The Mossad of Festivals

I may have said it before, but I’m not a fan of a lot of aspects of Orthodox Judaism. It’s a long story with quite a lot of post-trauma mixed in, but for me, festivals in Israel are tantamount to national chaos. And I’ve had quite enough of chaos, thank you.

A case in point: My husband and I left the country to escape the loud drunkenness of Purim, only to learn that war had broken out less than twenty-four hours after our plane had touched down in Budapest. You might call it Divine justice.

So even though we’d happily escaped a somewhat muted Purim. By the time we were back,  costumes and snacks had been either consumed or tucked away for next year. We did not, however, escape a war that refuses to end. And to add insult to misery, Israel is in the throes of getting ready for another season of madness: Pesach.

Missiles or not, endless trucks are shipping boxloads of matzot and constipation-inducing but completely tasteless other goods. You take out the flour, you take out the joy. I dare anyone to tell me otherwise. Occasionally new “kosher for Pesach” products arrive on the shelves, one more tasteless than the next, but nobody is making a fool out of me.

Then there’s the mad Pesach cleaning that defies rhyme or reason. God told us to avoid leavened bread for seven days, but said nothing about scrubbing corners of our bathroom with bleach. Pesach is a festival that is as thorough as the Mossad in Tehran—it takes no hostages. If you are less than enthusiastic about checking the Pesach rabbinical approval on all of your groceries, you might, like me, feel a little left out.

Finding bread in Jerusalem during Pesach is mission impossible. You might be temporarily distracted by what looks like bread rolls in restaurants or cafes, but one bite and the offensive item instantly reveals its true colors as a rubbery, gluten-free roll. And then, after the buying frenzy is over, the stockpiles of matzot and glutinous products become mysteriously depleted. By the time the chag is over, you’ll be fortunate to find little more than a sad horseradish or some crumbled-up “kosher for Pesach” chips on the forlorn store shelves. The madness has left a desolate form of devastation in its wake. It’s time to go to the neighbors with a begging bowl. It was probably them who cleared the shelves in the first place; “panic buying” is an understatement.

A few years back, there was an egg crisis. Eggs are the staple of our Pesach kitchen; it’s almost as bad as running out of Arrow warheads. Eggs had to be airlifted from Ukraine to save Israeli households from imminent starvation.

Performing the Ritual

And then it’s all over, as fast as it began. Israeli women everywhere call their doctors for sick notes as they need four days to recover from the invasion of families and the devastation inflicted on their sacrosanct space: the kitchen. Untouched boxes of matzot, overbought to an extreme, are advertised as free for the taking for some crazy person who might feel they didn’t eat enough during seven days of fressing on them night and day. “Please take my matzot,” we beg our family members. Not a chance. They might be okay next year if we wrap them in three layers of sticky tape, but most likely it’s a lost cause.

I’m basically okay with not eating bread for a week, but I’m not okay with everything else. I’m into live and let live. I will observe every possible leniency known to the Jewish people. I am not a meshuggeneh.

Leil HaSeder fills me with dread. Every year. Avi and I, with his religious kids and my ultra-Orthodox ones, have done “religious Seders.” Our kitchen has been scrubbed in every nook and cranny. We have changed dishes, cutlery, and labels. We have stood to attention while our kitchen undergoes religious inspection. We’ve hidden chametz in tinfoil packages under beds and tables. But we are now old and tired. And not terribly religious. We just don’t want to perform this stuff anymore. We are prepared to buy overpriced, ready-made cooked food guaranteed Kosher for Pesach to avoid the endless preparations, but even then, an invasion of vast swaths of religious family who will eat, sleep, and repeat over two days is a tall order in our modestly sized apartment. One meal I can do, but three? I’m probably just too Ashkenazi.

After four glasses of wine and matzah crumbs all over the floor, basking in the warmth of family and togetherness might almost convince us it’s worth it. But then there are dishes to wash. So many of them. And matzah crumbs get everywhere.

Seeking “Seder” in the Chaos

I know I’m sounding irreverent, but in truth, I’m the one who talks to God on a regular basis (now especially—haven’t had any answers yet) and has a deep appreciation of Jewish tradition. I talk about the Bible a lot. I think deeply about what it means to be a Jew, but, unlike the Pesach products on the shelves, I’m not wrapped up in the rituals. No, I don’t believe that mehadrin matzot or whether you sold your chametz to Chabad or not will write your fate in the World to Come. And I’m just a little tired of acting a part in a repetitive play just to appease the people who do.

Seder night is, however, a time for family, gratitude, and remembering miracles—from the enormous ones to those that go unnoticed—to joke about our crazy traditions and obsessions. It is a time to sing, to drink wine, to eat ridiculously heavy food, and to embrace our peoplehood— our time-worn DNA, our crazy sense of humor, and our determination to survive. Biting into that first slice of matzah triggers something that no moist challah can accomplish.

After months of war, our nation is in need of a Seder. At this point, fervent prayers to the One Above—for once uninterrupted by the ear-splitting “risk: extreme” alerts blasting from our smartphones—are most welcome. We are more than a little tired. Our preparations might be a little sluggish. Our kitchens might not share the same sparkle as in previous years.

You see, we haven’t full recovered since October 7th. In truth, we are still a little shaky from our isolated Seder night during COVID19. Perhaps we are on a march backwards, rather than forwards. We are on our way to meeting our ancestors, feeling more in common with them day by day. They left Egypt with “great haste,” probably the same speed with which we head to bomb shelters, with dough that didn’t have time to bake, our only currency, the words: “Trust me.” 

In any case, we’re rapidly losing our trust in anyone else, especially those who say the war will end ‘soon’. Our ancestors lived day by day. The miracles that got them out and kept them alive were swiftly forgotten as the desert sun beat down on them, where all they could see was sand. “What a mess you got us into,” they told Moses. ‘The only mess is you guys,’ he retorted.

And us? We see shrapnel. We hear booms. The desert sandstorm of information overload causes us to fumble about blindly. We doubt our own resilience as often as we doubt our own sanity. Nobody, but nobody, can understand what it’s like to live from alerts to sirens to safe rooms to updates unless they’re here. But I’m not recommending a guided tour right now.

Seder. I might not like the dry matzot and the bitter herbs, but this year I like the word. When I run to the safe room as I’m scrambling eggs and then run in again downing the dregs of my still warm morning coffee, I realize I need it. Order. First things first. People, let’s get the timeline straight. Let’s do a ceremony of remembrance. Let’s use some realia to make the thing feel part of us- a sweet spread that reminds us of the cement we used to build pharaoh’s pyramids, that will do. Just make sure it’s edible.

Right now, I have a need to wrap myself in the soft blanket of belonging. I need to gaze in the face of a Grand Narrative because otherwise, nothing makes sense.

Our country’s history makes no sense. Our very survival makes no sense. The fact we face atrocities and are then blamed for them makes no sense. Our enemies plot against us—shooting us in our homes, firebombing our synagogues, spreading lies and hatred that get traction in universities and institutions. And none of it makes any sense.

As it says in the Hagaddah (I always break out in goosebumps when I read it—I think this year I might lose it altogether):

וְהִיא שֶׁעָמְדָה לַאֲבוֹתֵינוּ וְלָנוּ,

שֶׁלֹּא אֶחָד בִּלְבַד עָמַד עָלֵינוּ לְכַלּוֹתֵנוּ,

אֶלָּא שֶׁבְּכָל דּוֹר וָדוֹר עוֹמְדִים עָלֵינוּ לְכַלּוֹתֵנוּ,

וְהַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא מַצִּילֵנוּ מִיָּדָם.

“And it is this that has stood by our ancestors and us; for not only one has risen against us to destroy us, but in every generation they rise against us to destroy us, and the Holy One, blessed be He, saves us from their hands.”

I remember my sedarim as a child—the table carefully set with my grandma’s wedding set gold embossed bone china, used for this occasion alone. My grandfather, who had escaped the Nazis and had never really made peace with God, read the lines resentfully. He didn’t need a glass of wine to remember so much lost Jewish blood. And now, my elderly parents, children, and grandchildren, overly familiar with the wails of sirens and booms, read the ancient words. They don’t need to close their eyes and imagine. Our ancestors dance on the the haggada’s pages.

“Look and learn,” they tell us.

Perhaps it isn’t the hand of God that controls our life-saving Arrow systems, guides our air force, and provides us with stunningly sophisticated military technology. But when a missile lands inches from its target, when fragments the size of horses gouge steaming craters in the road—and people step out of shelters to sip their coffee or resume Zoom meetings with a shrug—I find myself believing in a Bigger Picture. I don’t really have a choice in the matter.

According to basic rules of history, my ancient people should have been wiped off the earth long ago alongside the Ancient Egyptians, Romans, Persians, Mongols, and many more. But for some strange reason, we are still dusting ourselves off, laughing at another crazy bomb shelter meme, checking up on family, and making tentative plans.

The Hagaddah is an ancient collection of texts spanning over a few centuries. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to a casual reader. I’m not sure if I vibe with Aramaic tales of Rabbis that miraculously aged 70 years overnight—but I do like the songs I have been singing since I was a child. The Hagaddah is our own confusing history book. And we are in it. 

Israelis often attach ymach sh’mam—“may their name be wiped out”—to the names of those who seek to harm us, turning it into a reflexive verbal curse: the Nazis, Hamas, the Iranians—ymach sh’mam.

“Go and get forgotten by humanity” is probably the worst insult in our arsenal. It’s quite a relief to say that after a bomb alert. But there’s something deeper to it. We are basically saying: Your names will not appear in any ancient text. You might be around now, but soon you’ll be forgotten. God will bury you, just as He buried all the other enemies of the Jewish People. And nobody will remember you as your name will be wiped out.

And right now—war-torn, PTSD-ridden, exhausted, irritable, and battling stomach issues—we are still making a Seder out of absurdity. We will remember how Pharaoh’s heart was hardened until it wasn’t. We’ll remember our exodus. We’ll be grateful. Our entire book hasn’t been written yet. The next chapter is still to come.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)