A Passover Evening

This was new for me, Passover.  I participated in this year's ritual with the parents and family of my son's girlfriend for the first night of the remembering and retelling.  Much getting ready in the house, with boiling water being poured on counters to purify the surfaces.  All dishes, pots, and utensils were put away, and the Passover sets brought out.  The table was set with a large round Seder plate holding bitter herbs, a roasted egg, a shank bone, greens, charoset, and horseradish.  Matzah had been brought in and placed within a cover, bowls of salt water were placed at either end of the table, and wine enough for the required four glasses to be drunk by each member.

What surprised me the most was not the explanation of each segment, why dip the herbs in salt water, why hide half of a matzah, why have an egg for soup, or why the horseradish, but the encouragement to ask questions, to wonder, to challenge, to debate.  Oh ho ho, not in my Catholic upbringing was I ever asked an opinion or invited to challenge belief.  That was a crime to be reported as doubt in confession, at least in the household and parish of childhood.  This was news to me, and I listened and learned.

Several of the people sitting around the table voiced that they were uncomfortable with certain phrases in response to the reading of the Four Sons answering to "Why is this night different from all other nights?" There was no condemnation of their feelings, but a jovial debate.  We leaned to the left while drinking the first cup of wine, to indicate that we were now free men and women who were not in a hurry, that we were no longer slaves who had to sit on the floor during meals.  Also, by leaning to the left, the windpipe is not hampered by food traveling down the esophagus, which elicited a response from one of the younger participants who said that roller coasters will often end with a turn to the left, in order to release pressure on the heart by centrifugal force, returning your gizzards to their proper places.

We washed at the sink, pouring the water three times over each hand from an antique copper jug with two handles.  We ate and recited prayers, each component representing ages of tradition done for centuries from generation to generation.  The two youngest that were at the table valiantly held up, for the prayers had begun after nine, the supper at elevenish to past midnight, ending with prayers well after one o' clock in the morning.  I was in bed no earlier than two a.m., something that usually doesn't happen these days unless someone needs emergency stitching up.

Food included a new dish for me called tzimmes, a compote of carrots, apricots, golden raisins, and cinnamon.  It. Was. So. Good.  There was roast turkey, more matzah, more charoset (chopped apples, walnuts, and wine), and potatoes mashed in chunks with paprika that were equally delicious and wholesomely filling.  Pepsi was allowed at the table since this version was made from cane sugar, not the grain-based corn syrup.  Because the Jews had to leave in a hurry, there was not time to let bread rise; in accordance, grains and legumes avoided at a Seder are wheat, barley, oats, barley, corn, rice, millet, rye, lentils, beans, and spelt.

There was a joy in participation, in reliving the stories, in honoring those that had come before and longed for freedom.  I learned more about Judaism from this warm, loving family than in my previous years put together, and am a better person for it.  The Jews didn't build the pyramids, the ten plagues may have had a volcanic eruption as a catalyst.  Not a subscriber to religion, for I think you just need to be kind and say thank you, I still wonder why there aren't more Jews in this old world.  The vibrancy, community, and the core belief in performing a mitzvah is necessary and good.

The basis of Passover is very different from the Sicilian spring celebration of St. Joseph's Day, yet St. Joseph's Day recounts another deliverance, that of the poor from starvation.  Dia de San Giuseppe is a tradition that may have factual basis, yet Passover is absolute history that had been lived by hundreds of thousands, whose descendants continue upholding the memory of what had been.

I am hoping that both will become part of spring's ritual in my home; today I am also thinking of the coming time to gather leeks in the woods amid bursts of trillium and the white flowers of bloodroot.  Seasons come and go, phases of the moon wax and wane, tides ebb and flow, night and day, up and down.  Sleep well under Virgo, Leo, Bootes, and Ursas Major and Minor as they turn through the dark sky, having watched centuries ago when the sphinx shook mortar dust from its heavy, stone paws.  Good night, safe to home all.