Let all who are hungry...

Grandma's special plates, the ones I only use for gefilte fish, are already put away.
The seder plate is in the drying rack. 
Silver kiddush cups are upside down on a towel, the sunlight is hitting them just now making them sparkle.
Matzah crumbs are everywhere... as they will be all week.

My house is again way too quiet... this is the way it is now that the kids don't live here.  After the joy of the Seders and having them home, they have gone back to Boston to get back to work. 

As it has happened twice before, one of my three children was not here.  This year, my it was youngest who was not home for Passover, as he was away for his semester abroad.  He actually spent his Seder in Israel, with the same family that hosted me when I was 20, and I loved that.  But of course he was missed.  

I would like to share with you the words he sent to his sister to be read at our Seder table.  

Shalom and Chag Samayach from the holy land.  This is Jacob (Barr), writing while I wait for Yael Betzelel to take to me to her husband's family's Seder near tel aviv.  As it says in the Torah, B'shanah haba'ah b'tel aviv.

Last year at the Seder, Maddie (*point to self*) read us a portion of the New Haggadah edited by Jonathan Safran Foer where he examines the text "Let all who are hungry come and eat," and makes us really consider if we are following this commandment.  Foer  challenges us not to make this another phrase we say because of the holiday, but actually turn it into a reality.  Practically speaking there is no use saying that when you are already sitting down to eat.  Those who are hungry can't hear you.  

I've been reflecting on this since I arrived in Israel (did I mention I'm in Israel?), where I've been coasting on the generosity of friends and strangers for some time now.  I could list many many instances of when Israelis have helped me, fed me, even clothed me.  I went on a four day hike from the Mediterranean to the Kinneret and each night stayed with a different trail angel, a person who lives near the trail and opens his home to travelers.  Sometimes it was planned, sometimes not.  One family invited us in when it was raining, gave us dry socks and shoes to keep, another took us to his kibbutz breakfast, and at our last location a large group of Thai workers at a kibbutz shared their (incredibly spicy and questionably prepared) Thai food with us while they took videos of us eating from across the table.

Did my characteristic pluck and boyish charm help?  Of course.  My unparalleled wit?  No doubt.  But all this aside, I have never felt so welcomed as I have been in the weeks before Pesach. We took a trip to Safed for a shabbat and stayed with the trail angel we stayed with on the hike weeks ago, and before we left he told our group of five that if any of us or any of our friends needed a Seder we were welcome to his and to stay at his house.

I emailed my birthright tour guide from December to ask about small day trips I could take from Tel Aviv and he responded first with an invitation to his Seder and to stay in his house, and second with ideas for trips.  An adult on the Frisbee team I practice with here told the entire team of twenty that if any of us needed a place for the Seder we were invited to his.

The list goes on:  Chabad Rabbis, Taxi drivers, my Israeli friends from camp: All of them ask us not out of courtesy but from a real desire to help us and give us a place to go.  There may be turmoil, political crisis, and absurdly expensive ground beef here, but in some ways the people here really do act like its the promised land.  So b'shanah haba'ah b'yerushalyim, may next year bring us closer to a world where everyone acts with the same genuine care as I've experienced with the people here.   

At a time when I am so caught up in my own work, and then in my preparations for the holiday, I have not been able to stop to be reflective.  I am deeply grateful that my son has.  



The Haggadah he refers to is amazing...  Click here for the link on Amazon.

If it's Purim, it Must Be Passover

About fifteen seconds after someone has given me a hamentaschen to celebrate the holiday of Purim, I am preparing for the THE BIG ONE... Passover. All those crumbs falling from that cookie shaped like Haman's hat (or pocket, or ear) are just "hametz to be" ready to be swept away in a matter of weeks.  Or Friday when the cleaning ladies come.  But that's not the point.

I have written about Passover before, the aftermath that is...  here is part of an article I wrote in 2010, edited to make it relevant for today, and also to take out the Hebrew fonts that don't work well with the Blogger site.  Enjoy, but don't get uptight, we still have a few weeks to go.

(Note: when I underline the letter H, read it gutturally, like a chhcchhcchh sound.  Very good. Please wipe off the screen and continue.)

PESAH

PASSOVER

aka

Hag He'Aviv -- Holiday of Spring

Hag HaMatzot -- Holiday of Matzot

Z'man Heiruteinu -- The time of our Freedom

Hag He'Aviv- The Holiday of Spring

Although, after the winter we've been having it's hard to imagine it, hopefully by April 14, the night of the first Seder, we will be noticing many signs of spring.  We will appreciate it all the more, I'm sure, to see those bulbs bursting out of the grey ground, and the tiny buds on the trees.   But as glorious as Spring will be, and as much hope as it imbues, it really doesn't capture the meaning or feeling of Passover.  We do much more on this day than celebrate Spring.

Hag HaMatzot - The Holiday of Matzot (plural of Matzah)

This explains quite a bit more, I suppose...as it's the only holiday where we are "commanded" to eat matzah. In fact, if you are asked by a total stranger when you are sitting in the mall  why you are eating that crumbly square cracker with your tuna (falling all over the place) I hope that you, like me, will launch into a 20 minute retelling of the exodus from Egypt.  Yes, the very taste of this food reminds us of the holiday and the memories that go with it.

Z'man Heirutainu -- The Time of Our Freedom 

This begins to tell the Passover story by it's very name.  This is the holiday where we take the time to discuss, teach and retell the story of how our people left Egyptian slavery, crossed the Red Sea, and became a free people.  We take time at our seder and hopefully in the weeks preceding and the the weeks following as well, to appreciate our own freedom that there are others who are not free. 

The challenge, of course, to make the Passover holiday, and especially the Seder, the festive meal that kicks off the seven or eight day observance, relevant and meaningful to all.  How do you teach slavery to your family and friends, when none of you, thankfully, have know slavery? Or maybe we have.  

How do you express the joys of freedom to a table of people who take it for granted.  Or who don't think they are free yet?

Spoiler Alert... If you are coming to my seder stop reading.

At my Seder (the holiday meal) this year, I will be asking people to share something that makes them either feel they are free or feel they are enslaved.  (Or, of course they can pass.)  Because even though we do not have obvious shackles that we can see, some of us may feel that way:  a job that is strangling, a project that can't get done.  Others may feel free and can share that. A new set of car keys, or a paint brush. Wearing sandals after a long winter. 

I'll get some flack for this assignment... my dad has already said "that's fine, but I'll just bring the wine," but even if people don't decide to share, they will at least have thought about it before they come to the table.  And I think that's the whole point, really.

The goal of the seder is to tell the story, though most Haggadot (the books we read from at the seder) do not really tell the story very well.   This year, my seder will focus around the the passage called Avadim Hayinu, We Were Slaves. 

This is the English Translation:

We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt, and God the Eternal brought us out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.  And if the Holy One, Blessed is God, had not taken our ancestors out of Egypt, then we, and our children, and our children's children, would still be slaves in Egypt.  So, even if all of us were wise, all of us understanding, all of us knowing Torah, it is still a mitzvah for us to discuss to departure from Egypt. And anyone who tell the story of the Exodus from Egyptian slavery is to be praised.

Even in the mall.

The Festival of Freedom... but Whose?

I just watched my older son and daughter drive down the street from the bathroom window.  In our house the bathroom window overlooks the driveway and rather than have them see me standing in the driveway staring at them, I snuck here.  From this vantage point, I can open a spot between the white horizontal blinds and watch the car make its way down our street.

 My kids, enjoying a little together time before they say good-bye

For nearly a week, the house was full again.  More than full at times, with all three kids, my in-laws, and various  friends, a boyfriend, and a couple of sleep-overs of friends. My husband took off time from work.   We ran the dishwasher, the washing machine, and drier more times in a week than we usually do in a month, and went through more Poland Spring 5 Gallon jugs than the state of Maine probably exports in one week.

And the matza!  Like fur when my dogs are shedding, there are crumbs absolutely everywhere, even in places where I know that matza was not eaten.  (My bed?  The bathroom? Well, lets just say, it better NOT have been eaten in those places!) 


This was the joyful week of Passover... long anticipated and over so quickly.   We also call it the Holiday of Our Freedom, although that seems like a bit of an ironic joke if you are looking at it from my perspective.  Yes, of course we celebrate the freedom from slavery and we tell our children the story of the Exodus from Egyptian bondage.  But looking back at this past week, it only just now feels that I have even enough free time to finally reflect.


We are certainly bound to eat only very specific foods.  No bread, of course, but in our house it does not end there.  We, and when I say we, what I mean is, I clean the pantry, the snack drawers, and the refrigerator and remove every food item which contains any bit of "hametz," the generic term for food which contains flour, corn, soy, yeast, wheat, or anything which could act as a leavening agent.  I take this opportunity, as many people do, to thoroughly clean, wipe down, spray and re-line the shelves of the pantry.  This is both time consuming and cathartic.  I donate a few bags to the Center for Food Action, I throw away half finished boxes and bags, and I line up items on the counter for the kids to finish, much to their delight.  

I don't know why we do this, but we buy chocolate and other candy during Passover that we would never  EVER buy during the rest of the year.

Then there is the the cleaning of the rest of the house.  Depending on how early a start I have gotten, the de-cluttering will go one of two ways... true de-cluttering or shoving everything into boxes and bags and putting it all in the office.  I had to go with the latter this year, as my in-laws arrived on Thursday, and the first Seder was on Friday.  Today I will begin going through all those boxes and bags and looking for all that important stuff I buried a week and a half ago.  I carved a pathway to the computer so I that I could do my work and my son and I could manage to keep up with Facebook during this week. 

Next we have the cooking.  If you celebrate Passover, you know that the cooking does not stop after the first two nights... Oh no.  Because we are so fussy about what we eat, we pretty much eat at home all week.  So we are cooking (and in this case, it is "we") a LOT.  And though we cut out things like corn, rice, and pasta, we get very creative with other carbs like potatoes and quinoa.  This year, as it happens many times, Passover week was school and work vacation... so everyone was home and the kitchen was the hub of activity. 

Our Seder Table... almost ready.

Nana helps with the eggs.  

Can you say SCHMALTZ?  I know it's not healthy.  I know it's wrong.  But for one week a year, I cook with chicken fat.  I didn't read it in a cookbook, and my mom never told me to do this, but what can I say?  It's in my DNA.  And while I'm at it, I start speaking with a fake accent as if I'm from the old country, I cook and eat Matza brei, which I don't even like.  Gefilte fish and hard-boiled eggs make their way to every breakfast table.  Whipped butter appears, because it's so delicious on matza.  Some traditions I learned from my parents, some we started ourselves.  And I know my children will pass them along just as surely as I know they will tell their children that "we were slaves in Egypt."    I know that the taste of my matza-ball soup on their tongues tastes like Judaism as much as the sound of the chanting of the Shema sounds like Judaism.

Last night, I stood at the ironing board, ironing out number 2 of 4 antique tablecloths that were my grandmother's.  (I hope to beat my previous record and have all the tablecloths and napkins ironed and put away before Rosh HaShannah.)  I came across a new wine stain, and wondered if Grandma, known in her later years as GG (for Great Grandma) would be happy or furious to see that now-dulled to a rusty-red-colored mark.  Would she be glad to know that I use these so many times each year for all the Jewish holidays?  Or would she scold me (as she so often did) for not taking better care of her heirlooms  i.e. leave them folded up in the drawer and use a new tablecloth from Bloomingdales?  


So when will the feeling of freedom come?  When the mountains (literally) of laundry are done?  When the ironing is finished?  When the kitchen finally gets clean?  When I find the box that contains the two paychecks that I mistakenly put in a pile in the office somewhere?  


Or, wait a second.  


Am I feeling it now, in the luxury to ignore all those tasks, plus hours and hours of work (you know, the kind that pays the bills) that has been put on hold because I have had the freedom to give myself over completely to my family and my holiday.


Z'man Heirutainu... The Time of Our Freedom...is now.

This is actually the pile of laundry I'm ignoring while writing this blog posting.

Not exactly essential, but really helps with the feeling of freedom.
Let's call it the suggested Pesach aperitif.

Skip the Apple Pie

Click here for appropriate listening.

The New York Yankees just signed Andy Pettite for one year at $2.5 million.  (Read all about it here.)


I would like to get paid $2.5 million dollars for one year of work.  In my field of Jewish Education, that will never happen, and I will be lucky to ever even see a job that pays any Jewish Educator remotely what I believe we are worth, but that's not what this blog is about.


This is about one of the truly American things... BASEBALL.   
I love it.  Well, I love New York Yankee Baseball.


But, getting back to Andy Pettite, I'm sure that $2.5 is a lot less than he used to make, and he's gotta start in the minors, but still, I'm thrilled.  I like Andy a lot. In my mind he's a true Yankee and it will be good to see him in pinstripes again.


As I said, love Yankee Baseball.  I know that if you live somewhere else it's cool to put down New York teams, especially New York.  Okay.  "Dis" all you want.  There's something very exciting about this team and they're starting to rev up now.


I did not grow up a Yankee fan.  I've lived in lots of different cities through my life, and had a only mild interest in baseball.  I don't like other sports at all.  (Rumor has it that a New York team won the football thing this year.  Big deal.)  I only marginally follow other sports so that I don't seem like a complete idiot if and when I am ever invited to a party and the discussion comes around to something other than Jewish Education, parenting or music.


When I lived in Boston in 3rd grade, the kids were allowed to bring in their transistor radios to listen to the Red Sox games in school, so I remember pretending to like baseball then.  My Grandmother was a baseball fan and I think my Dad might have taken me to Shea Stadium to see the Mets in the 70's.

I just spent an hour trying to photo shop my own face where Susan Sarandon's  face is.
If someone knows how to do this and then get it to stick on the blog, I'd be forever grateful.
And able to be even more hilarious.

While living in Durham, NC, I started to really enjoy the game, going to the Durham Bull Stadium to watch the Durham Bulls play.  The draw, at first, I'll admit was the dozen or so local brews on tap that they had, and the low priced tickets.  But I understood the game, and it was a fun, inexpensive night out.  (A short time later, the movie Bull Durham was filmed there, and by a lucky coincidence, I was there for a cast party and met Kevin Costner. I'll bet he remembers me too.  I'm not in the film, but my friend Jean is in some of the crowd shots.)


When life took me to San Francisco, my appetite for live music surpassed by far my interest in baseball, but I still took in a few games at Candlestick park and saw the SF Giants play there.


But it wasn't until 1995 that I became a Yankees fan.  I had been living in New Jersey for several years.  Three children, two cats in the yard...the American dream!  My husband and I were both working hard at our jobs and enjoying domestic tranquility.  We'd take our kids to the park, and to little league, and the movies, drive the carpools and have family dinners on Shabbat, and on Sunday nights with my parents and my brother's family.


And when it was time for the Grateful Dead to go on tour, we would line up our babysitters, save up our money, make some sandwiches, throw some beer in the cooler and spend a few nights doing what we loved best.  Going to concerts.


Until August 8, 1995.  That was the sad day that Jerry Garcia died.

Jerry Garcia, Captain of our team.

That night we put the kids to bed and stood on our back porch and listened to tapes till the middle of the night.


Everything was gonna be different.


And that was the summer I started to watch Yankee baseball.  I had concert tickets to a show that would never happen, and fan energy that had no where to go.  But the Yankees were on top... they were a young team with great energy and they were winning too!  My husband got a pair of pretty good tickets from a client at work, and we went on a starry summer night.  It was not a Dead show, but there was an undeniable air of excitement.  Yankee Stadium was fun.


And the the players!


Derek Jeter, Bernie Williams, Andy Pettite, and one year later, my favorite Yankee, Tino Martinez... young handsome guys just playing baseball, every single night (practically) all summer and right through October?  How come other women don't know about this!?


Going to more games turned out to be a challenge.  It was difficult to get tickets and EXPENSIVE.


I watched a lot of baseball on tv and listened to it on the radio.  Once in a while, we would get tickets.


By another lucky coincidence, an old high school classsmate met my parents at a diner and had a conversation that I can imagine went something like this:

"Hi Doctor and Mrs. Cantor."
"Hello, didn't you go to high school with our daughter, Juliet?  Didn't I fix your broken nose in 1983?  How are you? Do you live here?  How's your family?  Look at those pretty girls, your daughters?  Is this your wife? She's lovely.  Just look at these pictures of our grandchildren!  You know Juliet lives in New Jersey again now, these are her kids, aren't they gorgeous?"
"Um, yes... I..."
"So where are you all off to on this fine day?"
"We are going to a Yankee game."
"Juliet is a Yankee fan.  Here's her number.  You should call her, she doesn't really have any friends here in New Jersey anymore.  She and her husband would love to get together with you."
"Um, well..."
"Okay, well, here's our lunch, you should try the Reuben here, it's fantastic.  Enjoy the game, I think you should put on the radio and check the traffic at the bridge.  I'll tell Juliet we saw you."

And that is how it happened that I was the lucky recipient of fantastic Yankee tickets at least once or twice a season.


That gravy train ended when he gave up his tickets... when the new Yankee stadium opened in 2009 he opted out of the price gauging upgrade and we've been fending for ourselves.


March is a very long month.  Typically it's cold and there are no vacation days or days off, unless you are lucky enough to have Spring Break, which I have never had.  (Well, I have once, but I can't write about it because this is a family blog.)  But March brings spring training.  And that means you can count down til opening day!


But with the date of April 6 being opening day and the first Seder of Passover, my excitement for some Yankee baseball may have to wait for the first few home games of the following week.  In the meantime it's time to bring up the Passover dishes and the pinstripes too, both signs that winter is almost over (was it ever here at all?) and spring feels like its on it's way, with unseasonably warm temperatures in the Northeast.

(And for those of use who can't wait, there's spring training baseball which is also televised and on the radio!)


So welcome back to Andy Pettite, I hope you play a lot this season and do what we need you to do for our pitching on the Yankees.  And good-bye and thank you to Jorge Posada for your great tenure as a Yankee since I became a fan, and was a real mensch and role model for (almost) the entire time. 


Anyone for a hot dog and a beer?