The Writing Mamas Daily Blog

The Writing Mamas Daily Blog

Each day on the Writing Mamas Daily Blog, a different member will write about mothering.

If you're a mom then you've said these words, you've made these observations and you've lived these situations - 24/7.

And for that, you are a goddess.

Wednesday, April 08, 2009

A Jewey Jew Celebrates Passover HER Way

Tonight we had the funky California Seder. We gathered two other families for a very abridged reading of the story of Passover: one mean Pharaoh, some plagues, and then a walk through the desert. We played “Let My People Go,” the board game.

It had small plastic accessories that captured the mood. My favorite: a man cut out of bubble wrap represented boils. We lit one aromatherapy candle. My daughter enjoyed the little party and dutifully took a bite of horseradish in remembrance of people who have been enslaved. But

I still think she does not know that she is Jewish.

I worry that our holidays as fun facsimile of religion is so ultra-light it seems like another version of Halloween. A gimmick, some funny food and a costume if we’re lucky. Once again, bad mommy has reared her head. My lack of resolve with my very Orthodox background has shown up in my consistent forgetting to teach my children that they are Jewish.

Now, I am an East Coast Jewish girl, daughter of a mom from Flatbush Avenue through and through. I am neurotic, talk too much and consider any headache fair warning of an imminent aneurysm. But it is a culture, rich and old and idiosyncratic that I feel a part of, not the group of holidays and face it, odd laws.

Old ladies from Miami arriving at my Bat Mitzvah in bright red lipstick, smelling like Chanel No.5 and hugging me with crushing love and Yiddish expressions, that is the true religion I feel in my bones.

The Old Testament God? I’ve had a hard relationship with him from the start. And Passover is a great example of my rather embarrassed feelings about this Jewish God that I can’t quite see selling my daughters on.

Look no further than those plagues. An escalating level of rage and bloodthirstiness to creepy proportions? Turning water to blood, covering people with boils and lice? This is not my definition of divine design! When people treat you poorly, stand back and watch the vengeful bloodbath roar down the street, sweetheart. Don’t worry, if life is hard, at least you’re backed by a moody, wrathful capricious force you can count on to help you… or not.

I will keep up my attempt to pass on Judaism to my kids. I am a card-carrying member of people who fight to the end for the freedom to be who they are, who can make a life out of a barren desert and a holiday around forgiving yourself once a year for falling short. But I wish for my kids to know a life without revenge, without having to feel better than somebody to know who you are, and without violence.

Amen and Happy Passover!

By Avvy Mar

Labels: Avvy Mar, Bat Mitzvah, California, Chanel No. 5, East Coast Jewish girl, Flatbush Avenue, Jewey, Jewish Mother, Judaism, Passover, Yiddish

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# posted by Writing Mamas Salon @ 12:01 AM 4 comments

Friday, December 26, 2008

A Jewish Mom Adopts Me During Holiday Traffic

She honked while I chatted up a driver in the opposite lane.

"I just spend half an hour getting from Costco to here." The driver was complaining; Costco sign still in vicinity.

"Me, too," I sigh.

"They have a serious problem."

"Seems so. It happens every year around this time," I concur.

"You have a good memory." I am not sure if the driver is joking.

"I would use it, too, if not for the pet." I am pointing at the white box with red lettering where a little brown critter is sleeping in the corner. "I could have not bought a pet weeks in advance."

She honks again. She has a perfect hairstyle and I am sure well-manicured fingers that are lying on the steering wheel now. We are both stuck in a traffic jam around our local mall. I call her Jewish Mom. She seems to have adopted me. There is a little bit more space in front of me so she makes sure I fill it.

Earlier she honked at me for letting yet another driver in. She looked impatiently while I dissolved the traffic jam on the intersection: "Mam, if you move a little bit forward, the lady over there can go across our lane into that parking spot that she covets."

"Our son has been asking for a hamster for months," I share with another driver in the opposite lane.

I still don't own a hands free-handset for my cell phone so talking to other unfortunate drivers is my only entertainment.

"From my own experience, hamsters make such poor pets! They sleep during the day and they don't like cuddling."

I check my rear-view window.

"I went to the pet store and there they were: two hamsters hidden out of sight in the their little dome. Sleeping."

Sigh.

"Underneath the hamsters were guinea pigs hopping around. When a mother with two kids came and pointed at them: "Look! Hamsters! Aren't they c u-u-u-te!" My idea was cemented – I decided to buy a guinea pig colored like a hamster, call it a hamster and hope no one notices.

I hear laughter roaring around as the drivers turned off their engines and rolled down their windows.

My adopted Jewish Mom behind directs me to follow the left turning lane. It seems like a good idea, so I do. As my own mother has said : "My daughter always has listened to me. She just did what she wanted in the end."

As we linger on the highway for the next couple of minutes, I follow the mantra of penguins from Madagascar and wave and smile to the fellow holiday shoppers. I see their grim face cracking a smile, too.

Then we reach a point where the cars speed up. I put my notebook down, step on the gas and wave to the driver behind me goodbye. I turned lemons into a lemonade and an hour of jam into a four-hundred word story.

I hope My Jewish Mom she is proud.

By Dilyara Breyer

Labels: Costco, Dilyara Breyer, holiday shopping, Jewish Mother

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# posted by Writing Mamas Salon @ 12:01 AM 0 comments