Don't pass over this holiday

Passover. In Hebrew, Pesach. A word meaning, roughly, to skip something. You know, to pass over it.

And I have never been tempted to skip, to pass over, an entire Jewish holiday until Pesach began to loom on my event horizon.

Neither the 24-hour fast and gloomy sobriety of Yom Kippur, nor the poorly conceived construction project of Sukkot, nor the eight crazy nights and gift-giving expectations of Hanukkah, nor the Halloween-meets-Mardi-Gras excesses of Purim daunted me in the least. But Passover had me wanting to run for the hills. 

What was it about this holiday that intimidated me so? The prospect of cleaning my entire house, top to bottom, to remove every last speck of leavened anything? The coming week of dietary restrictions that would make being a vegetarian in Texas look convenient? The three-hour blend of prayer service, religious education class, and fancy dinner known as "the Seder"? The search for a Haggadah my kids could all parse, put up with, and perhaps even find interesting? The knowledge that whatever I saw going on at shul on seder night was going to have to happen again at home, hosted by Elie and I without any professional help, because gosh darnit this is a holiday you are supposed to celebrate at home?!?

Maybe it was the memory that the only Seder I had ever attended before – an inter-faith awareness exercise I had participated in as a youth – had been possibly the two most bewildering hours I had spent in my life prior to graduate school thermodynamics class. Maybe it was a fear that this legacy of bewilderment was the only thing I would be able to pass on to my kids.

In truth, I think my dread of Passover was a mixture of all of those anxieties, rolled-up together and blended (but not for more than 18 minutes!) with the notion somehow lodged in my head that Pesach is the Jewish holiday, the holiday that defines and constitutes Judaism for a great swath of American Jewry in much the same way that Easter and Christmas define and constitute the religious lives of countless otherwise-minimally-observant Christians. Only with Pesach, I couldn't get away with spending an hour at church letting the religious professionals do the heavy lifting for me, give the kids a basket or a stocking full of gifts, top it off with a fancy brunch or dinner somewhere, and call my religious obligations fulfilled. I was going to have to know stuff and do stuff, and my kids' experience of Passover was going to depend on me doing it right. 

I think it felt like there was so much Jewish identity bound up in this week, so much of which I was going to have to learn on the fly, I was afraid that by the time I made the inevitable slew of gaffes and blunders I would have scarred my family's Jewishness forever. 

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So I did what any self-respecting convert to Judaism would do: I panicked. 

Meanwhile, my wife (who managed to keep a cooler head than I did) made appointments to see one of our rabbis and to have dinner with a Jewish friend. 

The Rabbi told us to view the Haggadah as a lesson planner rather than a fixed script; he told us that the goal was to teach an important Jewish foundation story, to celebrate freedom (and remember that we still live in a world where many live without it), and to underscore our connection to the Jewish people on an occasion many consider to be Judaism's birthday; and he advised us to go "all out" and buy every Kosher-for-Passover item we could find this first year, if for no other reason than to get it out of our system so we can be more sensible about our Passover shopping next year. 

Our friends told us that there is deep meaning invested in every act of Passover – except that for some people the deep meaning is just that we're part of a People who does this Seder and matzah thing every year; that there are almost as many approaches to hosting a Seder and keeping Passover Kosher as there are Jews on this planet, so whatever happy medium we found that worked for us would be fine; that they have a cookbook for kids called Matzah Meals that has some real treats in it, but that even so their kids had a habit of finding "oases" where they could get away from matzah meals; and that we should absolutely not buy any food marked kosher-for-Passover because it is all tasteless junk. 

I still felt bewildered, but I also felt reassured. If there wasn't One Right Way to do Pesach, then maybe the way I fumbled through wouldn't be too terribly wrong and family-scarring after all. 

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And now, here I am: two chaotic but largely successful Seders under my belt, halfway through my first week of Passover Kosher, eating my dinner of egg matzos dipped in hummus and charoset (no, not at the same time!). And I can truly say that I have found that happy medium. I found my Passover spirit, too. And I'm even finding that I like the holiday. 

It turns out my kids can last through a 3-hour meal, barely, if allowed to color under the table or scoot off to the sidelines with their friends at the congregational Seder, or jump on the couch as they pretend to cross the Red Sea (I know, I know, Sea of Reeds). They love finding the afikomen, unless it's too well hidden, and getting a prize in return. They put up with the Celebrate Passover album now installed on my iPhone. And we all seem to be learning something about what it means to be Jewish. 

I even find I like the change in foods (though I am also glad it is only for one week). Charoset is some of the best stuff on earth. Maror isn't. Matzah tastes like baked cardboard, but it's a great vehicle for dips and spreads and, again, charoset. 

But more to the point, Passover food – just like eating meals in a sukkah or lighting Chanukkah candles and playing family games while they burn – breaks me out of my rut for a week. The lack of freedom to eat anything but Matzah makes me more creative with food for a week, and it reminds me of the tremendous freedom I enjoy to eat (and teach and worship and live) as I choose 51 other weeks a year. 

And that is what I have come to value most about Judaism: it regularly breaks through my "stuck-ness" and points my attention to what is more important in life, what is already good in my life that I tend to overlook, what I can do to make my life and my world even better. 

So, here's to not passing this holiday over! Chag Sameach, y'all!