By Adar
Passover is a holiday that is celebrated differently in every Jewish family. It can be a fun, lighthearted night of celebration focusing on songs and entertaining kids; it can be a night of remembrance and thought-provoking conversation. It can be a big production with tons of family or a small seder just for the immediate one. It can take one hour or seven. But every Passover seder follows the same structure or order to the night, with specific rituals and symbols on the table; and every passover has the same words at the very end. And Next Year In Jerusalem.
The story of Passover talks about a piece of Jewish history when the nation was enslaved in Egypt, and later escaped to freedom. It’s often used as a metaphor or anecdote to relate to modern-day issues that deal with freedom of all sorts, and so many people can connect with the story on different levels. I think that that is the reason it is such a persevering holiday that is celebrated not only by religious families but by completely secular families as well (such as my own).
But this year, I spent my Passover with a very religious Jewish-American family that lives in Jerusalem who had made Aliyah to Israel about a year ago. Having the experience of a religious seder, and in Jerusalem, was not quite what I expected but ended up being a very cool opportunity.
Modern Orthodox families such as this one have their lives centered around family, their synagogue and congregation, volunteering and studying the Jewish texts. They have fairly normal everyday lives, work in normal jobs, but definitely have Judaism well imbedded in. I was chatting with the father in the family before the seder started and we were talking about our Ulpan experiences and mishaps we’ve had with learning Hebrew. I told him I was more comfortable speaking than reading, but that I’m getting much better. He replied that he’s been reading Hebrew for a long time, and he’s working through the modern commentaries. I omitted that my current adventure through Hebrew is Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.
Passover with a religious family starts at sundown, after which you cannot use your phone or electricity that has not already been started before-hand (many orthodox families have self-timed light switches that go on at 6pm on holidays and saturdays). The evening was led by the father in the family, Yakov, who would go through the Haggadah and interject commentary either he thought of or by a specific Rabbi who had many things to say on the wording and meanings. Throughout the seder we’d sing and do the traditional passover rituals, like dipping your pinky in wine for the plagues and leaning to the left. But as we went through the Haggadah I started to realize that the ceremony has so much more text than my family has ever done. Apparently, there’s actually a full prayer service within the seder that we always seem to skip over at home. With this family, we did not skip a single word. Not a single word. And during many of the prayers, which they were very familiar with, it seemed as if they had almost a contest of who could sing them fastest. Elana and I kind of sat there just listening. I have no idea how to sing these long prayers, though I suppose if you hear them every week multiple times your entire life, you get fairly familiar. There were so many little things I learned, like that the absolute last thing you’re supposed to taste is the afikoman (a specific piece of matzah that is hidden during the night and then found later on) so if you still want to eat dessert or still have some wine left, it’s too bad. And I had to eat gefilte fish out of courtesy. I hated it. Guess I’m not really Ashkenazi.
Our seder ended up lasting almost seven hours, including dinner. The family that hosted Elana and me was so gracious and welcoming. Loud and friendly and very very East-Coast Jewish. They also invited two neighbors whom they had never actually met but who they had heard had no seder to go to. They definitely made me feel like I was very much included in the ceremony and in the family for the evening, and I’m glad that I got the chance to experience a ceremony that I’m familiar with in a totally different way, and learn more about the religious community in Israel. One of the things they mentioned that I found very interesting was that the vast majority of the people in their community (modern orthodox immigrants to Israel) volunteer every week. I think they said something like over 80%. I believe it comes from the strong values of community and Tikkun Olam, repairing the world, that makes this such a usual thing. Anyway, it was wonderful to hear and I was just very glad to meet them and spend the holiday with them.