Dad, I have my first big test in biology next Thursday, Sandy explained. Next Thursday? Yep. Sorry, honey, you are going to have to miss it. Next Thursday is Rosh Hashanah and I want you to go to services with me.
Food is the centerpiece of every Jewish holiday.
I\’m sitting in Gina\’s Pizza, the local hotspot for members of UC Irvine\’s Greeks.
My mom yells at me: \”Hurry up, it is almost Pesach and we haven\’t done anything yet.\”
The memory goes back several years, when I was a teenager living with my parents and brother in our three-story building in western Tehran.
When newer, color versions supplanted the 1923 Union Haggadah Revised, Tamar Soloff\’s brother and father hoarded enough copies of the original to ensure that their extended families would have a supply of their own.
I added a new experience to my Passover preparation last year. In addition to counting the haggadahs, practicing the Four Questions with my daughter, inviting guests, shopping and cleaning the house, I made gefilte fish from scratch for the first time ever.
Neither my mother nor any of my grandmothers had felt the need to initiate me into the gefilte fish sorority, even though I know they all had this experience. After trying it myself for the first time, I think I may have a good idea why they decided not to pass on this tradition. I went in with blind and irrational optimism after watching the instructor at a cooking class make it look so easy. Here\’s what I learned.
When I was in college in New Hampshire, the pastor of a nearby church asked our Hillel rabbi to send over a Jewish student who could help his parishioners learn about Passover. I volunteered. For all the fuzzy, feel-good reasons that a liberal arts education supplies in abundance, I felt it was important to teach others about my faith and culture.
Some people like their Passover seders just as they remember them: the same lines recited by the same relatives with the same emphasis, the same songs, jokes and foods, the same delicate glassware that picks up the light in a certain way, reflecting past and present.
My family never went to church but celebrated Christian holidays by putting up a Christmas tree in December and hunting for Easter eggs in the spring.
Many Jews understand Shabbat as a series of restrictions. But the purpose of all the Thou-Shalt-Nots is to clear a space for the Thou-Shalts and for what is different and sacred about Shabbat. Laws against work, errands and many hobbies preserve Shabbat as a haven from relentless busyness. Shabbat sets aside time to rest and reflect, to reconnect with God, self, family and friends.
More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.