Funding: A holiday of faith and brotherhood, and of the fulfillment of the Zionist dream
It is common to think that the origin of the name "Maimona" is in the word "faith", and indeed the holiday has a religious meaning, but it is also a social holiday, which is common to hold together, and open the doors wide to anyone, even those who do not know.
In Israel, the holiday also gained national significance, and it became a kind of Independence Day for Moroccan immigrants
Rabbi Asher Sabag
23/04/2022
Saturday, 23 April 2022, 16:21 Updated: 18:35
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Some claim that the word Maimona implies Rabbi Maimon, Maimonides' father. Maimona table (Photo: ShutterStock)
What does the word "financing" mean?
There are many interpretations written for the origin of this word, some have argued that it implies to Rabbi Maimon the father of Maimonides that the day of his death falls on this date. "faith".
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Why celebrate funding?
Passover is the Feast of Redemption, and every year the Jews in exile would say what appears at the beginning of the Haggadah,
And when the Passover ended and the situation remained as it was, it could have provoked despair and slackness.
Therefore, the Jews of Morocco chose at the end of Passover to celebrate the financing with great joy and rejoicing to show that they still continue to believe that a day will come and the promise to return to the Land of Israel will be fulfilled.
Another reason is the renewal of the fraternity at the end of the holiday.
Because on Pesach itself they were careful not to eat with others for kosher reasons, so immediately after Pesach they would host each other to show that the removal was not because of hostility, God forbid, but only because of Pesach kosher.
And now at the end of the holiday again everyone is eating each other's food without any fear.
It is customary to eat jaban, special jams, Moroccan cookies and other sweets.
Funded in Or Akiva, April 2019 (Photo: Reuven Castro)
Above all - the escapee
What are the customs of the holiday?
As soon as Passover came, the members of the household would begin to prepare for the "financing".
In Morocco, the Arab neighbors would go to buy flour from them to prepare the holiday food, and in Eretz Israel they would wait until the local rabbi would buy the chametz back from the gentile to begin preparations.
Set a festive table full of holiday treats, such as the "Jaban" (protein whipped cream with sugar syrup), garnished with almonds and nuts, special jams made from eggplant, oranges, Moroccan cookies, skewers and other sweets and candies.
And above all the traditional muffled dish that is served along with honey and butter to the mourners.
The mufti symbolizes the first chametz we eat after Passover, and although the holiday has already ended, we show that the message of the matzah, the bread of faith, continues even at the end of the holiday, in eating the first chametz.
They also used to open the doors of the house to invite anyone who wanted to enter, even if they were not family members or guests.
In the neighborhood where I grew up in Netanya, many people I did not know at all would come to our house, neighbors and acquaintances who heard the sounds of joy and entered the house and joined in the celebration of singing, dancing and the Torah that lasted until the wee hours of the night.
We too would go out of our house to visit the neighbors and family who also celebrated the financing and thereby renew our brotherhood and connection as Jews.
"We were like dreamers"
Funding as a national holiday in
the Land of Israel Funding has taken on additional significance.
Not only an aspiration to ascend to Zion, but a celebration of the fulfillment of the Zionist dream, and as the poet writes in the Psalms,
The financing in the Land of Israel became a kind of another Independence Day for the Jews of Morocco, a day of confession for all the good we were privileged to receive thanks to the same faith that beat in the hearts of our fathers and mothers who kept their tradition against all difficulties.
Perhaps this is one of the reasons why the funding has become very popular in Israel, and many non-Moroccans have been added to the celebrants.
They, too, connected to the message of acknowledgment and joy about what we received, to the renewal of brotherhood and family that the holiday symbolizes, and to the connection to the chain of generations that brought us to where we are.
And we will end with the traditional blessing of the Feast of Maimonides, "multiply and dine," which means that everyone will have well-being and success, plenty of blessing and good luck, so that this year we too can celebrate joyfully and thank the good we have received, and reconnect with one another.
Happy holiday.
Rabbi Asher Sabag is a member of the Tzohar board
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