The Passover Perfectionist

A New Thought Christian now, I was born Jewish, so I'm mindful that we're mere days away from the Passover holiday...which is what this story is about. Or rather, about a Passover fiasco.

Although I didn’t come from a religious family, I myself became an observant Jew in my pre-teen years, and I tried to follow many of the precepts of my religion to the letter. Coming from a Reform Jewish background, I felt no need to observe the laws of Kashruth (keeping Kosher), but I did feel the holidays needed to be observed correctly.
My mother, on the other hand, was always trying to make the religion easier for me. When she told me that, as Reform Jews, we were only required to observe Passover for seven days, not eight, I thought that was just another sneaky rule that my mom had made up to let me slide. It wasn’t till she spotted the rabbi walking down one of our community’s main streets, dragged me out of the car, and stood me face to face with him, then asked him how many days we were required to observe Passover, that I believed her.

At home, in my childhood, my mother would keep matzo in the house for the duration of Passover, but she never went through the ritual cleansing of the house, throwing out any bread, flour, and other non-Pesadich products, as is mandated by the religion and performed by the more observant Jews. As I grew older and more observant, I demanded that my mother rid the house of all the no-no products. She dragged her heels at first, capitulating only when she saw how set I was on being the best Jew I could. I suspect she didn’t actually throw anything out, though; my mother was far too economical for that. I have a strong hunch that the flour, bread crumbs, and other chometz found a temporary home at my grandmother’s house till the holiday was over.

The Passover seder (in-home religious service, which dinner is a part of) calls for each participant to drink four glasses of wine during the course of the service. In my youngest years, I was given grape juice instead; as I got a little older, my mother allowed me to drink real wine, but she said God would not think ill of me for drinking four fourths of a glass, rather than four glasses, at my age.

I was 14 the year that my dad died. He died in the spring, right before Passover, and my mother’s best friend invited us to celebrate the first night of Passover at her home, so my mom wouldn’t have to make a seder while coping with her grief and shock. Now, Janice observed Passover more in the spirit than the letter, a fact I didn’t yet realize but was soon to find out. The requisite matzos were on the table, along with the ceremonial objects such as a roasted lamb bone, salt water, an egg, and the apple-wine-nut concoction called charoseth, meant to symbolize the mortar the enslaved Israelites were forced to use in constructing Pharaoh’s pyramids. So far, so good.

The trouble came when the main course was served. It was a roast chicken, with stuffing, and I tasted the stuffing hesitantly. I’d had “bread stuffing” made with matzo before…and the less said about it, the better. But to my surprise, my mother’s friend’s stuffing was good! “Janice, this bread stuffing is great!” I enthused. “What did you put into it?”

“Bread,” she answered matter-of-factly.

I don’t think it was very mannerly of me to spit out my mouthful of chometzdich bread stuffing as I did, but I felt both poisoned and betrayed. I was trying so hard to be a good Jew…and my mother’s best friend had stabbed me in the back.

That was also the year I decided that I’d be a better Jew if I literally drank four glasses of wine, as prescribed for the service, rather than the four fourths my mother had always let me slide with. “Are you sure?” my mother asked skeptically. Yes, I was sure…and I went ahead and downed the first glass without a problem.

I don’t remember if I was on the second glass or the third when the wave of dizziness hit me; I only remember that I found it necessary to excuse myself from the seder table and go lie down on the living room sofa. My attempt to be a better Jew resulted in my missing the whole rest of the seder. I was still lying down on the sofa, the room spinning around me, when my mother came into the room to collect me and take me home some time after dinner.

It’s probably just as well that I missed the rest of dinner, though. After the stuffing fiasco, heaven only knows what was in the remainder of the food.