For months now, people have been asking me what I planned to do for Passover in Mexico. My parents both asked if I wanted to take a haggadah (passover seder guide/prayerbook) with me, people asked me if I was going to keep kosher for passover, and I shrugged it off. "I mean, tortillas are basically floppy matzah--flat things made of flour and water..." I said, over and over again. Then, as passover crept up on me, I realized that tortillas weren't going to feel right as matzah, and that maybe that haggadah might have been a good idea. As the only observant, practicing Jew for miles (as far as I know,) I resigned myself to a passover alone.
At first I planned to skype in to our seder at home, but then realized that we were going to be on a camping trip, far from internet and webcams, for seder. As I started to talk to people about it, trying hard never to make it a big deal, to joke that it was fitting, I'd be spending passover wandering in the desert (hey, maybe I'd try to split the Gulf of California!), someone mentioned that Brady, our student affairs manager, said that SFS normally does a seder. I must admit that I was skeptical--Brady went to Brandeis, but isn't Jewish, and I didn't see how it made sense that there was a seder on this campus. I talked to Brady, and she confirmed the rumor; last year, there was another Jewish professor, and she and Brady led a seder for anyone on campus who was interested. As we were going to be camping on the actual first and second nights of passover, the seder was planned for Friday night.
I kept this knowledge in mind, but was still skeptical and missing the preparations for our seder at home quite a bit. Wednesday afternoon, I found myself sitting on the beach overlooking the Gulf of California, the gentle rush of waves persisting behind the abrasive roar of ATVs driven by the kids staying next to us on the beach. It was Semana Santa, the week before Easter where thousands of Mexican families (and American tourists) flock to the beaches to camp, drink, and relax.
My mind was thousands of miles away, sitting at the seder-table at home, the familiar living room fresh, clean, and full of people and traditions I love. The song stuck in my head was "mah nishtanah," and I wondered who was singing it this year. Julia, probably, I thought. Were they saying it right then? It was 7:30 at home as I was writing all this in my journal, and could possibly have been the time for the 4 questions. It was the first time since I've been in Mexico that I found myself trying to picture exactly what was going on at home, but there I was. I was sure that the seder at Colby, on the second floor of Bob's, was getting close to wrapping up, and equally sure that at home, we hadn't gotten to dinner yet. I found myself trying to picture exactly what was going on--who was sitting where, saying what. It kind of felt like there was a baseball game on and I needed to know what inning we were in and what the score was, or like I was running late for a meeting, trying to figure out what part I was missing.
It's a holiday of freedom and renewal, but I jut felt trapped, alone. For me, and I think for almost every Jewish observance, community is key. We need a minyan (group of 10 people) to pray, and the focal point of this particular holiday is a millenniums-old tradition of communal memory and teaching the next generation that "once we were slaves in Egypt, but now we are free." The thought had occurred to me to embrace this as an opportunity to teach, to share my culture and tradition with the people who are my community for these three months, but the task seemed too big, too daunting. I was sure nobody would want to participate or would care much at all. I was afraid that trying to recreate Passover with people who didn't care or were disconnected from it would end up being more painful than sitting by myself on the beach, wishing I was home.
I got through the night. After watching the sunset from a ledge high above the bay and coming down for dinner, Brady encouraged me to at least bless the "matzah" (corn tortillas. Better than for passover than flour ones, if not tastier. Yay kitneot. See note on that below.) and bring that tradition to the group. I came to the campfire where everyone was relaxing and roasting marshmallows and gave a 30-second intro to Yachatz, the breaking and blessing of the middle matzah, then tore the middle tortilla and held it up. My roommate, who's half Jewish and has done the seder thing before, happened to be the youngest of all of us, and was excited to go find the afikoman. Brady and I hid it in our camp kitchen, and she ran off to find it. We spent the rest of the night playing Mafia around the campfire. (Photo: Alyssa found the "afikoman!")
After some though, I've decided to keep kosher for passover the sephardic way, and eat kitneot--rice, legumes, and corn that sephardic rabbis allow but ashkenazi rabbis don't. (Now that I think of it, Mexico's Jews are probably predominantly sephardic anyways...) Without rice, beans, corns, and peanut butter, I'd be living on fruits and veggies all week. On our way back from camping on Thursday night, we stopped for dinner at a pizza place, where I poked at iceberg lettuce salad while longing for pizza; The last pizza I had was at Dana dining hall during Jan Plan, and all I wanted was a slice. Once again, I just wanted to be home, where matzah pizza is at least an option.
Everything turned around on Friday. Almost everyone on campus had decided to come to our seder Friday night, which I was nervous and excited to prepare with Brady. It was my day to lead our morning meeting, which includes a "physicality" activity, and I taught Turkish Kiss, a highly entertaining Israeli line dance. Everyone was surprisingly into it and enthusiastic about it, which we'll come back to in a minute.
I spent the morning working on my papers while also looking up environmental seder information, to try to make the seder relevant and meaningful to everyone who was coming, then spent the afternoon cooking with Brady. She roast a chicken, I made chocolate meringues (which I am DEFINITELY making again), and attempted to make tsimmis. The tsimmis I made was completely different from the yams, dry fruit, carrots and more that mom makes: layered pumpkin and carrot, with fresh orange juice squeezed over the top, and then brown sugar and orange slices on top, baked for a while. We also made charoset, which came out pretty much exactly the way it does at home, and broccoli with cheese, mashed potatoes, and apple sauce. The feast took us all afternoon to make, and by the time we were done, people were trickling in, all dressed up and ready. Fellow students, professors, and SFS interns were all there, dressed up and actually excited and enthusiastic to be there, and their interest encouraged me.
I opened the actual seder the way we do at home--though I didn't spill wine on the table cloths (and we didn't have wine to spill in the first place) I told the story of how my great-grandfather always started festive melas with that to make his guests feel comfortable. I explained that passover is a time of asking questions and challenging assumptions, of figuring out what enslaves us and how to become free, and about teaching and learning, and invited everyone to ask questions and interject with insights throughout the seder. Though for the majority of it, Brady or I were the only ones talking, and though my voice felt small as the only one singing the Hebrew blessings, everyone seemed eager and engaged. The students who had been to seders before, or who had Jewish family members, were excited to see familiar parts, and I was so grateful for Alyssa's voice joining in with mine for dayenu.
The environmental connections seemed to work well (if anyone wants, I have a 9 page word document that I pulled from COEJL and other Jewish/Environmental websites) and I also brought up some of the touchier parts of the seder, talked about needing to go back and grapple with some of the issues presented in the tradition every year. I did this in a couple places, to try to pull in more discussion, especially with regards to the plagues and the suffering put onto the Egyptians. I had found a list of "10 environmental plagues that will befall us if we don't do something about global warming" and I had anyone who wanted "pour" metaphorical wine into a metaphoric cup of plagues, as well as pouring out love for things that they see in the world to balance out those plagues.
We used limes as maror, which makes for quite the delicious hillel sandwich. Note to self for future years: add lime to the charoset!
Dinner was met with even more enthusiasm, and as the meal was winding down and we were all hanging out around the kitchen, Pat started to see if he could remember the steps to Turkish Kiss, which I had taught that morning. That turned into a dance party, which of course, I loved. We closed with an English version of the blessing after meals, and I sang Oseh Shalom before saying "next year in New England."
One of the most rewarding parts of all was all of the people who came up to me after the seder and told me how much they enjoyed it, how interesting they found it. It was so exciting to be able to have brought that, with lots and LOTS of help from Brady, to campus this year. Though passover in Mexico exceeded any of my wildest dreams for it, I'm ready to be home for the next one. (Or at least at Colby...)
Photos are up at http://picasaweb.google.com/Emma.RachelKanji/PassoverAtSFS#
Love and macaroons!
~Emma
(Translations: B'shanah haba'ah b'New England means "next year in New England" and alludes to the phrase said at the end of the passover seder: Next year in Jerusalem. Chag Sameach means happy holiday.)
