But buried even further is the holiday my family celebrates: the one in honor of pain, suffering, and unendurable hardships. Passover, or Pesach as the sincere greeting cards call it, comes the week before Easter. This has always baffled me as other Jewish holidays seem to shift dates with the wind. But I don’t dwell on that fact nearly as much as the anticipation of another near comical, ‘traditional’ ceremony.
I hate putting the word traditional in quotes, but I do so in respect to the historically accurate Passover dinners (seders). Before sundown on the first night of the holiday, all leavened breads (basically products baked with yeast or made with grains other than flour) are to be removed from the home. This includes bagels, cookies, crackers, and cakes. Ours are safely stored in the freezer and pantry, away from the eyes of god and the faith. All food is to be prepared according to strict rituals. But there is always a pie from the local grocery store. Yes, pie is bread too.
Our seder typically begins when grandma and grandpa finally decide on which 5 or 6 of the 9 mismatched haggadahs we should attempt to use in the ceremony. The haggadah is like an instruction manual with historical and biblical references. A traditional ceremony reads the entire book back to front, observing ritualistic hand washings, food tasting and wine toasts. There is a pause in the middle for dinner. Kosher, of course.
So we open the 5 different haggadahs with 5 different paginations and 5 different translations at sunset, or within 2 hours after. Grandpa, the eldest male and head of household, begins reading the difficult small text of his book, though he could probably easily recite from memory. He continues despite the text size and incessant proddings by mom to use a magnifying glass. After a couple of drawn out pages and some bitter herbs, grandpa delegates the reading to the rest of us in blocks. Grandma always warns me to slow down, and my sister to read more clearly. Lana tends to slur her speech out of laziness. Mom doesn't care to read much at all, so the rest of us usually pick up her share. Grandma reads with great emphasis and solemnity. This is, after all, a most holy and sacred day. Mom sips her wine in between wine toasts. Lana and I give each other a look of contempt for that. We then make faces, stick out tongues, and laugh under our breath. Grandma and Grandpa don’t notice, but mom does. “Knock it off you two. You’re too old for that,” we’re reminded as she reaches for the bottle of Manishevitz.
There’s a prominent moment in the ceremony where the youngest boy is to read, one at a time, the four questions, for which he receives four answers. This I’ve always been told. Grandpa asks my sister and I to take turns reading two each. But our books only have one, with all four answers in the following sentence. Mah nishtanah ha-lahylah ha-zeh mi-kol ha-layloht. “Why is this night different from all other nights?” Lana reads, and follows with all the answers. “Okay Jamie, your turn,” Grandpa says, not realizing what just happened. We move on.
Each year Grandpa swears the haggadah has gotten longer, so we skip more pages. Each year you can taste a little more rum an a little less apple juice in Grandma’s traditional dip, charoset. Grandpa reads, “Pour the second glass of wine and distribute the charoset and bitter herbs with matzah.” Mom tops up her fourth as we pass the salty-sweet combination around the table. I like it and take 2 or 3 while we skip some more historical figures and the wisdom they’ve imparted on the evening and the faith.
Then we eat. Well, first they eat. Matzah ball soup, a repacked ball of crushed cracker in water, and gefilte fish, the same but with cold fish, never quite appealed to me. But then it’s brisket and other stuff I can tolerate. The women fight over which can get the food and dishes while the others stay reclined. Grandpa and I look at each other and laugh out of complete lack of understanding. The Sprite and Diet Coke 2-liters make an appearance, as well as a Lipton tea bag, and French’s mustard and Heinz ketchup bottles. At least Heinz sounds Jewish. Grandma retells her version of the story of Moses and the Israelites while we eat. It seems to get more intense, and possibly more vengeful, every year. God angrily smites the firstborn children of pagan Egypt and carefully passes over the homes of his faithful followers. We help out with the parts she misses. “Moses' brother was Aaron. It was Aaron who turned the water to blood.” And so on.
After the meal comes the second dish argument, followed by the afikomen. In our house that’s where grandma has hidden two pieces of napkin-wrapped matzah somewhere in the living room, dining room or kitchen. Lana and I race like 8-year-olds to claim ‘first find’ and bragging rights. Even more prized is when one has to help the other find the second piece. And occasionally having to result to “Hot/Cold” can be near humiliating. We are both in our twenties.
All of us know there is a second half to the haggadah, but not one of us could tell you what it has to say. For our family, finding the afikomen marks the end of the ceremony and the beginning of “what’s on TV tonight?” Grandpa turns it on, but Grandma is still deep in the telling of our history. She lectures on the holocaust over the cheers of a basketball game. Mom complains about the noise, wafting her hands as if there were a fly. At some point Grandpa and Lana talk politics. Grandma and I discuss science. Mom speaks of her coworkers’ illnesses. But the conversation grows stale and we grow tired and call it a night.
“Happy Passover,” we mechanically chant as we leave, not stopping to think how that really sounds.
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