Tag Archives: passover

Passover

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/30/2014
Primary Language: English
Language: Hebrew

About the Interviewed: Charly Cohen is a student at the University of Southern California majoring in Theatre. Her background is nomadic, having been born in Kentucky, moved to Washington, then to Israel, then to Vancouver, and back to Washington again! Her ethnic backdrop is Jewish. She’s a fellow classmate.

Charly and I had gotten onto the subject of Jewish holidays. I asked her about Passover and her experiences in celebrating it.

Charly: “Passover revolves around a meal called the “Seder”, which means “order”. It refers to a number of things you’re expected to do around the celebration of the meal. You go through a retelling of the story of Exodus, when Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt, from slavery. You go through the templates, drink four traditional glasses of wine, and sing songs.”

I asked her about any differences she might have experienced celebrating Passover in Israel versus the United States.

Charly: “Passover in Israel is very different from Passover in the United States. It varies based on levels of Judaism. Many people like to think of Jews as sort of one conglomerate – ‘thing’, but there are a ton of denominations. My particular Judaism is based on my experiences at summer camp.”

“People from all sorts of different walks came to the camp –  So you get a different sort of people who celebrate these holidays in different ways.”

“In Israel, I’ve found that the Seders tend to be shorter. It cuts right to the chase, but the after celebration tends to be longer. The last Seder I went to here [in America], the story was told before the meal, but that was it, there wasn’t much afterwards.”

I asked if she felt that way her family celebrated Passover was any different than the way other families celebrated it.

Charly: “Sort of-  there are general guidelines that the observers have to follow, as laid out in the ‘Haggadah’ [Passover Texts], but many families celebrate it in their own ways.”

Summary:

Passover is a holiday with important historical and religious significance. Those who celebrate it typically follow a strict custom, though traditions vary upon where/who are celebrating it.

Though not Jewish myself, I grew up in a community of pretty active members of the faith. Hearing a summary of Passover and the traditions that come with it was very enriching. Traditions can be rigid, but they also exemplify the celebration and make events like Passover special.

 

The Afikomen: A Passover Tradition

Nationality: Jewish-American
Age: 17
Occupation: High school student, planning to major in physics or chemistry
Residence: Santa Barbara, California
Performance Date: March 15, 2012
Primary Language: English

“On a Passover seder, the adults hide the afikomen—a special piece of matzah [unleavened bread]—and the kids have to find it. (Usually, the adults hide it in really dumb places, like under a book.)  Our family, though, does this the other way around: the kids hide it, and the adults have to find it. I think this tradition comes from my Grandpa Ned’s side of the family.

“We always plan out our hiding places in advance, and try to make them good enough that the adults won’t be able to find the afikomen. Once, we opened up an old computer, put the afikomen inside, put the computer back together, and turned the computer on. My favorite hiding spot, however, was one I thought of last year: my friends and I opened up the smoke detector, took out all of the electrical equipment (so that the afikomen would fit in it), and put the afikomen there; meanwhile, we hid the electrical equipment somewhere else.

“When the adults were searching, one of them actually suggested looking inside the smoke detector. My dad, though, said that ‘there’s no way it could fit in there with all of the electrical equipment,’ because he didn’t think that we would take it out. Finally, when the adults gave up, I showed them the smoke detector electrical components to give them a hint. My dad had no idea what the equipment was, so I told him to hook it up to a battery. He said, ‘What is this? Am I going to get a secret coded message telling me where the afikomen is?’ When he connected a battery, the equipment made the sound of the smoke alarm, so he finally figured out where the afikomen was hidden.”

This tradition of hiding the afikomen has long been a part of the Jewish holiday of Passover, an eight-day festival that celebrates redemption from slavery in Egypt. The seder (a Hebrew word meaning ‘order’) is a ritual feast that families carry out in their homes at the start of Passover. Since a seder cannot end until the afikomen is eaten, hiding the afikomen has almost become a ritualized prank.

My informant feels that the afikomen tradition makes the holiday of Passover more meaningful and memorable for him personally, as it is one of the main reasons that he looks forward to Passover each year. He definitely intends to pass this tradition along to his children, stating that “I would definitely want them to come up with creative hiding places.”

The afikomen custom also reflects this holiday’s focus upon the younger generation. Seders customarily involve rituals in which children ask adults questions about the holiday; the Haggadah, a text that Jews read on Passover, even advises adults upon how to answer different sorts of questions from children. The afikomen ritual fits naturally into the seder, as it serves to keep children actively engaged with the holiday in the face of a long series of prayers.

Jewish Easter Egg Hunt

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: April 2012
Primary Language: English
Language: None

“So, in my family, holidays are a big deal, and we are not very religious one way or another, but we do, um, partake in several, I guess, Christian holidays, and Easter is one of the big ones. Um, however, we have this Jewish friend, who, um, had never experienced Easter before, um, and so, she, we decided to invite her to Easter one year so she could experience her first ever Easter and so she came over and um, we did the typical things like dyeing Easter eggs and having Easter dinner. But, we decided to twist our traditions to uh accommodate for her Jewishisms. So she told us about this tradition she used to practice as a child. It’s like this little stale piece of bread, it’s like matzah, and you hide it. She used to do this as a child. It’s called the afikomen. So, yea, I guess it’s a Jewish tradition to hide the matzah and be like, hey, kids, go find the afikomen. And whichever little Jewish lad finds the afikomen gets a reward.

So then, we decided to kind of mix the two traditions because finding an afikomen is very much like finding an Easter egg, so, um, my parents, along with hundreds of Easter eggs, hid an afikomen, and whoever found it got twenty dollars. We, of course, all expected the Jew to find the afikomen, but the first time it was my brother, a non-Jew, who found it. So now we do this every year… we hide an afikomen with the Easter eggs.”

 

The informant’s conflation of two different religions’ traditions is an interesting example of how folkloric traditions can blend together and change. The informant’s family found a common thread between the traditional Christian practice of hunting for hidden eggs on Easter and the traditional Jewish practice of hiding and finding a piece of matzah on Passover. In an effort to make their Jewish friend more comfortable and to learn about Jewish culture, the informant’s family blended together these two traditions.

However, the informant’s family took the search for the afikomen out of context. Traditionally, the children search for the afikomen at a Passover seder, and there are multiple reasons and explanations for this practice. Some say that the tradition of hiding and searching for the afikomen is an effort to keep the children awake throughout the seder, which can be a very long, traditional meal, sometimes lasting for hours. Searching for the afikomen can keep the kids occupied while the adults conduct the seder. Another explanation for the purpose of the afikomen is that seeking the matzah symbolizes future redemption for the Jewish people. However, in the case of the Jewish Easter egg hunt, the afikomen is used merely as a symbolic gesture— a lone Jewish artifact hidden among plastic Christian relics, but, ultimately, meant to serve the same purpose as the Easter eggs (you find something and you are rewarded for it.)

Holiday – Jewish

Nationality: Jewish
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Westlake, CA
Performance Date: April 28, 2008
Primary Language: English

Holiday-Passover

“Passover is basically the celebration of the Jews not being slaves anymore in Egypt. The pharaoh in Egypt was in charge of the slaves building the pyramids. Eventually, Moses is able to free the Jews from the pharaoh’s tyranny through the help from God. This is where the burning bush comes in as a symbol of God. Basically, ten plagues afflict the Pharaoh and the rest of the Egyptians. The last one is most important being the death of the firstborn son. Eventually, this convinces the pharaoh to let the Jews go. So the Jews begin their exits from Egypt. In the middle of getting away, the pharaoh decides to revoke their freedom because he still wants them to be his slaves. So, the Jews did not have the time to let the bread rise that they were cooking for their journey. So, they had to eat matza, which is bread that has not risen. This is why during Passover, for eight days, the Jews keep kosher by not eating anything with flower. If you’re Ashkenazi, you can’t eat rice or corn or anything like that. But if you’re Sephardic, you can have rice. But, all Jews cannot have flour. That’s why they eat matza. So, the pharaoh chased the Jews until God allowed Moses to part the Red Sea and escape. Jewish people celebrate all this by having a Passover satyr once a year, where you have four cups of wine throughout the meal and different types of food. There is a prayer that goes along with the satyr and you’re supposed to leave the door open for Elijah, a prophet, and also have a glass of wine left out for him. Also, you’re supposed to leave your door open so that anyone can come celebrate Passover with you.”

Matt said he learned the stories and traditions of Passover whenever he was a child. Passover is a Jewish holiday so his family has celebrated it every year since he was born. Plus, he went to a Hebrew school until he was in eighth grade so the story of the pharaoh was talked about every year in school. He said that all Jews celebrate the holiday as it lasts for eight days. When I asked him when Passover took place, he said that it varies from year to year because Jewish people follow the lunar calendar. This year, Passover began on April 20th and lasted until the 28th.

Matt said that Passover is a good time for the Jewish religion to remember their history and the struggles their ancestors went through. To honor them, they eat only kosher items throughout the eight days to respect the journey of Moses and the Jewish slaves. This means that they do not eat bread or rice but only matza. This discipline helps remind them that life was never easy for the Jewish religion, as they endured countless struggles to be where they are at today. Matt is proud of his ancestors and shows it by eating only kosher.

Passover to Matt means a dinner with family and an Atkins-like diet for a week. When I asked him about the importance of the holiday, he responded by talking about how the Jewish religion has gone through countless struggles in order to survive. From the slavery in Egypt to the Holocaust, the Jewish people have survived and prospered. Passover is a time for Matt to connect with and feel proud of his religion. Although he made the joke saying that it is a time for him to go on a diet, he really understands the importance of his religion’s history.

As a Christian, I do not understand that much about the Jewish religion because I grew up in a dominant Christian area. However, I agree that Passover is an important holiday for the Jewish religion with many traditions that cannot go unnoticed. For example, there are some variations to this holiday as different types of Jews eat different types of Kosher, as Matt mentioned. This means that different Jews celebrate Passover in different ways, following traditions that their separate ancestors laid out before them. Furthermore, Passover is meant to be a time for the Jewish religion to remember their struggles by going through a struggle themselves, which in this case, is a kosher diet. Although this is not a serious struggle like the Jews faced in history, it does show that Jewish people have discipline and honor.

Chain E-Mail

Nationality: American
Age: 43
Occupation: Florist
Residence: Tucson, AZ
Performance Date: April 19, 2008
Primary Language: English

*Below was in the e-mail*

Subject: The Passover Toilet Seat – Isn’t this the refined Passover gift for which you’ve been waiting?

“I received this chain e-mail, just recently around the Jewish holiday, Passover.  The initial email had been forwarded and sent to hundreds of people.  What is funny is that another Jewish friend of mine sent me the exact same e-mail and she does not even know the first person who sent this to me.  In fact one woman is from Dallas and the other woman is from Arizona.  I thought the image [above] was pretty funny, even though I usually just delete chain e-mails.  I didn’t forward the email to anyone else cause, that’s just something I don’t do.  The toilet seat cover is designed to look like matzo and the phrase “Let my people go” is the phrase Moses used to demand freedom from Pharaoh of Egypt.  Obviously this is a play on words referring to releasing your bowels or letting them go.”

Chain e-mails have become a very modern form of folklore.  It is almost impossible to trace an original source to this e-mail, and it is an artistic means of communication between people.  In this case the folk are Jews and the lore is Passover, specifically Passover jokes.  What is interesting is that Susan received this identical email from two people located in completely different places across the country.  The picture itself is a folk joke, and it has cultural meaning behind it, as Susan mentioned the story of Moses demanding his people to be “let go” from Pharaohs command.  It is also interesting to note how many chain e-mails go around a day.  Susan mentioned how she gets so many chain e-mails that she just deletes them because there is too many to go through.  This is also a seasonal chain email because if this were sent out in July, it would not be as funny, but in the context of Passover season, it is appropriate.