It Ain't Over Till It's Passover

Yesterday afternoon, we were having a conversation with a friend of mine whose family is "very Jewish." This is a term that I use to describe anybody who knows more than seven words of Hebrew and doesn't regularly consume shrimp.

Anyway, we were discussing preparation for Passover in her parent's house.

"Oh, do they do that shit where you take all your bread and throw it in the river?" I asked.

There was a slight pause in the conversation.

"That's the wrong holiday, sweetheart," my wife pleasantly chimed in.

That about sums up pretty succinctly and accurately my relationship with Judaism. It's very... surface. It's often very... inaccurate. And it's kind of funny, because, more often than not, I feel like being Jewish is such a large part of my identity. It's certainly a large part of my nose.

But what is it about being Jewish is me? It's not the traditions-- the keeping of Shabbat. Kissing the mezzuzah prior to entering a Jewish home and/or leaving one. It's the Woody Allen stuff. The neuroses. The hypochrondria. The guilt. The wry humor. The... poor posture and glasses. The complaining. The incessant desire for self-analysis.

All Jews should have blogs. That way they wouldn't need therapists so much. Oh, shit-- does this mean I should be paying you $150/hr? Um... could you please bill my insurance?

Sometimes I feel like a jewpostor. I mean, I did my time in Hebrew School-- from age 8 to age 13. I have an Israeli father, and that's not easy. But, really, most of the time, I'm just a big faker. When we go to synagogue, which is very rare, my eyes glaze over the Hebrew and it might as well be Japanese. All the fucking prayers sound exactly the same, and if I read about ninety-year-old Joseph impregnating Sarah or Leah or whoever the fuck it was and the rabbi thinking she was drunk because she was praying silently and the burned goats and the burning bush and the seas parting and all of that one more time, well, I think I might puke up my gefilte fish all over everyone.

I mean, gefilte fish already looks like it's been puked up. Who would know the difference?

I feel like a jewpostor during Passover. My wife keeps Passover, and I do it, too, in solidarity with her, because I think marital solidarity is important. I mean, we can't do everything together. Like, when she's menstruating, I don't walk around with a heating pad on my groin, nor do I paint my penis red, but, in ways that we can have marital solidarity, I try to make that happen.

I think being unified with your spouse is a shitload more important than being unified with God because, really, if you piss Him off, what's going to happen to you? Probably nothing. Don't believe me? Try pissing God off and then pissing your spouse off and see which is more uncomfortable.

Passover is always difficult for me because I love eating, and Passover is an extremely restrictive time as concerns what you can put into your body. I'm a carboholic: cakes, breads, croissants, pastries, muffins, sandwiches-- I'm all about the yeast and the bread and the rising. So far, it hasn't all gone to my tits and my ass-- but I keep waiting for it to happen like my 10th grade health teacher warned us it would.

One of the many things I don't like about organized religion are rules about what you can and can't put into your body. Most of the Jewish rules about food I ignore with relish. Actually, I ignore them with shrimp and pork. I don't give a fuck what some inbred graybeards thought a thousand years ago about cloven hooved animals or bottom-feeders, and if someone wants to tell me that I'm not really Jewish because I like lobster tail, then they can go fuck themelves up against a brick wall. But, for Passover, for my wife, I play along.

It's a week? How bad can it be?

There's a little constipation from the matzah, sure, but it passes, if you'll forgive the pun. I don't mind. It is what it is. I just can't help but feel a little, well, guilty. Maybe that's just the constipation, though.

The one thing I do like about Passover are seders with my family. When my father lived in B'nei Brach, his seders started at sundown and would go until 2 or 3 in the morning, with everybody completely shitfaced, probably including the children. Since coming here in 1972, my father has been appropriately Americanized, and, like most Israelis who come to America, he's his own rabbi and his own God. He's realized that he doesn't need to do all that shit anymore, that, having fought in two wars to protect and defend Israel-- he's earned the right to, well, chill. Consequently, our seders are usually over in 15 minutes.

This bothers my wife, and I understand that. "Are we ever going to go to a real seder?" she asked me one day. I could have gotten insulted by that question, but how can I, an ardent jewpostor, have anything to say about that? Only, they are real seders-- conducted by one of the thousands of the motherland's saviors, one of its valiant warriors. One of Israel's hairy-chested, bombastic, good-natured, affectionate, passionate sons.

Whose favorite meal is shrimp stir-fry.

Happy Passover.