By means of introduction... You should know that I have a sense of humor about a lot of things, including and especially religion. If you don't, I recommend that you navigate to something else or just skip on down to the recipe section. I will also say that I don't like naming a celebratory holiday after the death of children, so I'll be referring to Passover as Pesach, which is generally accepted as meaning "He hovered over, guarding [the people of Israel]." Just like Israeli Nyan Cat flies across the sky.
Chag Pesach Sameach! And for my non-Heebs... Happy Passover! Or Easter, or gorgeous SoCal weekend. Whichever you chose to celebrate a few days ago is just fine with me :)
So... Pesach. Quick background: from sundown on Friday of last week to sundown the following Friday, the Jewish people celebrate and remember being freed from bondage in Egypt. We do this in several ways.
- No chametz, or leavened things. This generally includes anything risen, like Jesus... SNAP! But seriously, leavened delicacies like bread, cookies and pasta are considered off-limits. The fab five- wheat, rye, barley, oats and spelt- are all hasta la vista. Coincidentally, because of the barley bit, beer isn't OK either. As I was told at my first and most ghetto seder, we do this to commemorate our quick departure from Pharaoh. "Hos," said Moses*, "slap that dough on your back and get moving, 'cause we ain't got time for this ish to rise!" (*Probably not true.)
- The anti-chametz, AKA matzah, is IN! Not sure how I managed this for a second year in a row, but apparently my matzos are not Passover-approved:
- A seder, meaning "order," is held. This is a delicious feast in which Jews are commanded to consume four glasses of wine, as well as to fill one for the prophet Elijah. As I like to put it, "and one for my homie."
- The Seder Plate... a home for all the symbolic foods of Pesach which help tell the story. Here's the plate that I found on Pinterest and fell in love with:
Buuuuuut... at $259, that ain't happenin'. And to be honest, I wasn't planning on having an actual story-telling this year, just a friendly dinner, so I didn't even make a plate. Worst Jew ever. Although I did have most of the foods during the course of the meal, does that count? To make up for it, here's my plate from last year:
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| Pareve, but not for Passover? How is that even possible?!?! |
I've been a guest at two seders in my life. One was ghetto/amazing/lasted 20 minutes, the other was done Conservodox-style/started in the evening/lasted 3 hours (before the food was served). I'll let you guess which one I preferred and model my own seders after.
I was also genuinely surprised that my guests actually wanted me to go through some of the rigamaroll, light some candles, say some prayers and whatnot. I planned on just having a dinner with friends and was delighted that they asked me to share my completely fractured and generally incompetent view of Jewish practice with them. Side note: Please don't ever take anything I say about Judaism to ever be remotely correct... that's what Wikipedia, Judaism for Dummies and JewFaq are for. And rabbis... they're pretty good for that, too.
