Pesach: Passing Over

[eumelia]

Matzah and Humous... best. Combo. Ever.

Every year I forget how much fun it is to eat gooey things on the crunchiness of Matzah. Luckily, it's only for a week.

Tuesday night [Southern!Girl] arrived to spend the "Holy" days with me (and my entire family); thinking about it now, I'm not sure how she didn't explode/implode of the stress - well, she was tense, but we very happily worked on that...

The actual day of the Seder - Erev Pesach (Passover Eve, I guess) - Mummy sent [Southern!Girl] and I to buy some last minute things before all the stores closed early for the holiday and wouldn't actually open again until Friday. It was really fun just going for a walk, talking and spending quality time with her, as usual.

My sister and her family (the Jerusalem contingent) came down for the majority of the week and it was seriously fun to hang out with everyone despite the pre-Seder craziness.

[Southern!Girl] looked absolutely gorgeous in her white shirt and green skirt (I wore jeans... and my annual Seder shirt, funny how that works).
Everyone got along really well and just had a good time, again, despite the pre-during AND post-Seder mayhem.
There were four ranging from the age of seven to three, so you can imagine how cute and insane the whole evening was.
The pre-Dinner part passed quite quickly, with everyone reading large parts of the patriarchal parochial dated traditional Hagadah.

The majority of the time I being teased by my brothers (blood and in-law) for not being counted as an adult - which was irritating, but I think that's just the way it's going to be for my entire life.

After the eating (the drinking continues long after the supper itself) we sang all the patter songs at the end of the Hagadah and of course everyone has a different tune and metre for the songs and eventually it turned into a race to see who could sing faster and with less breath.

[Southern!Girl] and Tsipi (my Bro's fresh wife ;D) seemed to be a bit in awe of the happenings around the table - we're a very boisterous family during the Seder and after we were done with all the traditional songs that appear in the actual Hagadah we continued with a tradition that we adopted from my Leigh's (Jerusalem contingent) partner's family:
Folk songs and Spiritual songs.
We sang "Go Down Moses", "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot", "We Shall Overcome", "This Land is Your Land" and my personal favourite "If I had a Hammer" - a few more, but those five are sung every year.

I know that there is an issue of appropriation with regards to the Negro Spiritual (is a different term that one can use, or is that the actual term) songs sung for fun and that sort of thing.
I don't it's appropriation as my family and I are very much aware of where these songs come from and what they mean and generally incorporate them into a "Holy"day which is all about liberation and freedom from bondage and slavery.
Also, we're not American and are not celebrating anywhere in America and thus while there is baggage, it really isn't the same kind of luggage.

I saw [Southern!Girl] was uncomfortable with that portion of the evening, which bothered me because it's a tradition that has a lot of meaning for me and was kind of evident that we think very differently about certain issues.

There wasn't an orange or olives on the Seder plate, [Southern!Girl] suggested it and I said "Good luck" because it really wasn't happening. The orange and olives on the Seder plate is a very American neo-tradition and has very little room on the table - also I was just grateful that my mother actually invited her (yeah, score, I know!).

Tradition is a funny thing in my family, we're very irreligious on the whole, and I think it is beginning to slip away from us as I've never heard any of the kids mention "God" except in the mythological sense, so I think the older members of my family (i.e. everyone but me and my nevvies) have a great stake at keeping tradition as close to their own childhood memories.

For myself, I wouldn't mind to see some acknowledgement that things aren't the same and that they are dynamic and changing and that we really don't need to keep the Hagadah and whole Seder patriarchal parochial dated traditional.

[Southern!Girl] stayed until Friday morning and it was Good.

We will meet up again over the week.
So far, it's been a very good one.

A question for discussion if you please, what do you think of tradition?

Comments

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

Tradition is the blind devotion to ritual that is the easy path taken by those who prefer not to branch out into original thinking and break the shackles of dogma.

Plus, most of what is called 'tradition' is actually used as an excuse to keep people (usually women) in their place.

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

Is what I think of tradition.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

I think at times tradition is the only thing that holds people together for certain things - like a collective mnemonic or something similar.

But on the whole I agree, though I think some are fun, like a Seder dinner, though I think they should be updated a little bit more with the times.

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

I'm sure it is, yes, and evolutionary speaking, Traditions have probably done a lot to help keep The Tribe together and functioning as a cohesive whole.

Just I tend to think that if we're going to get anywhere as a species, we have to start moving past our tribal histories, and make some advances in how we exist.

[mao4269.livejournal.com]

But rooting ourselves in tribal histories may, psychologically, be the easiest way to advance.

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

It might. And I'm sure we have traditions still because they do work, very well. Otherwise we wouldn't still have them.

Just... I feel a lot of our traditions were born in an age of human development where we needed hierarchical societies that looked back, that were very hidebound, because our existance was so precarious - food, medicine, war - these things all made it necessary for us to have strong-knit tribal groupings.

But we live in an age now, at least in the West, where we've been freed from most of the pressures that drove our evolution. And I just feel we should maybe be spending less time looking back as a species, and more time looking forward. Trying to break out of our same-old patterns, you know?

Sorry this got a bit preachy

[mao4269.livejournal.com]

I tend to agree with the idea of neo-secularization: even if people aren't affiliating with traditional groups, they'll just look elsewhere for sources of authority [to structure their dogmatism]. I think that there's more potential for positive change with focusing more on the humanistic aspects of traditions rather than dismissing the traditions completely. Not looking at history tends to lead to a nasty habit of repeating it. Better to look to the past, learn from it, and move forward from there.

[lilacsigil.livejournal.com]

There is a difference between tradition as shared memory and tradition as a big stick. Sometimes, there's overlap, and the people who most love tradition may be super-invested in the patriarchal status quo, or they may just be very nostalgic, but the two aren't exclusive, which makes it difficult to reject tradition without rejecting the people who love it.

I'm glad that Southern!Girl is part of your family's tradition this year.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Nostalgia is a huge motivator for keeping tradition, for sure, but at times it feels so empty I wonder why we bother. You know what I mean?

And yeah, it was really great having her with all of us.

[mao4269.livejournal.com]

1) Crazy kitniyot eater with your hummus! ;)
2) For me, rituals are a way of connecting to positive values within communities of which I'm apart. Yes, traditional religious rituals often perpetuated patriarchy (and other systems of inequality), but most religions also have a social justice component. Repeating religious rituals today doesn't have to perpetuate those same inequalities. Instead it can be a way of remembering that our struggles against inequality are part of something bigger and can thereby serve as a motivation to continue them. Particularly in Judaism, where the holidays/rituals very much structure the year, they can also help provide a framework to life. That doesn't mean that all traditional rituals should be performed blindly, but I think that they can help provide a basis from which to move forward. Rejecting all of them because of their problematic aspects, rather than seeking to re-work the latter, I think can be counter-productive.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

I may not look it, but I'm a Mediterranean gal all the way.

As I said, I think there should be an acknowledgement that traditions are changeable as the years go on and the whole "keeping tradition" is a bit old... there's nothing wrong in keeping old things alive, but updating them would be a good idea.

[mao4269.livejournal.com]

But different people feel a need for different levels of continuity in order to feel the connection with the past in their traditions...

[ladyperegrine.livejournal.com]

This is the Haggadah we use, and I think you might like it too:

http://www.velveteenrabbi.com/2006-Haggadah.pdf

[mao4269.livejournal.com]

FYI, a more recent version of the same haggadah is available here (http://jvoices.com/wp-content/vrhaggadah2.pdf).

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Very nice, I'll try and incorporate a few things next year if I'm at a Seder open to that sort of thing.

Thanks!

[ladyperegrine.livejournal.com]

You're welcome. :-) It really is both a fun and meaningful one for us.

[corvus.livejournal.com]

What are you doing on... Monday? Want to hang out? Wander through Yaffo? Something? Coffee? Coffee!

[schemingreader.livejournal.com]

I think tradition goes with innovation like delicious unctuous things go with matzah. (Try some guacamole on it next. I'm going out to buy more avocados tomorrow.) Nothing shows that better than Pesach, the holiday of liberation and remembering the past, family tradition and questions. Just remember that we lean to the left on Pesach. The tradition says so.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Oh yes! We have some avo's and am planning on smushing them and spreading them on my matzah along with humus!!!