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First, there's a long expat stint in Egypt. But things go badly, a change in administration isn't great for immigrants -- the only jobs the people can find have bad conditions, low pay, and there's the distinct possibility of getting crushed under a rock. And, the contracts are bad, too. What seemed like crappy work turned out to be crappy work with ridiculous terms - impossible to get out of. The immigrants find an advocate and that guy uses some pretty extreme tactics to convince the government to release the people and finally, when external powers intervene, the immigrants are given their walking papers, but not before being chased to the border. It's not over yet, though, the people, now refugees, roam about for much too long going from camp to camp until finally, they find a place they can call home.
Passover is my favorite of the Jewish holidays. I'm not a religious person by any means, but I love the lessons taught by the Passover story. You should not celebrate the pain of your enemies, even when your fight was necessary. You should share stories - even freaky old ones - with your friends and family. You should be kind to foreigners because, it can suck to be an outsider. Share what you've got whenever you can because, what - you can't set an extra plate or glass of wine out? Oh, and you should cut back on the bread for a little bit, you could lose a few after the long winter.
The other thing I love about Passover is the international framework. I love that everywhere around the world Jewish families and their friends are sitting down to tell the same story in essentially the same order and eating regional variations of the same foods. I've attended Passover in Israel (surprisingly informal), in Graz, Austria (quite lengthy and in three languages -- German, Hebrew, and English). I had hoped to be in Hawaii for this year's Seder -- I'd found a community Seder to attend, but my plans changed. Never mind -- the email was closed with the hilarious sign-off "Shaloha" -- Shalom plus Aloha if you can't unpack that. I hosted my own Seder for the first time last year, we had six Seder newbies over, and a few years back I attended an enormous neighborhood Seder with, oh, 20 guests. They were all different, of course, but they were also, underneath it all, the same -- an epic story of being stuck in a foreign country, of getting out, of finding home.
Passover is the one holiday I will go out of my way to observe because unlike so many of the other holidays in the Jewish calendar, I feel this one. It's Thanksgiving with ancient history, it's a dinner party with a moral, it is a tale so epic that MGM used none other than Charleton Heston to play the lead. Sure, there are interpretations and mine is colored tremendously by personal experience, but underneath, the story stays the same, recognizable to all who know it. I love thinking that everywhere families and friends sit down next to strangers, they receive this annual reminder from Exodus: Thou shalt neither vex a stranger, nor oppress him: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.
- The history of the Passover Seder on My Jewish Learning.
- A couple of Yale Divinity School students attend a family Seder in 1943.
- Finding a place for pro-Palestinian/anti-Zionist politics at the family Seder.
- Sometimes I Feel Like a Sederless Child
Nerd's Eye View
@nerdseyeview
