Pesach seder

Yesterday marked the beginning of Pesach, the Jewish holiday of Passover. I began the morning with a walk through the ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods around Jerusalem, where I found entire Jewish families burning piles of garbage in the hazy morning sunshine. I found out later that they were burning all the trash from their houses that came into contact with chametz (yeast) according to the Exodus 12:15 command. Some Jews during Pesach symbolically sell their chametz foods to goyim (non-Jews) for a shekel. I, for example, “own” all of my friend Jorie’s food containing yeast. It’s still in her room, and I won’t use any of it, but it’s reflective of Jorie’s practice of the Pesach tradition. Most grocery stores have covered the shelves of chametz foods with plastic tarp, as these foods will be forbidden for Jews in the next week.

Last night I was adopted by a Jewish family for the traditional Passover Seder. If you’ve never been to one, I would highly recommend it as it carries significance for both Jews and Christians (Christ’s Last Supper was a Pesach Seder meal). I spent the evening with Arik, an Israeli fellow in my dorm I’ve come to know quite well. We left Jerusalem around 3:00 pm for his sister’s apartment in Tel Aviv. At 5:30, Arik’s mother picked us up and we drove to his grandparents’ house in Haifa. The highway was packed with traffic, reminding me of Thanksgiving in the States. In Israel, Pesach is much like Thanksgiving. Families, religious or not, assemble to celebrate a large meal in the Passover tradition.

We arrived in Haifa around 7:30, and soon after the rest of Arik’s extended family arrived. There were aunts and uncles, cousins and nephews, moms, dads, brothers, sisters, and grandparents. Arik’s family is secular, but his German grandmother wanted the guys to wear their yarmulkes during the reading of the Hagada, the seder liturgy (?). Family members took turns reading Scripture, prayers, and rabbinical interpretations of the Pesach event while we ate matzah bread, drank wine, and shared in the symbolic Passover foods. It was my first real family-style seder, and I did my best to follow along even though I lost my place in the Hebrew readings several times.

After the Hagada, we shared in the Pesach meal. For starters we had matzah, salad, and chicken-liver pate’ (which, I’m proud to say, I’ve made before and was able to recognize last night!). Next came the matzo-ball soup, flavored with a traditional celery and chicken-broth base. For the main course, we had schnitzel (fried chicken breast breaded with sesame seeds), potatoes, sweet carrots and dates, and a rice dish. The food was delicious, and I was glad to share in a meal that tasted so well coming from an entirely different culture.

After supper we sat around and sang Hebrew songs. I knew a few of them from previous seders I’ve attended, but for some I had to mumble along in my broken, barely-comprehending Hebrew. Arik’s aunt, who led the singing, was kind enough to point out to me the songs we were singing in the song packets. I was definitely a foreigner to the language and tradition, but Arik’s family made me feel like a cousin. The hospitality was incredible, and I was glad to be sitting at the Pesach table last night.

Arik’s grandmother, the matriarch of the family, was the one who headed-up last night’s festivities. She was the first one to serve everyone else, selflessly carrying in dishes and loading up plates before her own. She was not satisfied with the meal until she was certain that everyone had been stuffed to the rim with spectacular Ashkenazi (Western European Jewish) cooking. When we were singing the Hebrew songs, she smiled and looked over at me to make sure I was enjoying myself. At one point, she took me aside to show me the view of the Mediterranean coast from her back porch. During the course of the Pesach meal I realized how much I missed my own grandmas, both having passed away by the time I was seven. I’m not usually one to be sentimental, but the intense desire to be loved by Grandma hit me like a ton of bricks. It’s not that other people in my church and family haven’t taken the place of Grandma in my life, because I do have an amazing family that loves me a lot. It’s just that, for a moment last night, I strongly pined for the grandmotherly touch after experiencing the concerned affection of a Jewish Sabta (grandma).

The evening finished late with hugs, kisses, and goodbyes of "Haag Sameach" (Happy Holiday). We arrived back to Jerusalem around 2:00 am, full of great food, sleepy, and content after a long evening of ancient tradition and love.