The First Passover Post

Perhaps the lamest piece of work I produced in college was the final project for my folklore class. We were supposed to do background research and fieldwork. I did the background research, and then I interviewed two people, pretended that I had interviewed myself, and discussed each of us as if we were a significant-sized group: “1/3 of the sample” (i.e. person A) does this; “1/3 of the sample” (i.e. person B) does that; and “1/3 of the sample” (i.e. me) does the other thing.

Despite the methodological lameness, my conclusions were in fact quite sound. I was researching Jewish holiday practices. Specifically, I wanted to see what holidays contemporary Jews were most likely to celebrate and why. Think about it: which holiday do you think is most popular? (Don’t cheat and look at the next paragraph.)

Did you say Hanukkah? That was my initial hypothesis, but no, the most frequently celebrated Jewish holiday is Passover. For some reason the number 74% sticks in my head, but I have no idea where it came from.

The next question, of course, is: Why Passover? The Jewish identity answer is that Passover is about the essence of being a Jew, about being oppressed for being a Jew and then escaping that oppression, proudly, as a Jew. The Jewish culture answer is that Passover is about family tradition--Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur (the other major candidates for most popular holiday) take place in synagogue, and Hanukkah always has that “weak imitation of Christmas” problem. The third answer, which is as much a result as it is a cause, is that Passover is so adaptable. The basic story of escaping oppression can be articulated in terms of Zionism, Marxism, Lubavitcherism, “Messianic Judaism,” feminism, lesbianism, and just about any other ism you can think of. In other words, even if you’re a fairly assimilated Jew who isn’t interested in synagogue, celebrates Christmas, and thus has no need for Hanukkah, you can still find meaning in Passover.

Ever since I did that project, I’ve been interested in Passover adaptations, most of which take material form as haggadahs: vegetarian haggadahs, secular haggadahs, feminist haggadahs, lesbian haggadahs, self-actualization haggadahs, children’s haggadahs, and the list goes on. I have to say, though, that I’ve become a rabid haggadah moderate. S and I have additional readings that we love--I can’t do a seder without some Song of Solomon, a little Anne Frank believing all people are good, and ten contemporary plagues. But when it comes to seders that are all politics and no prayer, you lose me.

Which brings me to the inspiration for this post: The New Freedom Seder, a haggadah compiled by Rabbi Arthur Waskow and The Shalom Center. I’m all for peace, justice, and Judaism, and for the Shalom Center as well. Which means I probably shouldn’t even be saying this. But you know, bad poetry and muddy politics just bug me. So I really have no desire to recite this at my seder:

Big Oil Burning: The Planetary Pharaohs

They Enron-cook the books.
They rent the Burmese army to sweat rebellious workers.
They pour the smoke that chokes asthmatic children.
They sweltered heat-stroke on 40,000 European elders.
They melt the ice caps that keep our planet balanced.
They torch great Amazon forests.
Their Saudi branch pipe-line paid to explode the Twin Towers
And their Texas branch pipe-line cooked lies to burn Iraqi cities.
With oily money they bought the oil-soaked White House.
They scorch all earth, befoul all oceans.

As we breathe in what the trees breathe out,
Air pungent, sweet, and peppery,
And the trees breathe in what we breathe out,
Air filled with songs and stories, sighs and laughter,
The burning oil fills up our lungs and noses,
heats and dissolves our brain,
Turns all earth oiloholic.

Heat melts.
Melts us to death, or
Melts our walls of separation
To connect our different agonies —
Warming our hearts to join in cooling Pharaoh.

Instead, we’ll be reciting this:

My beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.
For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone;
The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land;
The fig tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.

Then we’ll spill drops of wine and recite these:

Hunger, War, Crime,
Disease, Racism, Abuse,
Poverty, Homophobia, Pollution,
Indifference to human suffering.

And eventually we’ll conclude with Nigella’s (flourless) Chocolate Truffle Cake. Details to follow.