Pesach

I love Passover. Honestly, I was a little unsure about going all out on Passover with so much turmoil in my life between telling my parents and having them be super weird and spending too much time at Hillel for my job, but I am so glad I did it the way I did it. A few days before it started, my friend and I went to the Jewish part of town to shop for food at Kroger and got stocked up. I did the Ashkenazim custom because that is what most of my friends do. So we got our matza, matza ball soup mix, and our kosher for Passover wine and were good to go.

I didn't go to Hillel for seder either night, which I think turned out to be a good choice even if I did miss some of my friends. It's hard enough for people to be serious and stop talking on shabbat for kiddush and motzi that I can't imagine how distracted I'd be for a several hour long dinner. On Friday night, a friend invited me to this woman's apartment who took Hebrew with him at the university through the 60+ program. She likes to invite college kids for sedarim who can't go home. She and her husband belong to an Orthodox shul but aren't actually Orthodox. There were about 19 people there. After lighting shabbat and yom tov candles we sat down to our assigned seats (yes, there were name cards) and began the seder. A five year old girl stood up on her chair and sang the four questions all by herself. It was incredible. My friend brought her toys of the ten plagues and she kept us entertained the whole night. The friend I went with is the same friend who taught me to read Hebrew over winter break and I was so grateful to him for that. I had a hard enough time keeping up with them skipping around in the Hebrew. I probably wouldn't have enjoyed it at all if I wouldn't have been able to follow along. Honestly the seder was so fun and the food was so delicious. When it ended I couldn't wait for the next seder.

For the second night I went with the same friend but to a different location. He invited me to his uncle's house which is only an hour away from my parents so it was an easy transition to go home for Easter. This seder was straight up Orthodox. There was a "shabbos goy" there as a waitress and everything was in Hebrew. We did havdallah around 8:30 and finally got started on the 5 hour seder (oy). Everyone had the choice of reading in Hebrew but if the guy leading knew you and knew you could read Hebrew, he pretty much made you read in Hebrew. I was among the three people who read their paragraph in English. Even though the Seder was super long, it was fun because of all the conversation and debating and singing. This family had such interesting customs. For example, the youngest and the oldest person in the room sing the four questions together. So the leader's daughter sat on her grandma's lap (also a Holocaust survivor) and they sang together. It was really cool. And in between every section of the seder, they sing the ten parts of the seder to different tunes. Once, we sang it to the tune of "take me out to the ball game" another time to "America the beautiful," to pay tribute to the freedom America offers Jews so they don't have to pray in secret.  I would have never gotten to see any of these kinds of customs at Hillel.

I had so many matza balls that weekend and they were 100x better than the ones at Hillel. I was in heaven. Anyways, after we ate there was a lot of singing and bouncing around and role playing (more at the second seder than at the first). Dayenu really is a fantastic prayer/song. Apparently, I've heard Eliyahu many times before at havdallah services but it never stuck with me until Passover. Now it's like my favorite song. It's so catchy.

What I really liked about these seders was that even though my friend told certain people in advance that I'm not Jewish, no one asked about it. No one asked me about converting, or my name being Mary, or if I had a Jewish boyfriend. Everyone just let me be and let me enjoy the holiday with them. I really appreciated that. Also, I made it through the whole second seder with some people thinking that I was Jewish. One older man after asked me about where I grew up and if there was a synagogue there. I told him that yes, there is a reform temple there. And he asked me if that's where I went growing up. I said well, no, I'm not Jewish. He said "What?? You not Jewish? But you can read Hebrew?" Apparently reading Hebrew is the key to one's Jewish identity. Good to know I'm off to a good start.

My other thoughts on the entire holiday of Passover: matza is only good for two days then it starts to taste absolutely disgusting. And only egg matza is tolerable. Nothing else. I liked making the sacrifice for G-d but I was so glad when I finally broke Passover. Seriously, it's a good thing this only comes once a year. I figure by next spring, I'll have forgotten how terrible a week without it was.