Megillah reading completed. Onward to Pesach.
This has been my central holiday, the season where my personal Judaism tops out. Preparation, often with more than slight inconvenience or disruption, gets rewarded with a sense of having achieved something difficult. Planning takes weeks. Cleaning, Seder menus, shopping, who to invite. Usually I am offered a portion of the synagogue ritual, typically one of the Torah readings. Some physical work appears. Bringing bags of groceries from the trunk into the house. Hauling heavy boxes of dishes from the basement. Washing everything. Even kitchen time, something that energizes me, can challenge my stamina as I peel, grate, mix, and wash as I go. Coffee cone and scoop gets opened first to allow me these respites.
The nature of the holiday seems to be run up to Seder, where the peak occurs, then a gradual decline. My Festival has a secondary peak, the intermediate Shabbos where I typically invite a guest or two for Friday night dinner, then have a Second Act performing in my kitchen. Not to be this year, as the Sederim take place on Wednesday and Thursday evenings. Shabbos begins the week's descent instead of a second but lesser peak.
My principal supermarket stocked its Pesach display before Purim. All sorts of delactables, though I tend not to seek out the frivolous. Instead I look for staples. Matzoh. Eggs. Meats for main courses. Chicken parts for soup. Fresh produce gets purchased within a few days of seder. Matzoh meal has versatility through the year and lower price when purchased Passover season. I get enough to tide me through the year. Cannot have Passover without macaroons, something I cannot realistically make myself. Cannisters have given way to pouches, though I used those cannisters to store extra soup. Some things priced themselves out. Jarred gefilte fish has given way to frozen loaves, though even these now need a discount coupon to justify purchase. Making my own from fresh carp with store grinding and harvesting of fish trimmings has passed from realistic. I no longer buy jarred horseradish. I can grind some from our maror, splash with vinegar, and enhance the gefilte fish slices that way. I buy nuts, walnuts and almonds. They become Charoset and nut cakes.
While the signature meals have a fleishig centerpiece, morning meals require dairy. Certified butter. There is a loophole that milk purchased before the holiday does not require certification. As a result, many dairies no longer print certification labels on their plastic bottles. Just have to buy enough before the holiday. Cheese slices become a staple of breakfast, an expensive one. Cream cheese exists but is hard to spread on matzoh. A couple jars of jam, created from a fruit I would usually not buy, enhanced holiday mornings. And eggs have versatility. Figure about three dozen.
Maybe Pesach focuses too much on food, secondarily on purity. I find the preparation more stimulating than the eating. It can also be about people. I reserve the Second Day for a congregation not my own. The people there once provided an immense kindness to a Jew at the communal margins. I learned a few weeks later that college students in attendance, people with futures on the rise, did their very best to bring this woman into the main loop for the evening. There are other Festivals that focus more on Judaism's imperative to treat people in a sensitive way. A lot of people rose to the opportunity for this woman. The least I can do is show my appreciation by making a sparsely attended minyan more secure one of the Festival days. To get one of my honored guests to my Seder also entails transport, two forty-five minute round trips. This guest also has limited social capital. We could arrange and pay for an Uber, I suppose, but reaching out to people has its inclusion early in the Haggadah.
Pesach has perhaps the unfortunate calendar coincidence with Palm Sunday or Easter. It's also the change of seasons, when winter clothing goes to storage and summer wear gets unpacked. We do not do special clothing shopping, though others do. Looking your finest seems a bit goyish. Seder is casual for us, though through American history it has not always been. No ties. My apron with the logo of the Iggles still in place as I serve dinner and conduct the ritual. We expect stuff to be spilled onto our clothing. Synagogue attire without the finery of the Holy Days. People attend to worship, not to be seen or to meet folks they've not met in a year.
Anticipation firmly established. Preparation in small aliquots, to be expanded as the calendar moves along. Chores still in a mental framework. Mind set on food. My annual chance to have a special week.
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