c. 2007 Religion News Service

NEW YORK _ Every time her birthday falls during Passover, Melissa Hantman of Rochester, N.Y., stifles a sigh and looks for a palatable but permissible dessert to offer party guests.

Her spiritual stomachaches have given way to philosophical headaches lately, as the 27-year-old Reform Jew ponders whether the growing range of kosher-for-Passover delights somehow defeats the purpose of the weeklong holiday.

“The point of Passover food, I’ve always been taught, is to remember the hardships faced by the fleeing Israelites, so you eat matzo _ the bread of affliction _ instead of bread,” Hantman said. “I have a nagging feeling that we’re getting off easy because it’s really not a diet of affliction anymore.”

Indeed, Jews traditionally observe Passover (which begins April 2 this year) by adhering to strict dietary laws. They abstain from any foods containing leavening agents, remembering that bread did not have time to rise during their ancestors’ hurried escape from Egypt. For thousands of years, the holiday’s dietary staple, matzo, was a simple cracker created by baking a flour-and-water mixture for 18 minutes.

But with kosher food producers like Manischewitz now offering flavored varieties and seeking mainstream markets, consumers like Hantman are beginning to wonder: What happens when the biblical “bread of affliction” becomes a tasty treat? And what about using new products to mimic forbidden foods or render traditional dishes nearly unrecognizable?

From a theological perspective, rabbis say any product bearing the Orthodox Union’s Kosher for Passover stamp can be eaten anytime. But when it comes to matzo, most recommend sticking with the old-fashioned kind for the seder _ the family meal on the first and second nights of Passover.

“It has to be regular matzo, it can’t be a flavor or all those shenanigans,” said Rabbi Menachem Genack, rabbinic administrator of the Kosher Division of the Orthodox Union, which oversees the status of food products all over the world.

Alternative side dishes and gourmet wines are always welcomed, he added, though most rabbis would choose a wine with low alcohol content in light of the four glasses consumed during the seder.

Jeremy Fingerman, CEO of R.A.B. Food Group, which owns Manischewitz, said the company’s new matzo factory in Newark, N.J., will roll out experimental shapes, sizes and flavors next year. With a blessing from the rabbi in residence, Yaakov Horowitz, Manischewitz aims to make it as easy as possible for people to keep kosher.

Besides, matzo is long overdue for a marketing makeover, not just a manufacturing one, said Fingerman, an Orthodox Jew.

“Matzo is called the bread of affliction, but it really was the bread of freedom. Jews didn’t eat matzo when they were slaves, they ate it when they left,” he said. “It was their first taste of freedom.”

Susie Fishbein, the Orthodox Jewish author of the “Kosher by Design” cookbook and a Manischewitz spokesperson, advises consumers to try mixing traditional and modern foods during Passover.

“It’s eight days, so there’s a lot of meals, and brisket and matzo ball soup isn’t going to be on every single menu,” she said. “What better way to dress up your grandmother’s gefilte fish than with a creamy wasabi horseradish sauce?”

The demand for ways to replicate year-round recipes has also exploded, said Eileen Goltz, an Orthodox Jewish food writer in Indiana known for her list of Passover baking ingredients, including substitutions for honey, confectioner’s sugar and baking chocolate.

One year, she recalled, she catered a wedding during Passover, creating a sponge nut cake with chocolate frosting.

“People are becoming more sophisticated when it comes to food. Passover food, they realize, doesn’t have to be bland, doesn’t have to be boring,” she said. “Sure you’re restricted by ingredients, but it’s no more problematic than if you have diabetes or allergies.”

While all these options are technically permitted, Rabbi Yonah Blum, director of Chabad House at Columbia University, worries these trends could create a “slippery slope.”

For him, a self-described “Passover fanatic,” the idea of ridding one’s home of leavening products also represents getting rid of one’s own ego and “making more room for God.” During Passover, his family only eats meals made from scratch. Even plain matzo isn’t good enough for the seder _ it has to be shmura matzo, baked from grain that has been supervised by rabbis from the beginning.

Of course, he admits, there are many different interpretations of how to properly observe Passover, even within the Orthodox Jewish community. “When you have two Jews on a deserted island, there’s still three synagogues,” he quipped.

But the Lubavitch _ an ultra-Orthodox community to which he belongs _ also have another saying, he said: that beyond the four sons described in the seder ceremony, ranging from the wisest to the youngest, there is a fifth son who doesn’t even know there’s a place for him at the table.

“Maybe this is Manishewitz’s attempt to track down the fifth son, through these palatable Pesach (Passover) products,” Blum said.

This year, Hantman’s birthday falls after Passover, but her Conservative Jewish grandmother, Sarah, will turn 82 during the observance.

The retired teacher now lives within walking distance of a kosher bakery in Queens, N.Y. She recalled that in her childhood, the most she could expect for a Passover birthday was a “little sponge cake with a candle in it.”

Now, she gets fudge-frosted Manischewitz cakes baked by her granddaughter, who also orders chocolate-covered cashews from an online candy company that stocks Passover options.

“You can do so many new things now,” the elder Hantman said. “We never even thought of that when I was younger.”

KRE/LF END NEROULIAS

Editors: To obtain photos of matzo bread being produced at a factory in Jersey City, N.J., go to the RNS Web site at https://religionnews.com. On the lower right, click on “photos,” then search by subject or slug.