The Perfect Pesach

An Impossible Dream

Well, another Jewish holiday will shortly be upon us, Pesach—or Passover for my non-Jewish friends. And I must admit, I’m feeling a little like I used to when the Christmas season began, which is to say, gee this used to be a lot of fun, but it’s kind of wearing me down.

Pesach is perhaps the craziest¹ of all Jewish holidays, crazier even than the pay-$85-for-a-lemon-to-wave-around insanity of Sukkot, the holiday that most non-Jews don’t even know exists.

Where to begin with the crazy? You know where. With the kitchen. First, there’s the “spring cleaning,” to remove all the crumbs and scrub everything down so that there won’t be a smidgen of “chametz”—leavened wheat products—to be found. That’s all well and good. Who doesn’t want a clean kitchen?

But then there’s the kashering part, the making-kosher-for-pesach of the kitchen.

First, you have to let the clean kitchen sit unused for 24 hours.

Why? I don’t know. Maybe because chametz, like certain viruses, can only last so long on an exposed countertop.²

Then, the real kashering begins, the pouring of boiling water on all the countertops and sinks, and I mean boiling. If it’s not roiling boiling, it ain’t hot enough.

After you’ve drowned your kitchen and used up all the towels in the house drying it, you’ve got to cover those sparkling clean counters with something non-porous because, despite the 24-hour waiting period, and despite the roiling boiling water, some lurking water-and-heat-resistant chametz may yet have designs on your Pesach celebration.

I used to cover all the counters in tin foil, then top the tin foil with cheap laminate tiles. This is how I was “raised” by my Orthodox mentors. Last year we just used plastic carpet covering. This year, I’m not sure. Our countertops are granite, which, technically, doesn’t need to be covered because, well, you know, granite is like kryptonite to chametz. But you don’t want your neighbors to think you’re cutting corners, so it’s probably more proper to cover, regardless.

Did I mention taping up the cabinets and marking as “sold” all the non-kosher-for-Pesach food? The pretend sale of said food to a non-Jew? Or switching out every single appliance, plate, and fork for “kosher l’Pesach” stuff?

Orthodox Jews don’t just have two of everything, one pot for meat, one for dairy. We have four of everything, one pot for meat, one pot for Pesach meat, one for dairy, one for Pesach dairy. . . .

All your food has to be switched out too, for generally inferior, more highly processed, more costly “kosher l’Pesach” food.³ Some of my Chassidic friends and family get around this by boycotting processed foods for the holiday, which is probably the best policy anyway from the health point of view, but seriously limits your menu.

And then there’s the Pesach Seder, not one, but two identical ritual meals on the first and second days of the eight-day holiday. It’s like two Thanksgivings in a row, sans stuffing, plus a whole lot of praying.

The Seder on the first day in the American South generally starts around 9 p.m., which is a great time for a multi-course dinner if you live in Barcelona. The second night, it begins closer to 10:30 p.m., which is just not dinner-time anywhere in the normal world.

But the Seder is what it’s all about. That’s when we do the big mitzvahs—the drinking of four cups of wine, the eating of bitter herbs, the forced ingestion of several ounces of the aptly named “bread of affliction”—and the reading of the Haggadah, the ancient Hebrew text that serves as a combination instruction manual/prayer book during the meal.

The Seder is a beautiful thing. Except when it’s not.

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My first Seder was when I was dating my first Jewish girlfriend, shortly after graduating from NYU’s master’s program in English. I still considered myself Christian then and don’t recall a thing about it, so enough of that.

The next one I attended I hosted. This was about a year before my life-changing trip to Israel, and even though I was a kind of believing Christian, I was starting to experiment with Judaism. I invited two friends over to join me and my roommate. One of those friends was Jewish. I asked him if I should get kosher meat, and he said not to bother, but I did anyway. I also got ground fish from the Kosher grocery in Chicago and made homemade gefilte fish, which no one does. I guess that was the latent extremist in me showing his cards.

The most memorable part of that meal was the reconstructionist Haggadah. At one point, my Jewish friend read a passage from it that went something like this: “We all know the Exodus never happened, that it’s just a cultural myth. But it’s our cultural myth, and we treasure it!”

I, nominally Lutheran, exchanged a look with my other friend, a practicing Episcopalian as if to say, “It’s not a myth to us. . . .”

At my first Orthodox Seder, the rabbi passed around pieces of paper showing us exactly how much matzah we were supposed to eat during the official matzah-eating parts of the meal. I recall it being about the size of an 8x11 sheet, but that may be memory’s exaggeration. I do know, though, that he timed us eating the matzah. You had to down your portion in like a minute—on more than one occasion. No drinking or talking while doing so. It was like a fraternity initiation.

Some years later, I again hosted a Seder, this time with my wife and our boy. We invited another couple who had several daughters. I have two distinct memories of that night. The first was making an absolutely perfect prime rib, I mean coffee crusted on the outside and the inside red as Taylor Swift’s lips—and seeing the look of horror on the faces of my guests.

“Are you sure that’s cooked enough?” they asked.

The second memory came later in the evening, and I mean later, like around midnight or past that, because it was that second after-10:30-pm-starting Seder, and the girls at the table were freaking out because they had school the next day. Their parents were being polite to the crazy Orthodox family who invited them over and were not letting the girls leave. But when one of their daughters began weeping as if for the death of drowned Hebrew children, I let them know it was fine if she didn’t finish out the dinner, and she left crying all the way to the car. I bet she remembers that Seder too.

Since then I’ve had good Seders and not-so-good Seders. We've often ended up at “community Seders” where a synagogue hosts between 50 and 500 guests, and no one follows the Haggadah, and half the people leave early, despite the Rabbi cruising through the meal faster than an Iranian drone.⁴ But much as I am a swift eater, I don’t like skipping the rituals or short-cutting the prayers, and these community Seders always feel a little frustrating.

But then again, so are the family ones, because if you don’t have crying teenagers, you have little kids with short attention spans who need to be entertained and indulged, so that even the most Orthodox Seders I’ve been to always feels rushed.

But here’s the thing. Crazy as the holiday is, I like to take it seriously, especially the Seder.

I would love one Pesach to be like those rabbis in B’nei Brak, who, according to the Haggadah, stay up so late talking over the holiday that their students have to interrupt to let them know it’s time for the morning service. But I’ve never been at a truly relaxed Seder unless you count that first one where the only other Jew in the room suggested we were play-acting at religion.

It seems there’s a contradiction inherent in the Seder—or rather many contradictions. It’s a family meal, but it’s also a service. You’re supposed to welcome everyone, but not everyone wants to be there. You’re supposed to explain stuff to four different kinds of kids, ranging from wicked to not-very-smart to the one who really gets it, which means you should be operating at multiple levels of discourse. You should be doing deep dives into the meaning of things but not letting the soup get cold or the diners get antsy. And so I always leave the table a little less than satisfied that I really fulfilled the mitzvah.

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What would an ideal Seder look like to me? Probably something more like a seminar with food and odd rituals mixed in, a seminar with lots of people truly interested in the topic, if not well-educated on it, something like Jordan Peterson’s Exodus discussion.

In that series, he sits at a table with a handful of scholars from various fields and works through (most of) Exodus line by line for 17 episodes, not one of which is less than two hours.

That’s my dream, Seder, though I’d certainly like my family and friends to be there and not just a bunch of super-smart guys with questionable haircuts. I’d like everyone to be well-rested, non-in-a-hurry, curious, and enthused.

I think this is the part where I say something about Moshiach coming speedily in our days because, short of that, I just don’t see it happening. . . .

And so, to my Jewish readers, have a happy, kosher Pesach, crazy as it may be. To my non-Jewish readers, enjoy your chametz and spare a thought for those of us covering our kitchens in Reynold’s Wrap.

1. And most expensive. A friend of mine told me his family spent eight grand last year on the holiday and that was just staying home and entertaining friends. Go to a Pesach holiday hotel and you’re easily in for $8,000 per person.

2. Reminds me of the good old days of leaving packages on your doorstep for a day to kill the Covid cooties.

3. Pets also have to have special “grain-free food.” I think my dog appreciates the change of pace, the cats, not so much.

4. Yeah, I know, that’s not so fast, really.