Passing on Passover wisdom: That's Life 4-10-09

Issue of April 10, 2009 / 16 Nissan 5769

Dear That’s Life,

Last week, one of my daughters asked me if her room was clean for Pesach. With a tinge of annoyance in my voice, I responded, “Let’s see — did you clean your room for Pesach yet?” After hearing that she had not, I gave her the classic ‘Mommy stare down’ and said, “Well, then I guess it’s not clean.” She nodded, getting my point, but not before I added, “The elves have off.”

The truth is that Pesach is my favorite holiday of the year. It’s not the intense cleaning or the seemingly endless spending that does it for me. Rather, it is the eight days immersed in the holiday, surrounded by everything and anything that reminds me of Pesach and tradition that really makes me smile.

I have an aunt in Jerusalem with whom I have always been close and when she gives advice I take it as if it came from Above. So when I was making Pesach for the first time I called her for some words of wisdom. She told me that when I buy dishes I should buy a set completely different from anything I presently owned or anything that is my taste. “When your kids see those dishes or anything like them,” she said, “it’ll remind them of Pesach.”

And that is what I did: buying plates with green and magenta flowers and pretty pink bowls to accompany them. Under all other circumstances, I do not do pink. Yet here I am with these plates that I adore because I see them and they scream “Pesach” — just like the classroom projects we unearth each year and the stained Haggadah I made in kindergarten that always makes me smile.

This holiday, more than others, I feel, is steeped in tradition. From the recipes I make to the tunes we sing at the Seder, everything has a history. A recipe I recently saw for a Mexican inspired matzo brei with fresh salsa left me completely perplexed. Who thought that was a good idea? What’s wrong with the way it has been made for generations? I like reinvention as much as the next cook, but this just isn’t right and, it sounds unappetizing. Cilantro, jalapeno and matzo are not a plus.

It reminded me of the Rosh Hashanah when a ba’al tefilah in the shul in which I grew up used some modern Hebrew tunes as his nusach for Mussaf.

The rav of the shul then talked about how the tunes that are used for davening have been passed down for generations and should be continued the way they are. It was more than a “it ain’t broke, so don’t fix it” kind of message — it was more like “this is who we are and who we have been for centuries.” To quote Tevye, “It’s tradition.”

For years I watched as my mother and my aunts made Pesach, washing heads and heads of romaine, boiling more eggs than a single chicken could ever produce and fighting the endless fight against the mess that matzo makes. And now, I’ve unpacked my dishes and my kids have smiled and I’m ready to make my first brei. Here’s wishing all of you all a Chag steeped in tradition and fried in oil.

MLW

P.S. I received a number of e-mails and comments about last week’s piece. While I will not disclose in which establishment the incident took place, there are two things I regret about that column: 1. That many people are negatively discussing stores in the area where they think my story could plausibly have taken place and 2. That there are a number of different places where, it seems, these sorts of incidents are happening to other people.

MLW