Another passover has gone by.  We had two seders very different from each other.  In one we put the emphasis on discussion of issues raised by the Passover story.  All sorts of comparisons and analogies were made between the liberation of the Jews and the liberation of all who are oppressed.  We had a long discussion about whether women are still oppressed.  There were a majority of women present so this must have seemed like a natural topic.

In the other we simply went through the Haggadah,  reading together out loud and singing the traditional songs as we came to them.  We had most fun singing the songs and hiding the afikomon.

To my surprise, I discovered that the modern, more contemporary approach actually took us longer.

I missed the meaningful discussions in the traditional seder and I missed the traditional songs in the contemporary seder.  Maybe each was appropriate to their participants.  The first night at my brother’s we were mostly adults with a few teenagers.  The second night we were two families with adult children and four grandchildren as well.  I am sure the four year olds would have found discussions about oppression as boring as we used to find the traditional reading of the seder.  But they enjoyed singing the songs.

So, nowadays, you have to design your seder to fit the people who are coming.  You have to be a sort of program director at the JCC.

Not that I have anything to complain about.  I was a guest at two other families’ seders and I am grateful that I and my wife did not have to do the whole thing ourselves.  

I am going to start a new legend about the origins of Passover.   It’ll go something like this:

Once upon a time, the Jews were an oppressed minority in the land of Europe.  Their neighbours were Christians.  And like all good Christians of the time, they were taught that the Jews had to be chastised and kept in their place.

They were taught that the mean Jews, led by the blood thirsty and vindictive high priests, had killed Jesus despite the protestations of the meek and mild Roman governor, Pontius Pilate.

They were cursed for their unbelief and had to be reminded, on occasion, of their sin.

So every Easter, when the story of the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus was told in churches, good Christians could not help but feel enraged towards the Jews and, full of  righteous anger, often expressed their feelings by conducting a bit of a pogrom, beating Jews, destroying their property and killing a few now and then but not, God forbid, too many.  The misery of the Jews testified to their just punishment and hence enhanced the beliefs and faith of the Christians.  Some had to be left alive as witnesses to their own unworthiness and to the truth of the Gospels.

Once the Christians started to express their righteous anger, the Jews would look for a place to hide until the trouble had ended and the Christians had returned to their homes or their Churches to be absolved their sins.  And of course, the priests never failed to forgive them for what were after all, understandable expressions of rage against the enemies of the Saviour and, by extension, of all humanity.

The Jews hid not only themselves but their good china and inevitably, after the whole pogrom was finished, they had to clean up.

In this way, the Jews learned to change their dishes around Easter time and, as time passed and the Christians became less hostile to them and more hostile to each other, the Jews nevertheless continued the custom of cleaning up, so much so that they no longer waited for the pogrom to clean up but did so freely and of their own accord.

They also continued the custom of hiding away their dishes but over time, as the memory of the reason for hiding dishes faded, they started to hide the bad dishes and bring out the good ones at this time of year.

They continued to hide themselves for many years and would emerge into the light of Spring, looking at each other bewildered.  Where had this custom of hiding away originate?  No one could remember.  But they did remember the question they had to ask each other.  “Have the troubles passed over?” they would say and the answer would be, “yes, happily, they have passed over.”

Over time of course, this whole dialogue was shortened to the minimal greeting of “Happy Passover.”  And so it is to this day.

The really startling thing, according my own ancient and original sources, is that this whole ceremony was imported to North America and attached to the arrival of Spring.  As is noted in my text, “When the Jews emerge from hiding in early Spring, if they see their shadows, there will be six more weeks of cold weather.”

So the next time you see a ground hog, don’t be surprised if you detect the remains of a small kipa on its head. 

And so the legend of Passover was born, which by law I am obliged to pass on to my children and my children’s children.