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.

Saturday, April 18, 2009

Oy Vey! Matzoh in the White House

There is a Jewish holiday called Purim that was celebrated just last month. It’s the story of a Jewish Queen, Esther, who with the help of her beloved uncle Mordechai saved the Jews from being slaughtered at the hands of the evil Haman who had a position of power in the government of King Ahashverus, Esther’s new husband. Esther was ordered to marry him after his first wife Vashti refused to dance naked for his friends. Traditional interpretations say that he beheaded her, but the more modern story is that she left him to go to med school. The story ends by Esther throwing a party for her husband and after making sure he’s had a few drinks tells him of Haman’s awful plans. The King is quite smitten with his beautiful Jewish wife and the story ends well for the Jews. Haman is killed and Mordechai is given a role in the government!

Anyone who is familiar with the plight of the Jews knows that this story is a fantasy. The end tells of the possibility of what could happen if things went well and good won out over evil. Recently something occurred in our own American government that gives hope that fantasy does sometimes become reality.

There was a Seder in the White House! A Seder is the ritual meal that commemorates the Jewish festival of Passover; the retelling of the Jews’ exodus from Egypt and slavery. This was the first time that an American president and his family took part in a Jewish ceremony in the home of our leader. As the story appeared in the papers and various on line sites, rumors of a Jewish cousin appeared! Michelle Obama has a cousin who converted to Judaism and became a rabbi! This is so exciting that every sentence might have to end with an exclamation point!

It is not new to have Jews taking part in American government. The combination of having an African-American president and the observance of Judaism as part of that government that has been so closed to diversity and tolerance for the past eight years, leaves me feeling that we may actually have a visionary in power who may actually create a more loving and tolerant nation that reduces suffering and oppression for all of it’s citizens.

My fantasy is this: When my children have children and we are having our annual Seder, I will be able to include in the retelling of history, of a new president who came into office when the country was at its lowest point in decades. I will be able to explain to them that is was not always that the U.S. did not start wars without reason, and that it was not always that there was no hunger in our land, or that everyone had healthcare. I look forward to telling my grandchildren that the blessed world they will live in was created by grassroots organizations and hard working people who believed that their fantasies could become reality.

AMEN!

Labels: Esther, Gloria Saltzman, Jews, Judaism, Matzoh, Michelle Obama, Oy Vey, Passover, Purim, Seder, White House

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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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