Celebrate Passover 5768!

Seems like a popular meal to break passover (see Adar’s entry below). I had a great Passover. It went by quickly and I didn’t seem to miss the chometz all that much.

and Pesach 5768 will be done. We’ve invited a few friends over after sundown for pizza, beer, and cookies to celebrate the end of the holiday, and the return of Chometz.

Running out. Just about right.

Pesach quite nicely. My sister, who is not Jewish, was asking about Sukkot. She’s already getting geared up for the party. LOL.

There’s actually a Kosher restaurant near me that’s open for Passover, so I met a friend there for lunch with the kids. YUM. And it was so nice to not have to figure out what to make! (Since we’re out of seder leftovers)

I’m thinking of making a huge batch of fried matzah tonight so we can just dig into it whenever.

to be a very nice Passover.

Sweetie made fabulous charoset, which last night I munched on matzah with horseradish—always seems to me to be the taste of freedom, sweet and bitter all at once!

And here I am, passing-over into a new phase of my life, no clue what’s coming next. Wilderness indeed! But it feels right and good.

I had a great time at the seders. The horseradish, for some reason, wasn’t the kind that sets your face on fire so I enjoyed plenty of it. Everyone else thought I was crazy because they did not like it. Oh well, more for me! They also cringed at the taste of the shmurah matza but I think I’ve gotten used to it. To me now it tastes like unsalted saltines. I had plenty of it with the horseradish. All in all, a good time was had by all. Gotta love the seders.

Seders were wonderful. Had a “kid friendly” (aka fast) Seder the first night, and then a grownup Seder the 2nd.

Bringing lunch to work has been a fun change, and also is saving money. I wish I had the discipline to do it all year round.

My great-aunt passed away right before Pesach. She was 96. She SHOULD have been buried Thursday or Friday, before the holiday.

But my shrew of an aunt is in charge of her estate, and was busy packing up her vacation home in Florida. She would not fly up. She insisted she had to drive. She would not get back to PA in time for a Friday burial.

She wouldn’t let us bury Aunt Sunny without her. Instead, she scheduled the funeral for TODAY. A HOLY DAY. Needless to say, the rest of the family was furious. And of course no rabbi would come to officiate, so my cousin led the service. And while it was a graveside service, it was NOT a burial, because it’s a Jewish cemetary, so she’ll be officially be buried tomorrow.

The whole thing was utterly, totally ridiculous. My aunt is utterly, totally ridiculous. So instead of having a nice family seder Sat and Sunday night, the family sat around and talked about the situation.

One to remember? Yes. Fun? Not so much.

and I put “lead” in quotation marks because a really good seder involves a lot of chaos (in my opinion)...I learn something new. Tonight I learned about the gritty determination needed for freedom.

When we got to the section where we tell the story, I suddenly felt the need to interleaf the Passover story with the story of this congregation, the first Deaf Jewish congregation in history. It was started by visionary people with a dream (some of whom are still alive), and the establishment fought them the whole way. There are rules in traditional Jewish law about “deaf-mutes” (horrible, outdated term) that made the Orthodox and Conservative movements turn them down flat. Then they approached the Reform movement, which welcomed them, but even then, things were not easy. There were no deaf rabbis (there are now) and very few rabbis knew ASL (or still do.)

Yet they persevered, and made a Jewish community for themselves, one in which they could be full participants. They welcomed hearing people who wanted to belong, and all their hearing relatives. They have encouraged rabbis and student rabbis who were willing to give them a chance. Every rabbi who has served them that I have met raves about them, about their ruach [spirit] and sweetness.

But they didn’t get redeemed, so to speak, by sitting around waiting for someone else to provide for them. They got in there, raised funds, made waves, and insisted on being treated as adult Jews. They were not wealthy people (remember, nearly every household in the congregation has at least one and usually more disabled persons) but they made it happen. And there is no self-pity to be found.

All I could think was, this is the kind of courage that carries one out into the desert. This is the kind of courage that builds something new.

Happy Pesach.