Pesach for the Rest of Y'all
I had a whole post planned about how much I love Pesach, but I think I'll skip it. (Although I do love it, do think it encapsulates all that is vital in Judaism, do think that it is the most beautiful and complicated set of metaphors available to explore those vital issues, etc. If you're in Brooklyn and need a seder, track me down. It's a good time.)
I want to talk, very briefly, about the personal importance Pesach has for me as a holiday that takes place in the home. First of all, there's all that proto-feminist, sanctification-of-the-domestic-sphere, mechitzaless-learning-space, isn't-it-funny-the-second-wavers-reclaimed-seders-first-except-it's-just-obvious jazz, not to be taken lightly. But more importantly, it's an opportunity--one of the only ones--for me to share everything beautiful about Judaism with the people I love.
I think maybe I'll never stop seeing the world through the frame of a sort-of-religiously-inclined person who hangs with a bunch of aggressively secular folk. And although working for some of my world's coolest people has provided an outlet for a lot of that, lifting the fog of depression that so dampened my Jewish renaissance, I still frequently feel like I live two lives. I think I'm pretty adept at navigating conflicting or just multiple identities, but it saddens me sometimes that I have this whole secret life that my friends don't know about. And, to be fair, that I try not to talk about too much, because I think it would be alienating and uncomfortable for them. Because these amazing and lovely people in my life almost uniformly lack any context for religion that's authentic without being batshit crazy. Except for The Girlfriend, a self-defining ex-Catholic who has a deep appreciation for the possibilities of religion--both to be beautiful and dangerous.
Pesach provides the opportunity for me to invite people into my home (and sometimes my parents' home) for what we might call some private religion. And because I'm generally appointed master (mastress? mastrix?) of events--even at aforementioned parents' house, because, surprise, I'm more religious than they are, too--I get to control how the story unfolds. And I get to editorialise, which is among my top-five favorite things to do. This year, I went so far as to make my own haggadot (although that was a decision influenced primarily by economics), which really allows me to take every opportunity to show, if not tell: This is it! This is the thing I love! These are the ideas behind all the stuff you see me do! See how much there is for me to love! I'd like everyone (my roommates, my parents, my near-and-dear-ones) to see and feel the beauty--and it's this magnificently three-dimensional beauty--of the holiday, but more than that, I at least want them to see why I feel it. And that I feel it. I want my decisions and committment and love to make some sense to them, and I want them, if only for one night of wine and endless, encouraged questions, to peek through a window into the other half of my life.
My boss said something the other day that gave me pause: she said she was always comforted that, even when she was going crazy pesadiking the house and cooking (and cooking and cooking...), everyone she knew was doing the same thing. Pesach, like everything else, is a much more solitary endeavor for me than it is for most of the Jews I know, but I'd like to think of this, too, as a double blessing: I can trade matzah-ball recipes by day with all these women I so love, but at night when I open my door to Elijah, I have a true understanding of what it means to say, "Yes, this is my home. Please, come inside for a little while."
Kol tov.
I want to talk, very briefly, about the personal importance Pesach has for me as a holiday that takes place in the home. First of all, there's all that proto-feminist, sanctification-of-the-domestic-sphere, mechitzaless-learning-space, isn't-it-funny-the-second-wavers-reclaimed-seders-first-except-it's-just-obvious jazz, not to be taken lightly. But more importantly, it's an opportunity--one of the only ones--for me to share everything beautiful about Judaism with the people I love.
I think maybe I'll never stop seeing the world through the frame of a sort-of-religiously-inclined person who hangs with a bunch of aggressively secular folk. And although working for some of my world's coolest people has provided an outlet for a lot of that, lifting the fog of depression that so dampened my Jewish renaissance, I still frequently feel like I live two lives. I think I'm pretty adept at navigating conflicting or just multiple identities, but it saddens me sometimes that I have this whole secret life that my friends don't know about. And, to be fair, that I try not to talk about too much, because I think it would be alienating and uncomfortable for them. Because these amazing and lovely people in my life almost uniformly lack any context for religion that's authentic without being batshit crazy. Except for The Girlfriend, a self-defining ex-Catholic who has a deep appreciation for the possibilities of religion--both to be beautiful and dangerous.
Pesach provides the opportunity for me to invite people into my home (and sometimes my parents' home) for what we might call some private religion. And because I'm generally appointed master (mastress? mastrix?) of events--even at aforementioned parents' house, because, surprise, I'm more religious than they are, too--I get to control how the story unfolds. And I get to editorialise, which is among my top-five favorite things to do. This year, I went so far as to make my own haggadot (although that was a decision influenced primarily by economics), which really allows me to take every opportunity to show, if not tell: This is it! This is the thing I love! These are the ideas behind all the stuff you see me do! See how much there is for me to love! I'd like everyone (my roommates, my parents, my near-and-dear-ones) to see and feel the beauty--and it's this magnificently three-dimensional beauty--of the holiday, but more than that, I at least want them to see why I feel it. And that I feel it. I want my decisions and committment and love to make some sense to them, and I want them, if only for one night of wine and endless, encouraged questions, to peek through a window into the other half of my life.
My boss said something the other day that gave me pause: she said she was always comforted that, even when she was going crazy pesadiking the house and cooking (and cooking and cooking...), everyone she knew was doing the same thing. Pesach, like everything else, is a much more solitary endeavor for me than it is for most of the Jews I know, but I'd like to think of this, too, as a double blessing: I can trade matzah-ball recipes by day with all these women I so love, but at night when I open my door to Elijah, I have a true understanding of what it means to say, "Yes, this is my home. Please, come inside for a little while."
Kol tov.
posted by Di Freye Froy at 6:13 PM
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