Seder With Beach Limbo?

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not as if I don’t enjoy things like beach volleyball, windsurfing, kayaking and moonlight salsa dancing. In fact, during the past week, when most Orthodox day schools have their winter breaks, my family and I have been pleasantly immersed in all those beach rituals at the Club Med in Ixtapa, Mexico.

A typical day: Catch a few ocean waves, join the family water polo tournament in the main pool, take a kid to archery, another to trapeze, another to the pingpong tournament, back on the beach for a few more waves, lunch, shoot some basketball, lounge by the pool, play some bocce ball, order a cappuccino by the sunset, have dinner, see a circus show, learn a silly dance and for a nightcap, join the kids for a salsa party on the beach.

In other words, as far away as you can get from my Pico-Robertson neighborhood.

Or so I thought.

There I was poolside, on day three of our vacation, fumbling with four water glasses I was bringing to my dehydrated kids, and who do I run into? The one guy I see most Friday mornings on Pico Boulevard when I pick up challahs for Shabbat: my friend Julien Bohbot, owner of Delice Bakery and Delice Restaurant.

Bohbot was there on business. He is putting together — with the people of Club Med at Ixtapa — an all-inclusive Passover excursion with his own kosher gourmet cuisine and all the fabulous amenities of Club Med. For a set fee, you can avoid all the Passover cleaning, shopping, cooking, serving, hosting and shlepping.

All you have to do is pack your bags and show up at LAX. They’ll take it from there.

Bohbot represents the tip of the iceberg of a mini-revolution in how American Jews are choosing to spend their eight days of Passover. Open any Jewish newspaper at this time of year and you’ll see a growing number of ads for Passover excursions on cruise ships, desert or beach resorts and even luxurious trains.

It’s the Exodus from the Exodus. For more and more American Jews, it seems that at Passover time, there’s no place like away from home.

Until this year, I didn’t pay much attention to this trend. But as I sat poolside this past week listening to Bob Marley music and pondering the notion of reliving the story of my people in a place where they teach you beach limbo, part of me wanted to scream: What are you all thinking?

I understand the convenience of getting away and taking advantage of the Passover holiday to have a family vacation. But where’s the romance of tradition?

Where’s the family-bonding ritual of going through the house to clean and burn the chametz? Where’s the warmth of a seder in your own home? The creation of intimate family memories? What kind of religious experience can you get in a vacation resort?

A Passover experience at a Club Med? Sorry, not for me.

For my money, give me the last-minute rush to Pico Glatt, the scrambling for that special shmurah matzah, the spring cleaning and renewal of the home, the frenetic preparations, the davening at my local shul, the guests at our seder table, the afternoon visits with the neighbors — in short, give me Pesach in a Jewish neighborhood.

And give me chol ha-moed — those subtle, semi-holy days in between the first and last days — surely some of the least appreciated days of our religious calendar. In a Jewish neighborhood, the atmosphere of chol ha-moed might be fun and games, but the holiness of the holiday always hovers. In its own way, chol ha-moed might best embody the Jewish ideal to enjoy life, but never forget its holiness. 

Holiness is not something that came easily to mind as I vacationed in Ixtapa. And the more I thought about it, the stronger I felt about being in familiar surroundings for Passover.

And then, just as I was feeling really sure of myself, who do I meet to complicate my thinking? A group of religious Syrian Jews from Brooklyn who brought a sefer Torah to Club Med and who invited me to join them for Shabbat services.

There I was at sunset, in the middle of a beach resort, where an hour earlier I was playing in a pingpong tournament, singing “Lecha Dodi” and saying Kaddish for my father’s yahrzeit by the ocean waves—having one of the more sublime Kabbalat Shabbats I can remember.

So yes, it’s very possible that I’m missing something here. Maybe the freshness and openness of nature can compensate for the intimacy and grit of a neighborhood and lead to a more transcendent holiday experience. Maybe the absence of all that shlepping and cleaning and cooking can leave more time for contemplating the awesome story of our people next to the awesome beauty of nature.

But then, if I’m going to experience Passover in nature, I have a better idea for a perfect setting: The middle of a desert.

In this fantasy, I see a few desert tents, a bunch of adventurous friends and a seder like no other. We would dress in white robes and retell the story of the Exodus in the desert of our ancestors. Everywhere you would look, there would be only desert. You would hear and feel and smell the same sands and winds that our biblical brethren walked through for 40 years.

I brought up this idea with Bohbot when I met him at Ixtapa. He was explaining to me the formidable logistics involved in planning Passover excursions in faraway places, so I figured, can it be that much more complicated in a desert?

After hearing my fantasy, he gave me that polite look that said, that’s a nice idea, but as a businessman, I think I’ll stick with a nature setting that comes with morning Pilates and moonlight salsa dancing.

David Suissa is Publisher & Editor-in-Chief of Tribe Media/Jewish Journal, where he has been writing a weekly column on the Jewish world since 2006. In 2015, he was awarded first prize for “Editorial Excellence” by the American Jewish Press Association. Prior to Tribe Media, David was founder and CEO of Suissa Miller Advertising, a marketing firm named “Agency of the Year” by USA Today. He sold his company in 2006 to devote himself full time to his first passion: Israel and the Jewish world. David was born in Casablanca, Morocco, grew up in Montreal, and now lives in Los Angeles with his five children.