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Orit is a painter and writer living in Tel Aviv.
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By Orit
April 15, 2006
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| Orit didn't have the benefit of Mili Avital (l), Jack Klugman (r) and Lesley Ann Warren and the other members of the When Do We Eat? cast to enliven her seder. Apparently no one dosed Dad. (Although sis may have been thinking along those lines.) |
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Why is this night so much more boring than other nights?
If I were the author of the Passover haggadah, I would definitely ask this question. After all, the Pesach seder is about asking questions, and that is why the youngest member of the family recites the four famous questions of the ma nishtana.
But didn't we already get the answers to those four questions at last year's seder, and the seder before that? And does the long haggadah really answer the four questions of the ma nishtana anyway? I never seem to get clear answers from the haggadah as to why we dip our food more times than usual or why we recline why we eat.
Yeah, seder was pretty boring this year, and I know everyone at my family's table agreed, except maybe for mom, who is the most religious one in the family. My aunt and her boyfriend kept turning the pages to see when we'd get to the meal -- the Shulkan Orech. My rebellious teenage sister was unusually quiet. I think she was wise and smoked a joint before the seder began. My dad just complied with my mom's instructions. And I too went along, keeping my boredom to myself, if only to make my mother happy.
And this year, since I'm in the Diaspora and not in Israel, I had to keep two seders. That was a small torture.
Just a few days earlier, as I was helping my mom rinse the Pesach dishes, I asked her why everyone goes so overboard on Pesach. How is it going to make us holier if we eat on a set of hametz-free dishes? How is vacuuming every single food crumb behind the sofa going to teach us the value of Jewish liberty? How is crashing into the whole Jewish world with our shopping carts at the kosher market going to bring us closer to God?
Yes, on Pesach I have a lot of questions.
And my mom said we have some answers. "If we don't keep the tradition, we'll assimilate. We're already assimilating."
"You know why we're assimilating, Mommy," I answered. "Because all this cleaning and praying is so boring and unattractive! I don't blame the non-affiliated Jews for saying -- heck, I don't want a part of THAT!"
She wasn't happy with my answer, but she didn't argue with me either. I think she knew I was on to something.
And now, after seder, none of my family members -- except for my mom -- is any closer to Judaism than they were before we began. In fact, I wager my non-religious aunt and uncle went home just calling my traditional family "psycho."
On Pesach, we have become so enslaved to the rituals and traditions (what my friend likes to call OCD [Obsessive Compulsive Disorder-ed] Judaism), that we have forgotten what Pesach is all about: liberation -- Jewish liberation. To me, that comes from embracing a set of moral values that encourage us to think for ourselves, to live truly, to honor our fellow man and woman, and to fight against tyranny. It doesn't necessary come from adhering to the minutiae of modern Jewish law.
Maybe that's why Jews have for centuries been slaughtered for the sake of keeping their tradition, rather than keeping their tradition for the sake of not being slaughtered. The rituals have become a value in and of themselves, while the principles they were supposed to uphold got lost in the hametz.
So, on this Pesach, as on last Pesach - I am asking questions. I am asking questions the rabbis wouldn't want me to ask.
Because we Jews are still not liberated. So I wish for us on this Pesach that we clean ourselves of the junk that has been holding us back from standing up for our freedom -- as individuals and as a people -- to release ourselves from our bondage and cross the sea of liberty, self-reliance, honesty, spiritual cleanness. And less boredom.
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
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