audacity to call himself a Pharaoh.
The consequence was a skirmish, with nobody hurt, only Moses, Aaron and Pharaoh, had to be carried to the camp, and there left in the arms of Morpheus. This slight incident did not take away our appetite, and, after doing justice to our lamb, chickens, and eggs, we resumed the second portion of the servce without anything occurring worthy of note.
“I doubt whether the spirits of our forefathers, had they been looking down on us, standing there with our arms by our side ready for an attack, faithful to our God and our cause, could have imagined themselves enacting in this way this commemoration of the scene that transpired in Egypt,”.
While a number of the participants in that memorable Passover commemoration later died in battle, Joel survived a number of wounds and after the war he moved to Staten Island with his wife.
So, as we eat in ease and abundance, freedom and comfort, let’s remember those who continue to fight in conflicts for whom the freedom to celebrate this year must be done with watchfulness, and creativity.
Hag Sameach
For the full story in the Rutherford B. Hayes collection go to
