Kosher Queers
Kosher Queers
25 — Pesach: Let Our People Gay
It's Pesach! Okay, yes, technically this episode comes out on the middle days of Pesach, during Chol HaMoed, not on the day itself, but we were just filled with so much Pesach energy that we have an extra-long special episode for you, all about the holiday. Instead of going through a parsha, we go through a haggadah, and then hear about cool different ways folks celebrate the holiday.
Full transcript available here.
The Keshet haggadah by Rabbi Nikki DeBlosi can be found here. At 36:50, Jaz cites this JFREJ haggadah, and a piece written by the awesome Koach Baruch Frazier called "Lo Dayenu" can be found on page 5. At 1:07:30, Jaz referenced writing on more accessible seders by Ruti Regan. Some of them are here under the seder tag. Here's one on being overstimulated and one on eating things when you need to.
Also, thank you to everyone who sent in responses to our Passover survey! Shout out to Izzy, DiCo, Rachel, Bec, Tova, Nora, Jessica, Sharon, Ariel, and an anonymous listener!
Support us on Patreon! Send us questions or comments at kosherqueers@gmail.com, follow us on Twitter @kosherqueers, and like us on Facebook at Kosher Queers. Our music is by the band Brivele. This week, our audio was edited by Lulav Arnow and our transcript written by DiCo and Jaz. Our logo is by Lior Gross, and we are not endorsed by or affiliated with the Orthodox Union.
Jaz: So, Lulav, what are some cool things that you usually do for Pesach or some cool Pesach memories you have?
Lulav: Well, these are going to be significantly less cohesive than the memories you probably have. But when I was a kid, we would often do seder at the, I think, Goldsteins, so it was like a mom and a dad and two kids who were a couple years older than me and my sister. I actually got into Motion City Soundtrack because Nate introduced me to that back in 2005 or something.
Jaz: You have to explain that whole sentence to me.
Lulav: Okay, so Motion City Soundtrack is an emo band from the mid-00s. They are… depressed.
(Jaz laughs)
Jaz: Okay, so you liked them?
Lulav: You know, that should have indicated some things to me as a child, but yes. Yes, yes I did. Anyway, kind of immaterial to the seder thing other than the fact that 90% of my contact with Nate was via the seder.
Jaz: Great.
Lulav: Yeah, so that was like a thing as a kid. We did it kind of irregularly, but it was always really nice because that was like the most Jewish thing that I did the whole year. There was the lighting of candles for Hanukkah but like the thing done in community was the seder.
Jaz: Hmmmm
Lulav: So I generally had no idea what was happening other than like, oh, we’ve got these books that we read from and I generally know the story of Pesach.
Jaz: So you did know the story?
Lulav: I did know the story. Listen, I grew up on the North Shore of Milwaukee. Thirty percent of the people were at least ethnically Jewish.
Jaz: Okay
Lulav: I knew the story. It was just like the traditions and the, like, Jewish living wasn’t as much a thing for me because I was never a bat mitzvah.
Jaz: Hmm mm
Lulav: But yeah so coming back to that thesis, seder with the Goldsteins was my favorite part of the year ritually.
Jaz: Aw, that’s so nice.
Lulav: What about you, Jaz? What’s a fun thing that you remember?
Jaz: So we did a seder every year. My parents hosted one. Mama Fay led the seder. The rest of us were kind of along for the ride.
(Lulav laughs)
Jaz: So there was a period of time when I did the four questions and then my brother did the four questions, but Mama really led the seder every year. It was the one holiday that we did with my bio dad and his family. Lewis plays guitar and I think they’ve done seders maybe since they were in college together?
Lulav: That’s adorable
Jaz: I mean, I don’t know in the period of time when they were not in college and also I wasn’t born yet if they did seders together
Lulav: (laughs) Uh-huh
Jaz: But we’ve done seders with him most years… occasionally we couldn’t make that happen like the year we were living in Israel, he did not come join us. But because he brings music and plays guitar and brings singing and also we drag out these haggadot and some of the song sheets that they probably put together in college which are great. The family has this big box of lots of different kinds of haggadot, the haggadah being the book that you read from for Pesach. And so we had these purple ones that were sort of the standard one that we read from, and then a couple children’s ones, and song sheets and things that were like stapled together — things they had maybe compiled earlier in their life — and all of them were like kind of thrown together in one big box that we dragged out once a year.
Lulav: That’s amazing
Jaz: It was great
Lulav: I forgot to mention the haggadot from the Goldstein seders, which were these red books. Did you ever act in high school?
Jaz: Not really.
Lulav: Okay, do you know how plays are published though?
Jaz: Yes.
Lulav: It was like published in a playbook, basically.
Jaz: Great. Did you act them out?
Lulav: No, I just say that because I was an actor in high school.
Jaz: Oh really?
Lulav: Yeah, I was in the National Thespian Honor Society.
Jaz: Oh my G-d. That’s delightful.
Lulav: Yeah, I was not a theatre kid, to be clear.
Jaz: Ohhh.
Lulav: I was a little too autistic for that.
Jaz: Okay.
Lulav: But I was a kid who really enjoyed theatre.
Jaz: Okay. I hung out with the theatre kids a lot in high school but I was not a theatre kid either.
Lulav: Nice. We had inverse experiences and that’s wonderful.
Jaz: Yeah.
Lulav: So was Lewis the only man there or like…?
(Jaz laughs)
Jaz: Lewis often brought his family.
Lulav: Hmm mm.
Jaz: So his sisters would come, and their husbands, and their children.
Lulav: Okay.
Jaz: So there were like, kind of cousins there. And his father often came when I was younger, also his mother, but she died when I was pretty young so —
Lulav: Yeah.
Jaz: The last time I saw Lewis’s father before he died when I was in college — the last time I saw him was at one of our Passover seders.
Lulav: Yeah.
Jaz: But, yes, you are correct. Generally… also my brother was there!
(Lulav laughs)
Jaz: He’s important, but yes you are correct: of the friends we invited, we tended to have lesbian friends of theirs who came in to join us.
Lulav: Good.
Jaz: Sometimes other friends but yeah.
Lulav: That’s amazing.
Jaz: Yeah, yeah.
Lulav: So we talked about what seders were like for us growing up, but for me like being away from my family has meant significantly less seder continuity.
Jaz: Hmm.
Lulav: But it has also coincided with me being more Jewish as an adult.
Jaz: Hmm.
Lulav: So what we’ve done recently is janky seders which started with another couple back in like 2014 I think. They had just graduated from the same college and we hadn’t met that much when we were there but like we were St Olaf Jews post-St-Olaf and it was like, "oh hey, we’re friends now."
Jaz: Yeah.
Lulav: And so we got together for a seder but they didn’t have plates really and so for a seder plate we used a frisbee.
Jaz: Oh my G-d.
Lulav: Yeah, it was very good cuz Sarah is like, really into dogs and so like she just had a dog frisbee.
Jaz: Wow okay.
Lulav: Yeah so that was fun, just like pulling up whatever haggadah we could find and like [Super Mario 64 "waha!!"]ing our way through it because only one of us had grown up as a practicing Jew.
Jaz: Out of like four of you?
Lulav: Yeah, but anyway, they were good seders.
Jaz: That sounds really lovely. What did you do last year? Did you do something last year?
Lulav: Last year, I might not have done something? I don’t actually remember. But for the last couple years, since I hadn’t talked to Sarah and Cass for awhile, I’d been telesedering with my French friends because like, since 2017, 2016? Since a time, I’d been playing games every Sunday with some friends of mine, and it started as like a big group of several people I had recently, or intended to, kiss, plus the French Friends.
Jaz: Uh huh.
Lulav: And it dwindled to just the French friends and my good friend Hauke, who was a late addition to the group. Yeah so these are friends — Heather and Gabe — who I made over Tumblr. They’re just, like, some really cool people who were living in rural France at the time and have since moved to California, where Heather is a medical librarian. She’s great.
Jaz: That’s great.
Lulav: And both Gabe and I have like, come into transfemininity in the time that we have known each other.
Jaz: Aww.
Lulav: So that’s really fun.
Jaz: Yeah.
Lulav: But yeah every year it used to be like way early in the morning for me when I would get together with them at like nighttime for France.
Jaz: Right.
Lulav: And we would just drink some wine and put things on plates and attempt to sing songs with a 0.2 second delay…
Jaz: Sounds… difficult.
Lulav: Yeah but like really really good.
Jaz: Yeah.
Lulav: This was again, like, I wasn’t getting out as much! Partly because of dysphoria!
Jaz: Hmm.
Lulav: But also I think when we started telesedering I hadn’t really found a good shul yet so it wasn’t something I was going out to or finding friends through.
Jaz: Right.
Lulav: Yeah so that was a really nice Jewish connection and also because at a janky seder, you don’t have like a lamb shank? We, I think one year used ginger root, one year used roasted egg or something.
Jaz: Hmm mm.
Lulav: And another year — I think the first janky seder — Sarah just had a dog chewbone.
(Jaz laughs)
Lulav: Which was the closest thing we had to a lamb shank.
Jaz: That’s beautiful.
Lulav: Yeah, so what are your kind of more adult, away-from-family experiences like?
Jaz: Well I haven’t had that many just because I do, when I can, still go home for seder.
Lulav: Yeah.
Jaz: Because it’s such a big holiday for my family and it’s one of my favorite holidays. It’s very important to me to spend it with my family when I can.
Lulav: Good.
Jaz: And I’ll just say we’re recording this in mid-March. I have no idea what Pesach is going to look like this year because the world is in turmoil.
(Lulav laughs)
Jaz: We were originally supposed to all have Pesach with my brother in Chicago this year, but my brother was in school and is not going to be in Chicago.
Lulav: Hmmm.
Jaz: They’re sending all of the students home so he’s going to be in California and I would love to do the seder with my family but I am in New York and we just don’t know. Anyway, which is to say mostly I’ve done seders still with my family but there was a year in college when I put together what I called a queer pseudo-seder which I hosted at the LGBT resource center on my college campus and it followed the order of the seder because I thought the order was a really good format to put things in.
Lulav: Okay.
Jaz: But there were just a few of us there and there weren’t that many queer Jews on campus. So I invited all of the queer Jews I knew and then also was like if you are one of the things, (Lulav laughs) queer OR Jewish, you can also come. I definitely had a friend who was neither who also showed up.
Lulav: So, what was the pseudo part?
Jaz: It wasn’t a full seder. I was very attached to the idea of what a full seder was like.
Lulav: Okay.
Jaz: Because my seder felt so complete, so I was just like we’re borrowing the format of the seder but that doesn’t mean it is a seder.
Lulav: Okay.
Jaz: Also, it wasn’t on Pesach. It was like a little bit before or a little bit after or something. I don’t know that I would use the terminology of a pseudo-seder now.
(Lulav laughs)
Jaz: But definitely that’s what worked for me at the time.
Lulav: That’s fair. So tell me a little more about this guest list.
Jaz: Oh my G-d. So because of the format of it, sometimes people came in and out, or you know, came in after class, or like ducked out in the middle, and I had recently started dating somebody who sort of slipped in a few minutes later because she was coming from class or whatever and after the seder one of my non-Jewish friends who had just kind of been hanging around the LGBT resource center — which is happening in this corner — and afterwards she messaged me to be like, "hey, who was that gorgeous femme of color who was seated next to you who like slipped in a few minutes later?" You know, with the little eyes emoji.
(Lulav laughs)
Lulav: They would.
Jaz: And then was like, "oh also, nice event!"
(Lulav laughs)
Jaz: And I was like "That’s my new girlfriend. I do agree that she’s gorgeous," and this friend was like, "Oh no! Oh no! I’m going to go hide now."
(Lulav laughs)
Lulav: Wonderful.
Jaz: It was wonderful.
Lulav: So another wonderful fact about that is that the person in question currently is my best friend’s roommate.
Jaz: Was not at the time.
Lulav: Right. So like, best friend in Seattle, this encounter was happening in San Diego, and I’m in Minneapolis, and yet somehow we all know each other?
Jaz: The queer world is just really small, and the Jewish world is just really small and uh somehow.
Lulav: Yeah…
Jaz: Also, my ex was at the time sitting right next to me as I was getting these comments.
(Lulav laughs)
Jaz: She was like, “Yes! This is great! I am loving this!”
(Lulav laughs)
Lulav: Good.
Jaz: So yeah.
Lulav: The other thing I wanted to mention is a teleseder that I forgot about because it hasn’t been a regular occurrence. Very recently, I had made friends with a queer Jew through Twitter. They’re really cool, we’re probably going to play Dream Apart next week —
Jaz: Yes!
Lulav: The three of us and another friend. And I was talking about like oh, I kind of executive dysfunctioned out of making a seder with friends. And they were like, hey do you want to skype into my family’s seder?
Jaz: Aww.
Lulav: And I was like, yes. Yes please.
Jaz: That’s so nice.
Lulav: So the technological thing that we ended up having to do was that R called me on the phone and then put me on speaker phone.
Jaz: Awww.
Lulav: And so I was just a phone sitting there. But it was really cool vaguely hearing how everything was going and just crunching along with my matzah.
Jaz: That’s so nice! My aunt Lynnie B skyped into our Seder one year and that was really nice. She did a very similar thing. We just kind of put her on a phone, and so she was like sitting there. And also there was a year where a relatively new friend of mine, a transwoman whose family was not super queer and had written this thing, and I was like, can I just read this thing that my friend wrote at our seder? And my parents were like, sure. So I got to read this piece as one of the readings for our seder.
Lulav: Nice.
Jaz: Yeah.
Lulav: That’s really cool.
[Brivele intro music]
Lulav: Welcome to Kosher Queers, a podcast with at least two Jews and generally more than three opinions. Each week, we bring you queer takes on Torah. They’re Jaz
Jaz: And she’s Lulav
Lulav: And today we’re talking about Pesach.
Jaz: We sure are! So there isn’t a regular reading for Pesach.
Lulav: Hmm mm.
Jaz: Which is why we’re just talking about our Pesach experiences. So we’re going to instead of taking you through a parsha, take you through the basics of a haggadah.
Lulav: Hmm mm
Jaz: So it might be a little bit of a longer episode than usual. Also, Lulav proposed a ridiculous idea that I think we’re going to do
(Lulav laughs)
Jaz: Which is instead of doing a one minute summary of the text judged by like a timer, we just get one minute and in that one minute, we each have to write our best summary of what Pesach is so we’re going to do that. We’ll rejoin you when I’m done writing.
(Lulav laughs)
Lulav: Good. Setting the timer. 3, 2, 1…
(typing noises)
Jaz: Okay, alright
Lulav: Hi, welcome back.
Jaz: I - we’ll see how this goes.
Lulav: So I’m going to read my one minute summary to make you look better. Are you ready?
Jaz: I’m ready
Lulav: So you get together with people and you have a ritual plate and it has stuff on it and you also tell stories about the stuff (it’s a metaphor, Hazel Grace). And specifically the stories are about the leaving of Egypt and how it would have been enough but it happened good.
Jaz: That’s so good!
Lulav: Oh, thank you. What was your summary?
Jaz: Oh my G-d.
(Lulav laughs)
Jaz: Mine is Pesach celebrates how we get free! Lots of plagues, singing, dinacing, family, Miriam leads the women and gets a cup, sea splits, Pharaoh lets us go, we eat dried bread for a week and clear all of the bread out of our house, sit around and relax and hide that bread for dessert
(Lulav laughs)
Lulav: Good! Yeah. Like for sixty seconds, those are decent summaries of what Pesach is.
(Jaz laughs)
Jaz: Uhhh.. okay.
Lulav: Thank you for this treat.
Jaz: Don’t try this at home, or like do try this at home? Please try this at your Passover seder.
Lulav: Oh this can be how you draw lots for who gets to be which of the four children!
Jaz: Oh my G-d. Please try this at home. Okay.
(Lulav laughs)
Lulav: Okay
Jaz: Also, if you do this, please send us your summaries because I am so curious.
Lulav: Yes! So, we should walk through what a seder is, kind of like how we normally do the Parsha.
Jaz: Yes
Lulav: This week the Parshais just the ritual that we do together.
Jaz: That’s right. And the seder has an order to it. THat’s what seder literally means.
Lulav: Really?
Jaz: The root of it comes from a thing meaning order. It’s the same root as siddur
Lulav: Oh
Jaz: Like a prayer book. So we go through the order. THere is a song at the top of the order. And my mother makes a joke about it every year because she’s like, I lead a lot of meetings, and normally I don't get to sing the meeting agenda.
(Lulav laughs)
Jaz: Are you familiar with the order song?
Lulav: I am not
Jaz: It goes like that: Kadesh, Urchatz, Karpas, Yachatz, Magid, Rachtzah, Motzi, Matzah, Maror, Korech, Shulchan Orech, Tzafun, Barech, Halel, Nirtzah. Like that
L Nice
Jaz: Anyway, so we always like, sing our schedule and then you go on to do all of the things. The first one kadesh is a blessing and then the second one urchatz is about washing your hands
(Lulav laughs)
Lulav: How would you recommend that the haggadah be changed for this year?
Jaz: I cannot find the beautiful illustrated meme version of this but all of Jewish twitter had the same idea, which is could we change up our schedule so the order went: Kadesh, Urchatz, Karpas, Urchatz again...
(Lulav laughs)
Lulav: I want to be clear, I was an extremely germophobic child, so I was wondering why we didn’t do hand washing for every step myself
(Jaz laughs)
Lulav: When there wasn’t a pandemic
Jaz: Right, so everyone was like what if you just wash your hands between all the things? Like ,there was a moment where you stick your hand in your cup and like maybe you should wash your hands before that one.
Lulav: Oh, other thing. Remember how in October of 2016 and then immediately in late November 2016 there were all of these podcast episodes where they were like, haha Hillary Clinton! And then they were really sad?
Jaz: Yeah
Lulav: So I just want to be clear for anybody listening back that this is the month COVID-19 spread to America and we had a bunch of social distancing memes
Jaz: Right. I don’t want to do the thing that they all did where they were like, oh this episode is very very sad, because sometimes you're listening to a podcast’s whole archive and then you’re like, oh no, I have hit the episode that I don’t want to listen to because I don't want to relive that exact minute.
(Lulav laughs)
Jaz: which was horrible. So we’re trying to be some cheer in your life right now, so yeah
Lulav: Yes. And that’s the last time we will mention any coronaviruses in this episode
Jaz: Yeah, I hope so. I mean there are plagues in this episode, I don’t know anyway so — yeah so you do your order. But before you even go onto your first couple steps, our seder has you sitting in a particular way.
Lulav: So what is this particular way?
Jaz: So, it just is basically comfortable.
Lulav: Hmm mm
Jaz: Sometimes you see people who are just like having their seder at the table but they have pillows on their chairs or whatever,
Lulav: Okay
Jaz: And my family was like, that’s silly. That’s not real reclining, so we have our seder in the living room
Lulav: Hmm mmm
Jaz: And then we move to the table for actual eating but we’re like laying down and chilling out and
Lulav: That’s so good
Jaz: Yeah
(Lulav laughs)
Jaz: It’s really nice. It is because we are free! And we can sit in any way we like. I appreciate this because I am bisexual and cannot sit straight on chairs.
Lulav: Oh really?
(Jaz laughs)
Lulav: You’re that part of the stereotype?
Jaz: We don’t record together, so you don’t know this, but I am currently like perched on my chair with one leg folded and the one propped up, I’m kind of leaning on my knee
Lulav: That’s amazing
Jaz: I record all of our episodes like this
Lulav: Do you remember what’s the one with Anne Hathaway and she’s the princess of Genovia… Princess Diaries!
Jaz: Uh huh
Lulav: Do you remember when her grandmother is like, cross your ankles?
Jaz: Yes!
Lulav: As a little girl, I took that advice to heart and I was like crossing ankles is a thing that girls do. And so the way that I’m currently sitting and very often sitting when we are recording is my ankles are crossed and my left foot is just crushed into the ground.
Jaz: Ohhhh.
Lulav: It’s very comfortable.
Jaz: I believe you.
(Lulav laughs)
Jaz: I have never sat like that in my whole life.
(Lulav laughs)
Jaz: I mean I’m sure I have, but I cannot sustain it for more than a minute. I twist up like a pretzel all of the time when I can.
Lulav: Good. You’re so valid.
Jaz: And Pesach makes room for that!
Lulav: Hmm mm
Jaz: It’s a good gay affirming holiday
Lulav: And my understanding is that a lot of like seders back in the day involved lying on your side at the table so you could just pluck food off, which, every time I’ve tried that, seems excruciating.
Jaz: That sounds very Roman to me.
Lulav: Yes, okay.
Jaz: The way Romans would lay on couches and then pluck grapes or whatever, but we had seders during the times of the Romans so maybe they did that then. But it is about being free. And when you are free, you don’t have to sit in office chairs.
Lulav: Yeah
Jaz: In the real time of our real freedom, you will not have to sit in office chairs ever unless you choose to
Lulav: Actually sorry, I’m going to switch out my current hardwood chair for an office chair from my mom’s office. Oh that is so bouncy. Let me know if the squeaks are really annoying
Jaz: Okay
Lulav: So yeah what is on your Seder plate?
Jaz: So on my Seder plate, oh no this is going to force me to remember all of the regular things that go on a Seder plate, alright, so, there is a green vegetable that’s the sort you dip in saltwater and there is an egg symbolizing like a new year and the cycle of life and liberation
Lulav: Okay
Jaz: and whatever and also it’s just a spring festival, we probably took it from the pagans, it’s all pagan!
(Lulav laughs)
Jaz: Anyway, what else is on the Seder plate? And also there’s a lamb shank. You don’t actually eat lamb, did you know? Like traditionally you’re not supposed to eating lamb since we don’t have the temple anymore
Lulav: Oh
Jaz: But you do just have the lamb shank which you took presumably separately from another day in which you do eat lamb
(Lulav laughs)
Jaz: You just like saved a bone
Lulav: So specifically we don’t eat lamb because there isn’t a temple on Pesach
Jaz: Right.
Lulav: Okay.
Jaz: Our traditional meals do include things like matzah ball soup and whatever, they just don’t include lamb.
Lulav: Okay, cool.
Jaz: And what else is on there? matzah is on there and — help me: are there more traditional foods that I’m missing? Probably.
Lulav: I am going to get up because this office chair is actually really uncomfortable.
Jaz: Okay.
Lulav: And grab my Seder plate.
Jaz: Okay.
<music>
Jaz: I remember, now that you’re back, with a real answer. I looked at a Seder plate online, I just didn’t have one in front of me, so I was like where is it? What is it?
Lulav: Oh hey, there are handy English translations that I can’t see from across the room! Excellent! We talked about bitter herbs, right?
Jaz: Oh, we didn’t. There are bitter herbs. Maror, to symbolize the bitterness of slavery
Lulav: And then there’s ssssssss….sserah?
Jaz: That is, what?
Lulav: Is that the shankbone? What is that word?I can’t read Hebrew
Jaz: Oh. Yes you are right. I actually don’t remember how to pronounce it because it’s never been an important part of my observance. I can tell you how to pronounce everything else on it. (Lulav laughs) Egg is beitzah, the parsley and green herbs are karpas, there’s charoset
Lulav: Yeah
Jaz: Which is the opposite of the bitter herbs. It’s like a sweet and mortar-esque substitute that is both supposed to be there because sweet and antidote to bitter! And also to represent like the cement that we used to build stuff
Lulav: Hmm mm. And lettuce? Why is lettuce on here?
Jaz: It’s another thing that you dip
Lulav: Okay, separate from the parsley?
Jaz: I think you do it altogether
Lulav: Okay. You can tell that I didn’t pay attention during the Seders when I was a kid
Jaz: And then of course there is on my Seder plate also an orange. Lulav, are you familiar with the story of the orange?
Lulav: Yeah, we did that at the first janky Seder.
Jaz: Aww!
Lulav: Cause we’re all gay. (Lulav laughs)
Jaz: Would you like to tell the story?
Lulav: No, you probably had more research
Jaz: Okay, I’ll tell it. THere’s sort of an apocryphal story and then there’s the real story
LLulav: Okay
Jaz: THe apocryphal story is there was a very traditional orthodox man who was a rabbi potentially and he was mad about women rabbis and he said to someone,”Women belong in the pulpit like oranges belong on the Seder plate!”
(Lulav laughs)
Jaz: As you might imagine, this is like a real weird and random thing for a person to say, and he did not say that
(Lulav laughs and then Jaz laughs)
Lulav: Is it because oranges are ovaries?
Jaz: What?
Lulav: Is it because oranges are ovaries?
Jaz: No, at least I don’t think so, and also it wasn’t about women rabbis.
(Lulav laughs)
Jaz: It was specifically about lesbian inclusion.
Lulav: Hmm mm.
Jaz: And originally they were talking about putting bread on the seder plate as a like really just going against tradition.
Lulav: Okay.
Jaz: And they decided what they wanted was actually something that wasn’t directly incompatible but was just wildly different form the things that were on there
Lulav: That’s so good
Jaz: So it’s not the like, direct — bread isn’t even supposed to be in your house, right?
Lulav: Yeah
Jaz: There are no restrictions about oranges whatsoever, they just have never been part of the seder before. Except that sometimes you find them in charoset as like part of the sweet
Lulav: That’s so gay
Jaz: Yeah, so it is instead not about just direct defiance but also like creation of a new thing
Lulav: I love that
Jaz: Yeah I love it too
Lulav: Also I do want to point out that citrus fruit is derived from a superior ovary. Not to be bioessentialist but like that’s a thing
Jaz: I do, my understanding is that an orange was already — (Lulav laughs) you might have a better grasp of lesbian history than me, but my understanding was that they picked it because it did already have some associations with lesbianism
Lulav: Oh I mean, figs are a very lesbian fruit right?
Jaz: I don’t know, I just know that there was a book that was in my house as a child called Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit which is a very sad gay memoir
Lulav: Aww, oh no!
Jaz: Okay are all of those things also on your seder plate?
Lulav: Yes, from what I remember of the dog frisbee.
Jaz: Great! I have also seen people not personally but I have heard of people also putting an olive on their Seder plate
Lulav: Uh huh
Jaz: Representing a — a thing about peace in the Middle East
Lulav: Oh! So when you saw you put the orange on the Seder plate, is it like — do you have C7 symmetry? Or is the normal C6 and the orange is on the side?
Jaz: No, it’s just kind of hanging out in the center, next to the matzah
Lulav: Oh, fun
Jaz: I would love it if it were given its own designated spot. We do not have a Seder plate that has a spot for it.
Lulav: Hmm mm
Jaz: I don’t know people who make Seder plates with a spot for the orange
Lulav: Also as we were talking about during the Parsha where it talks about making a lampstand, it’s really hard to make something with like seven points of radial symmetry
Jaz: Yeah, yeah. Not undoable but difficult
Lulav: So we get to urchatz right?
Jaz: Yeah, washing your hands
Lulav: This is what I was really held up about as a child. It’s mostly just kind of dipping your hands in lemon water or whatever - that’s not washing!
Jaz: It’s not lemon water. It’s just regular water
Lulav: Okay, I think we had lemon water. Also it was the Goldstones, I was being too dramatic. My mom texted me back.
Jaz: You were like, we should do real handwashing?
Lulav: Yeah! And I did. (Jaz and Lulav laugh)
Jaz: I will also note that there is another time that we wash our hands as part of the Seder
Lulav: Hmm mm
Jaz: And then are called different things because for urchatz you wash your hands and don’t say a blessing, and for the other one ra’chatz, you wash your hands and do say a blessing
Lulav: Okay
Jaz: I will note that yes you are correct that both times you just kinda pour water over your hands
(Lulav laughs)
Jaz: Which is better than nothing but.
Lulav: Yeah yeah. So yeah we wash our hands and then we divide the middle matzah?
Jaz: Hm mm
Lulav: Tell me a little bit about that
Jaz: So there’s three sheets. Usually matzah comes in like — don’t know how to say it — if it was bread, you would say like slices, but it’s like a very large cracker.
(Lulav laughs)
Lulav: Yeah.
Jaz: And so three pieces. You take three pieces and then you take the middle one and you break it in half. And half of it gets like, wrapped up in a napkin or whatever and then it gets hidden to be the afikomen for later.
(Lulav laughs)
Jaz: A child will go find it and the seder cannot end until you find the afikomen. I think it depends actually on your tradition, which is sometimes an adult hides it and the children have to go find it, and then sometimes the children hide it and the adults have to go find it.
Lulav: I really like that that was a major part of your summary of what a seder is.
Jaz: Apparently it stuck out in my mind.
Lulav: Yeah, it wasn’t as major a thing to my memories, but that’s so wonderful.
Jaz: Do you have thoughts about the middle matzah thing?
Lulav: Uhh… wait, does it symbolize anything in particular? The middle matzah?
Jaz: Yes, hang on, one second. What does it say in your haggadah?
Lulav: Now I break the middle matzah and conceal one half for the afikomen. Later, we will share it as in days of old, the Passover offering itself was shared at this service in Jerusalem. Umm...yeah it doesn't say why the middle. It does have a really nice water color — actually, I rescind that, it’s a very scary water color of a lamb.
Jaz: Aww. Because I am not at home, and I don’t have any of my family’s traditional haggadot, I pulled up a bunch of haggadot and so I was looking through a couple of them. And there’s this beautiful note in one of the Keshet ones that says no prayer is recited before you break the middle matzah on our Seder table. This is a silent act. We realize that like the broken matzah, we are all incomplete, with prayers yet to be fulfilled, promises still to be redeemed.
Lulav: Okay
Jaz: This particular haggadah is from 2013, I believe all of the original contents in it was written by Rabbi Nikki DeBlosi, who I know, actually.
Lulav: Oh fun. In this haggadah, there’s a Forward with a bunch of things from rabbis. I don't know if this particular guy is a rabbi but W. Gunther Plaut says three whole pieces of matzah should be placed in either a special cloth matzah cover with three sections or in a napkin folded over twice. These three matzah represent the two traditional loaves set out in the ancient temple during the festival day and the extra matzah is symbolic of Passover.
Jaz: Hmmm.
Lulav: So when we were talking about the bread of faces.
Jaz: I wonder if that’s related to how traditionally we have two loaves of challah we bless on Shabbat.
Lulav: What happens — do you eat both of them?
Jaz: You eat both of them.
Lulav: Okay, cool. Yeah, I have never been the shamos or like close to the shamos at the end of services on Friday. There’s definitely one bread that we exclaim at and there’s a bread that’s on the table, and I don’t know if it’s the same challah.
Jaz: So then we move into the maggid. This part’s the story. This is where a lot of things happen.
(Lulav laughs)
Jaz: And I don’t feel like we need to go into as much detail about the story because the story here we’ve actually already covered for you
(Lulav laughs)
Jaz: Just go back a few episodes. It’s the story of leaving Egypt. But there’s other stuff that’s happening in the story section, which includes the Four Questions, the Four Children, and the Plagues. Again.
Lulav: Often with songs.
Jaz: Yeah! Lulav, do you have a favorite song?
Lulav: So, remember how you’re the camp songs expert?
Jaz: Uh huh. Do you want me to say some songs?
Lulav: Yes please!
Jaz: Okay, when Nora was here she gave us the frog song.
(Lulav laughs)
Jaz: <sings> One morning when Pharaoh in his bed, there were frogs in his head and frogs in his bed. Frogs here, frogs there, frogs were jumping everywhere. We did that when we were little.
(Lulav laughs)
Jaz: We — I will say a lot of our songs come a little bit later too, but what does happen here is Dayenu. I love Dayenu.
Lulav: That’s the one that I know.
Jaz: Yeah, okay, you want to talk about Dayenu?
Lulav: That’s the one I mentioned in my summary how it would have been enough but it happened good. So basically it starts off as how many gifts Hashem has bestowed upon us and then it walks through the story of the Exodus while saying, had this stuff been the only stuff that happened, that would have been enough
Jaz: Hmm.
Lulav: So we have had He brought us out of Egypt and not divided the sea for us, dayenu! Which means that would have been enough for us.
Jaz: Hmm mm.
Lulav: I guess? I don’t know what the direct translation is.
Jaz: It’s “It would have been enough for us.”
Lulav: Yeah, had He divided the sea and not permitted us to cross on dry land, dayenu. Had He permitted us to cross the sea on dry land and not sustained us for forty years in the desert, spoilers, dayenu. And had He sustained us for forty years in the desert and not fed us with manna, dayenu. Had he fed us with manna and not given us Shabbat, dayenu. Had He given us Shabbat and not brought us to Mount Sinai, dayenu. Brought us to Sinai and not given us the Torah, dayenu. Given us the Torah and not led us into Yisrael, dayenu. Led us into Yisrael and not built the temple, dayenu.
Jaz: Hmm.
Lulav: Built the temple and not sent us prophets of truth, dayenu. Sent us prophets of truth and not made us a holy people, dayenu.
Jaz: Hmm.
Lulav: Is the way that this particular haggadah does it.
Jaz: Yeah, um.
Lulav: Where do you end?
Jaz: So there is all of them that we have, but also many families and also many sort of present denominations do like four of those.
(Lulav laughs)
Jaz: Many many verses.
Lulav: Yeah that looks right.
Jaz: And they are about taking us out of Egypt, giving us the Torah, giving us Shabbat, <sings> ilu ilu hotzianu, hotzianu mimitzrayim, hotzianu mimitzrayim dayenu. That is God has taken us out of Egypt. <sings> mimitzrayim, dayenu And… anyway we just do four. And we do them very fast.
(Lulav laughs)
Lulav: Yeah
Jaz: The important part is that you get to do the words that you knew over and over again and you very loud so you have a verse that goes like <sings> ilu ilu hotzianu, hotzianu mimitzrayim, hotzianu mimitzrayim dayenu and then you get to sing for a long time <sings> day, dayenu, day, dayenu, day, dayenu, dayenu, dayenu
Lulav: <sings> dayenu!
Jaz: (laughs) Yeah! Like that.
Lulav: Yeah so the thing that always trips me up with that tune is the doubling back
(Jaz laughs)
Lulav: Because not only are we singing it in a different language
(Jaz laughs)
Lulav: That I’m like, constantly trying to figure out what exactly the words are, it's also like just jumping back and keeping at a run. I love it. It’s very good.
Jaz: So there’s a thing that JFREJ came up with also.
Lulav: JFREJ?
Jaz: Jews for Racial and Economic Justice.
Lulav: Oh okay, that’s the way to pronounce that.
Jaz: That’s how people say it! How do you say it?
Lulav: No, I don’t.
Jaz: Okay.
Lulav: It’s pronouncing it as “FREJ” like refrigerator that I’m like okay. Guess we could do that.
Jaz: Yeah alright so Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (J-F-R-E-J) JFREJ came up with this thing that I will link us to. It is a version called lo dayenu.
Lulav: Oooh! That wouldn't have been enough
(36:50)
Jaz: That wouldn't have been enough. I do not think I can sing them but I can say some of them for you. Okay, the first one says, "If we had sparked a human rights revolution that would united people all over the world, and not followed our present-day Nachshons as they help us part the seas of white supremacy, and institutional racism, lo dayenu." So Nachshon, like the person who dove first into the sea.
Lulav: Yeah!
Jaz: And then the next one is, "If we had followed the Nachsons like the youth leaders in Ferguson and not heeded the words they spoke, from Black liberation leader Assata Shakur 'It is our duty to fight for our freedom, it is our duty to win, we must love and support each other, we have nothing to lose but our chains,' lo dayenu." And then the next one is very short, but it says, 'If we had learned and chanted the words from Assata Shakur and not protested violence by militarized police, lo dayenu."
Lulav: Mm hmm.
Jaz: So there's a lot of these and they're beautiful.
Lulav: Yeah.
J; They're like, we are not done. I like that version of it too.
Lulav: Speaking of a different part of the political spectrum —
Jaz: Yeah.
Lulav: How many Hamilton-themed seders do you think there were, back in the day?
Jaz: By which you mean like, two years ago? (laughs)
Lulav: What? Really? Hold on. Let me pull up my Spotify, where I saved the entirety of Hamilton. (laughs)
Jaz: I own the entirety of Hamilton. Anyway.
Lulav: 2016!
Jaz: Alright, four years ago. (Lulav laughs) But I also did do a version of Dayenu when I was doing that queer one at the LGBT Resource Center where I made a version of Dayenu trying to talk about, like, if we had done this thing but hadn't gotten this thing, would that have been enough?
Lulav: Mm! Asking it as a question.
Jaz: Cool! So you asked me to talk about Dayenu and the thing I want to say about Dayenu is the traditional phrasing of it as "if we'd done this and not done this, that would have been enough," I don't agree.
Jaz: Well, it's not "if we'd done this," right?
Lulav: Well, yeah.
Jaz: It's if this had been for us, You wouldn't have had to do more things for us.
Lulav: Okay. And there you are again, redeeming the traditional meaning! Good on ya.
Jaz: No but say more! I didn't mean to interrupt you.
Lulav: No, that wasn't an interruption. That's good, to re-contextualize it as these were things given to us, and that would have been enough 'cause we'd have figured out another way is basically the implication there?
Jaz: I think so? I think the implication is we are so grateful to have escaped slavery —
Lulav: Yeah
Jaz: Look, if all You had done was get us out of there, then we would have said forever we are grateful for this, and then we got even another thing.
Lulav: (laughs) Yeah, that's true. And I guess what I was thinking about was the thesis that I came out of that part of Shemot with, which was the suffering was necessary because none of us are free until all of us are free, and I feel like the thrust of Dayenu runs counter to that, but as I am reading the haggadah now, it mostly focuses on, like, after all of the plagues and getting out of Egypt, that makes a lot more sense.
Jaz: Yeah. I also think it's interesting, given what you're talking about and also the thing that I just said about it's about being grateful for things that were given to us —
Lulav: Yeah.
Jaz: Is the idea that like, and then we would have been grateful for even just that much, forever, is like, very much not true. (Lulav laughs) Like, the Israelites complained ferociously.
Lulav: To this day! (laughs)
Jaz: Like we still do but also they escaped from Egypt and then were immediately like, were you just going to leave us to die out here? We should have gone back in that case. And then when you’re reading that bit about “if you hadn’t given us manna”, no! Like if they hadn’t been given manna, they would been like, well, we are out then.
Lulav: Yeah. I feel like just because it would have been enough to say thanks forever doesn’t mean it would have been enough to not kvetch
Jaz: Right
Lulav: To complain about your material circumstances is a very Jewish thing
Jaz: Yeah. That’s beautiful.
Lulav: So that’s my dayenu feelings
Jaz: Next we have the four questions. Did you ever say the four questions?
Lulav: Yes, why is this night unlike all the other nights?
Jaz: Right is the big overarching question
Lulav: And then there’s I don't know if this is the order but why do we recline on this night unlike other nights, why do we eat bitter herbs and stuff
Jaz: Why do we dip our food
Lulav: Yeah and, and...what’s the fourth one?
Jaz: Give me a second here, we have —
Lulav: Did we already do four?
Jaz: We have why is this night different from all other ones — which I think is the overarching one. <sings> ma nishtanah ha lailah hazeh mikol haleilot, mikol haleilot Yeah, sorry
Lulav: I think why do we eat unleavened bread
Jaz: Oh, yeah <sings> chametz, umatzah
Lulav: Is the fourth —
Jaz: Yeah you’re right. Sorry I remember all of Pesach in song.
Lulav: That’s good.
Jaz: I actually had this problem the other day. I was going over it with DiCo and trying to remember something from it, and I was like, I’m sorry I cannot do the four questions unless I sing all four of them.
Lulav: Yay!
Jaz: Which is not practical, I would like to also just have all of them on hand.
Lulav: So I remember best the overarching question because back in the day when I was just getting into Jumblr and reconnecting to Judaism, there was a text post like: A queen is doing a knighting ceremony and one of the candidates for knighting is a Jew who did particular service for the realm. So the knights are all coming up and they’re saying, like, “In the name of the father, the son, and the Holy Spirit” thing and they are knighted. And this guy can’t really hear what they’re saying, so he’s like, oh no, oh no, what do I say when I get up there? And he just defaults to the ritual thing that comes to mind. And so as he’s kneeling there before the queen, he says, “ma nishtana ha lailah hazeh,” unlike all the others —
Jaz: And the queen leans over and says to the person next to her, “Why is this knight different than all other knights?”
(Lulav laughs)
Jaz: Yeah, I remember that post.
Lulav: Um, so that’s very good.
(Jaz laughs)
Jaz: Yeah.
Lulav: Also this question was really helpful in teaching me about Hebrew grammar, because it’s like ha-lailah hazeh, the night the this. And it has question words in it and it’s good.
Jaz: Yeah.
Lulav: So is there more that you wanted to say about the four questions, Jaz?
Jaz: No, except that I find it very funny, and delightful that traditionally we are always commanded to ask the four questions and traditionally the youngest person asks them. We are not, however, commanded to answer them.
(Lulav laughs)
Jaz: And I love that. Like questioning is good. Answers? Eh.
Lulav: Good.
Jaz: It’s a good Jewish mood. It’s a good queer mood. Sometimes I feel like that about my gender where I feel like it was very important that I ask questions about it. Do I have answers about it? Eh
(Lulav laughs)
Jaz: Kind of.
Lulav: Yeah, so why is this night different from all the other nights? Ma nishtanah ha laileh hazeh mikol haleilot.
Jaz: Nice job.
Lulav: Yay! I was reading that from just the Hebrew!
Jaz: Awww. Should we try to answer that for our listeners?
Lulav: Okay, so it’s the question of why on this night do we eat only matzah, why on this night do we especially eat bitter herbs, why on this night do we dip herbs twice instead of not at all and why do we dine tonight in special ceremony instead of in an ordinary manner?
Jaz: Okay.
Lulav: Are the four questions in my haggadah.
Jaz: Okay, in order then, we eat matzah because when we were packing up to leave Egypt, you have to imagine yourself back in the time of your ancestors. They are your ancestors even if you’re like, they’re not my literal ancestors. You have to imagine yourself back with your ancestors and we did not have enough time to like, properly let bread rise and it baked in the desert on our backs and then we had to eat what is literally called the bread of affliction forevermore so we can remember that suffering. Point one. Okay point two. Which one’s next?
Lulav: You are such a third grade teacher. (Jaz laughs) On all other nights, we eat all kinds of herbs. On this night, we eat bitter herbs. Why is that?
Jaz: I’m going to lean in to the third grade teacher then because I don't think you really understand how interacting with third graders works. (Lulav laughs) Like at this point you have to be like okay, now take your thing and dip it in the saltwater, like we practiced. Go dip it.
Lulav: I’m going to read the third question like standing up and walking around the room and facing away from the microphone just so you know.
Jaz: (laughs) And we dip it because it is tearful. Please act out your tears as you are sobbing because we were so sad and so ill-treated and so many people in the world are still so sad and still so ill-treated and we have to taste that salt and remember that even in the time of our now freedom, we have to remember that salt. And also it is the sweat from our brows.
Lulav: So, like the salt of the past but also the salt of the now is why we dip twice?
Jaz: No, I just added the salt of the now thing.
Lulav: I like it though
Jaz: I think it is supposed to be two separate ones for sweat and for tears.
Lulav: Hmmmmm. <in a third grader voice> Hey, hey, Jaz?
(Jaz laughs)
Lulav: On all other nights we eat in an ordinary manner. Tonight we dine with special ceremony. Why?
Jaz: Well because it’s a special night and on special occasions you get to do special things, and it’s a celebration of freedom, and when you’re free, you don't have to do things like sit in our chairs. In fact does everyone want to join me on the rug?
Lulav: Can I go to the bathroom?
Jaz: Yes.
Lulav: Yay! <back to regular voice> sorry
(Jaz laughs)
46:48
Jaz: I really appreciate that (Lulav laughs) because if I get to teach my third graders in person, that is something like what the experience will be like.
Lulav: I'm so glad
Jaz: They're delightful, I mean absolutely no disrespect in any way against my third graders
Lulav: Oh yeah. Third graders are great. And also a terror. But also great.
Jaz: I did not call any of my third graders a terror.
Lulav: You did not. (laughs)
Jaz: Okay, and is that it, or did we skip one?
Lulav: Well, you actually skipped the bitter herbs one.
Jaz: Oh. Because there were bad things.
Lulav: Yah. Bad things, you know. (laughs)
Jaz: Okay, the next one is the four children. In addition to four questions, there is the unrelated thing, confusingly, of having four children (Lulav laughs) and the four children all ask about Pesach and they ask about it in different ways, according to their qualities as human beings. (Lulav laughs) How do you feel about this bit?
Lulav: I feel like calling somebody a simple child is maybe not great, specifically in an ableist snse. So I do like the fact that you have a variety of answers to meet people where they are —
Jaz: yeah.
Lulav: Specifically about the ceremony that you're going through at the moment and I especially like that there's one for the child who does not know how to ask.
Jaz: Mm.
Lulav: So I guess, depending on your haggadah, that might be you just say it to that child or maybe the child does ask something or potentially, you could have the kid just be like, "wh- hmm... what?" and then answer from there.
Jaz: Yeah.
Lulav: So my mother tries to skip it every year, and I think it's less even the simple child though I think there's definitely stuff there in terms of the ableism. I think that the bit that my mother tries to skip it because of is the wicked child.
Lulav: Mm! Okay.
Jaz: She's like, there are no wicked children. There might be wicked adults, but there are not wicked children.
Lulav: yeah. I do want to point out that this haggadah, instead of going on children, says "the wicked person," "the wise person," and so on.
Jaz: Mm. But it has specifically always been about children, because the framing of this thing is you have your four different children who are all asking the adults what's up with this.
Lulav: Yeah.
Jaz: Although I guess there's value also in "person," because the framing is "somebody who's new to it" and that person doesn't have to be a child. There can be people who are new to things as adults.
Lulav: Yeah.
Jaz: That's fair.
Lulav: Also, okay, I guess the instantiation here is "four times the Torah bids us tell our children of the Exodus from Egypt. Four times the Torah repeats 'and you shall tell your child on that day.' From this, our tradition infers that there are different kinds of people; to each we respond in a different manner, according to their question, their situation, and their need." The pronoun there was "his" but —
Jaz: Yes, that's fine.
Lulav: I just mentally edit every text that I read. (laughs)
Jaz: I do too. Um, I like that, I like the idea of tailoring it to different people according to where they're at, because I do answer different questions about it to the third graders I teach and I answer different questions to adults who are friends who are new to Judaism and adults who are much older than me and have a question about my specific practice. There's just lots of different audiences.
Lulav: Yeah.
Jaz: And even when I say, like, "my third graders," my students all come in with different levels of background and knowledge and I answer different questions as they're appropriate to different children, so.
Lulav: Yeah, I like that a lot.
Jaz: I like this idea of differentiated learning that's built in.
Lulav: Yes!
Jaz: Okay, plagues?
Lulav: Yeah, let's move on to plagues.
Jaz: (whispering) Plagues.
Lulav: So there were ten of them, right?
Jaz: THere were ten of them. So do you do the ritual about the plagues?
Lulav: You mean taking it at a run while taking single droplets of wine onto the seder plate?
Jaz: Yeah!
Lulav: Okay, then yes.
Jaz: We don't do it very fast. I don't know if you —
Lulav: Okay. Good. I would prefer that, personally.
Jaz: It's a little bit — I would say a sort of solemn moment in the seder.
Lulav: Yeah. It's about really bad stuff that happened to get people to like, be aware of people's suffering.
Jaz: Yeah. I like the thing about the plagues in that the idea is that you're pouring out a little bit of your own joy to honor the bitterness of things that happened to other people. While I don't personally equate wine with joy, (Lulav giggles) I understand that that's the intended thing there.
L; So generally at the seders that I've been to, especially the Goldstone seders, we were just trying to get through the ceremonial parts as quickly as possible, and by "we," I mean everybody who wasn't me, because I was like, oh, i want to know more about this, hold on, there's text here that we're not reading! Can we read it?
Jaz: Yeah. No, but I like this part, and I particularly like it because sometimes you see in different types of haggadot or seders that are specifically social justice type places that they want to do modern plagues. (Lulav sighs) And when they talk about modern plagues, they list 10 bad things that are happening on a specific theme, and one year I went to a really interesting interfaith seder themed around immigration justice, and at this point in the seder, they listed out 10 bad things that were happening to immigrants.
Lulav: Yeah.
Jaz: And I don't like that at all. I understand the impulse, to be like, 10 bad things! We could make it equate to 10 modern bad things and that's a parallel. But I don't like it because these are very specifically 10 bad things that happened to our enemies.
Lulav: And that's not how metaphors work!
Jaz: It's not how metaphors work, I don't appreciate the framing as immigrants as our enemies that's sort of implicit there, underlying it, or more to the point, I don't appreciate — people would say, oh, I don't mean it like that, I just mean like, these are ten bad things that are happening, and in that case the thing they are eliding is specifically we are taking some amount of responsibility for ten things that we did or were done for our benefit — you know, we did those things and they hurt people and we got free because of them.
Lulav: Right.
Jaz: And also, we do not take joy in the suffering of others.
Lulav: Right.
Jaz: And I do struggle to find an exact parallel to it, that is a modern one.
Lulav: Yeah, if you want to do a social justice one, it would be examples of like, actions and potential actions, but also that's kind of hinky because we don't exactly have modern examples of complete liberation being won.
Jaz: We don't have modern examples of liberation being one in that same way, and also —
Lulav: Mm hmm.
Jaz: The things that you might list like, well, here are things we did, are not, in general, things that hurt other people, like in this specific type of way. You know?
Lulav: However our rabbis taught, in Pirkei Avot 5:8, the sword comes into the world because of justice delayed and justice denied. That's a quote in this haggadah.
Jaz: That's beautiful.
Lulav: Yeah. It's like a call and response sort of thing for makot mitzrayim. And so it's like, when the Egyptian armies were drowning in the sea, the heavenly host broke out in songs of jubilation. G-d silenced them and said, "my creatures are perishing, and you sing praises?" And then the group says, "though we descend from those redeemed from brutal EGypt and have ourselves rejoiced to see oppressors overcome, yet our triumph is diminished by the slaughter of the flow. As the wine within the cup of joy is lessened, when we pour 10 drops for the plagues upon Egypt." And then it keeps going.
Jaz: So the one thing that I would say is that when there is this listing out modern day plagues thing, I do feel more fine in some ways about listing things that maybe weren't necessary for our liberation but are still things that we are responsible for.
Lulav: Oh, okay. Can you elaborate?
Jaz: Like, I would climate stuff as like, here is a plague that we're responsible for.
Lulav: Yeah, that's fair.
Jaz: I know that that doesn't complete all of the —
Lulav: Ritual purpose.
Jaz: Ritual purpose, but it seems to complete more of it to me.
Lulav: Yeah.
Jaz: Is to list things that are bad that also we know that we hold some communal responsibility for. And similarly, I might include like, racism in the Jewish community as a bad thing that I think we are communally responsible for.
Lulav: Mm hmm.
Jaz: Like, you have to name that a little more clearly and frame that a little more clearly in your seder, if that's what you're doing.
Lulav: And like, it is a thing that leads to marginally more acceptance in white society, but also at the extreme expense of other people.
Jaz: Ah.
Lulav: And at the expense of solidarity.
Jaz: I think if you were going to go that route, you'd have to own, "these are not things that are helping us get free."
Lulav: Yeah.
Jaz: You either have to talk about things that are helping us get free or things that we're communally responsible for, but I do think "we'll just list bad things happening in the world" chooses neither path.
Lulav: Yes.
Jaz: And I don't like it as a compromise. I think it is better to choose something and be a little bit more intentional about which you're choosing and how it relates.
Lulav: Yeah.
Jaz: I would love to hear other people's thoughts on handling the plagues if they go beyond — although, if you do think it's just fine to list bad things, please (Lulav laughs) tell me why.
Lulav: Write in!
Jaz: Yeah. I would love to hear an argument for that, since I have not yet heard one that makes sense to me.
Lulav: Such as? Can I read the plagues in Hebrew and you say them in English?
Jaz: Okay
Lulav: Is that cool?
Jaz: Yeah, sure
Lulav: First we have dam
Jaz: Blood
Lulav: Tsfardaya
Jaz: Frogs
Lulav: Kinim
Jaz: Lice
Lulav: Arov
Jaz: Wild beasts
Lulav: Dever
Jaz: Disease of cattle
Lulav: Shechin
Jaz: Boils
Lulav: Barad
Jaz: Hail
Lulav: Arbeh
Jaz: Locusts
Lulav: Choshech
Jaz: Darkness
Lulav: And matat bikhoret
Jaz: Death of the first born son
Lulav: Yeah, so those are the ten plagues that it took us two episodes to get through.
Jaz: Alright, so, the — I’m going to skip a little bit actually. The last few things are we have a meal to celebrate, we eat some Hillel sandwiches which are matzah with both maror and charoset, both the bitter and the sweet on them, first you have one with just maror and then you have one with maror and charoset, and then you’ve gotta find the afikomen and also we welcome in Elijah and Miriam with their cups
Lulav: Yay! So Miriam is an addition that I’m not familiar with.
Jaz: So do you want to talk about the traditional one then and I’ll talk about Miriam?
Lulav: Yeah so way back in the beginning when it’s doing the genealogy from Adam and Chava to Noah I think.
Jaz: Hmm mm.
Lulav: It goes through several generations, one of which is Elijah who walked with G-d. He was on the earth for so many years and then he walked with G-d.
Jaz: Ah, I’m going to cut you off. I do not think this is correct.
Lulav: No? Is it a different Elijah?
Jaz: Yes.
Lulav: Oh no!
Jaz: Elijah — Eliyahu ha Navi — is a much, much later figure.
Lulav: Oh, so this is Elijah the prophet vs Elijah the ancestor.
Jaz: I also don’t think the person you’re thinking of is named Elijah.
Lulav: Well hold on, oh is it Enoch? It’s Enoch. My bad.
Jaz: Yeah.
Lulav: I totally hecked that up.
Jaz: Would you like us to go back?
Lulav: Yeah, you tell the story of Elijah.
Jaz: Okay, which I’ll also own, I don’t know a lot about either. But Eliyahu ha navi as he is known in Hebrew is a much much later figure that might only be an Ashkenazi figure.
Lulav: Oh, I actually have an explanation here.
Jaz: Okay then you can check me. He’s supposed to be a descendant of David.
Lulav: That sounds right.
Jaz: And he was supposed to herald the coming of the Messiah. We welcome in Eliyahu because when he comes, moshiach won’t be far behind. And we set a place for him at the table and open the door to invite him in with the hope that he’ll come and be there but also you are supposed to welcome in anybody to your Seder and quite literally to open the door and have anybody come in and so that extra place you set for Eliyahu could be for anybody.
Lulav: Because anybody could be moshiach.
Jaz: Also that.
Lulav: Alternately, in haolam habo, we welcome everyone.
Jaz: Yeah I think it’s also just that everyone’s supposed to have access to a seder, and they wanted you quite literally to say, if somebody doesn’t have a seder, please come to ours.
Lulav: Yeah, that’s good. So apparently Elijah — Eliyahu ha navi — comes from the book of Malachi. He was a prophet of the town of Tishbi in Gilead and he challenged the injustice of the king and overthrew the worship of Baal and then his disciple Elisha (who was the guy with the bears and the children) had a vision of Elijah being carried to the skies in a chariot of fire.
Jaz: Hmmmm.
Lulav: Legend has it that he returns to earth from time to time to befriend the helpless.
Jaz: That’s so nice. We also traditionally sing to him basically every havdalah at the close of Shabbat.
Lulav: Yeah.
Jaz: to ask him to come visit us,which is nice. So but the Miriam’s cup thing is a recent tradition that I’ve seen people do and I think it’s partially because we just don’t have a quite analogies in the same way and so we wanted to honor this figure who is a woman and also note that she can have her cup at the seder and we would welcome her there. Her cup is not filled with wine, it’s filled with water.
Lulav: Okay.
Jaz: Because she’s so instrumental in the celebrating of the crossing of the sea.
Lulav: Yeah.
Jaz: But it is drinkable water.
Lulav: Also sometimes you just gotta drink water. It’s good for hydration.
Jaz: It is.
Lulav: So was the messianic promise a big part of your seders with your moms?
Jaz: No, no it was not.
Lulav: Did you still welcome in Elijah?
Jaz: We did.
Lulav: Okay.
Jaz: It’s also part of a like we also said in our seders things like next year in Jerusalem which is part of the seder that you would say things like next year in jerusalem which has been part of it forever the idea that next year you would be celebrating it in Jerusalem.
Lulav: Yeah, there will be feasting and dancing in Jerusalem next year.
Jaz: Yeah.
Lulav: Just a little foreshadowing.
Jaz: But that always felt metaphorical. And particularly so because the year we were living in Israel we were living in Jerusalem and we left for Pesach.
(Lulav laughs)
Lulav: Where’d you go for Pesach?
Jaz: We had a school break at that time so we went on a cruise throughout the Mediterranean.
Lulav: Oh okay
Jaz: It was sort of one of those things, we’re living here, it’s never going to be cheaper to go to all of these different Mediterranean countries than when we’re already right here. So we actually probably we did our Seder that year — just the four of us — in a little bedroom on the ship somewhere in the middle of the Mediterranean.
Lulav: That’s great.
Jaz: Yeah, it was.
Lulav: You were crossing the — well, not the right sea.
Jaz: Not the right sea. But we did not stay in Jerusalem and when I think of it, I do think of it in the sense of metaphor.
Lulav: Oh yeah.
Jaz: And I know also there are some people who travel to Jerusalem to like do Pesach in Jerusalem, it’s like a big tourist season usually probably not this year, and that people who are doing it in Jerusalem basically say next year in the Jerusalem of olam habah, not in like current present day Jerusalem.
Lulav: In the same sense that we say Yisrael to mean the people who struggle with G-d rather than the land promise to the descendants of Yisrael?
Jaz: Well I cannot speak for everybody because again there are people who definitely do travel to Jerusalem during Passover because they heard next year in Jerusalem but that is the sense in which I say it; I cannot speak for the wider world.
Lulav: Oh yeah, nor was I attempting to. Thank you for clarifying that ,
Jaz: Yeah. But like, I do occasionally have poems and stuff which reference, and then in Jerusalem, definitely a lot of that is definitely intended as that particular kind of metaphor of to of what it would mean to be in a better world.
Lulav: Yeah.
1:02:21
Jaz: And then you end your seder. And what do you have to do before you end your seder?
Lulav: Find the afikomen?
Jaz: You do! You have to find the afikomen.
Lulav: Yay! Can't spell tzafun without fun if you're transliterating I guess.
Jaz: Okay so then you have to find the afikomen. Can we do a little bit of listener mail early? I know we're about to get to the rest of listener mail.
Lulav: Ooh, yeah!
Jaz: We did ask our listeners to send in some answers and one of the things we asked people is, where did you hide the afikomen?
Lulav: Can I just read the whole question?
Jaz: Yeah.
Lulav: The question that we asked on our survey was, for posterity: "Where did you hide the afikomen? (This can be where you, a child, have found it; it can be where you, an adult, have hidden it; it can also be where you, spiritually, are currently hiding the afikomen. What does that mean? We don’t know.)" (Jaz laughs)
Jaz: It's so beautiful and I just want to read a few answers. So first, a literal one. This is from my friend Izzy, at —
Lulav: (pronouncing correctly) Mee-lays Fee-bays
Jaz: Yeah. Okay, which is spelled "Miles Peoples" (@milesphoebes) if you want to go find them (laughs)
Lulav: Okay.
Jaz: Izzy said "I vaguely remember it being hidden under couch cushions in my grandparents' house when I was younger. Last year I was in charge of hiding it for my friends (whoever found it chose an org for the rest of us to pitch in some money towards) and I'm pretty sure it ended up on a bookshelf slid in between some graphic novels."
Lulav: We have one from DiCo, who said "I am currently hiding my spiritual afikomen somewhere in the Reconstructionist denomination. I hope to find it in the next few years."
Jaz: I love it.
Lulav: Thanks DiCo.
Jaz: And then Bec, who is on Twitter @vsoJuniper, just said, "I'm gonna hide it behind a pride flag this year."
Lulav: (laughs) Rachel, @adobeteardrops, concurs with the "Lots of couch cushions" bit and also "inexplicable bags of plastic bags my parents, grandparents, and aunt and uncle always had lying around." Jaz, did you have a bag of bags?
Jaz: Of course! Well — yes, I did. One of my mothers is just very very organized.
Lulav: Mm hmm.
Jaz: And so I have a bag of bags now that's a little messier but we had a bag of bags.
Lulav: Yeah, I have a pile of bags, which functions as a bag of bags mentally.
Jaz: Can I read you one more?
Lulav: Oh yes please.
Jaz: It was from Ariel, who is on Twitter @arielnkates: it is hidden "In my sense of delayed gratification." (Lulav chuckles) Lulav, could I read it from your partner, the one that's from your partner?
Lulav: Yes? Yes.
Jaz: (laughs) Tova says "my inner child is on a perpetual hunt for the metaphorical afikomen that is haolam haba."
Lulav: Good. Do I pronounce it wrong? Does that end with an "ah" sound?
Jaz: It does, yes.
Lulav: Heck. (Jaz laughs) Olam haba. Cool.
Jaz: Um, I happen to like yours, because it means the same thing, you've just changed the tense of it.
Lulav: Yeah. What tense is "bo?"
Jaz: Present.
Lulav: Ooh. Yes. Okay. That was probably intentional then.
Jaz: That's cute. Instead of the world to come it is like, the world that's coming. Yeah.
Lulav: Cool. But yeah, thanks Tova. You're wonderful.
Jaz: Yeah, you can go follow Tova on Instagram at @selkiestitches.
Lulav: So, this brings us to Rating G-d's Writing, which in this sense I think will be Rating G-d's Festival.
Jaz: Great.
Lulav: Jaz, just kind of as a synthesis of all the haggadot we've consulted and your various feelings about seders, out of 20 crumbs that split off from the matzah when you break the middle one, how many crumbs would you rate Pesach?
Jaz: Aw. I would rate it 20 out of 20. I really like Pesach. It's my favorite holiday.
Lulav: Good.
Jaz: Yeah. Lulav, out of 613 commandments (Lulav giggles) how many commandments would you rate this parsha? Nope — (Lulav laughs) how many commandments would you rate —
Lulav: This Pesach.
Jaz: would you rate Pesach?
Lulav: I would rate it — oh, I wish I knew more gematria, because I could say a really cool number.
Jaz: 26 is the name of G-d.
Lulav: Okay.
Jaz: If you just want a random number in there.
Lulav: So I'm going to rate it 520 commandments.
Jaz: Aw.
Lulav: Because I generally have a headache during Pesach, because there tends not to be that much protein, also a lot of really dry stuff. I really like matzah, and the seder has at many times in my life been my most ritual connection to Judaism and so I like it a lot. Way up there, 5 out of 6. It's just that, like, I haven't had a perfect seder, is how I will put that.
Jaz: Yeah.
Lulav: But I think that I will in my lifetime have a seder that's just amazing.
Jaz: Mm.
Lulav: And feels as worshipful as I would like to be when I am doing major festivals. So next year in Jerusalem!
Jaz: That's so nice.
Lulav: 520 out of 613 commandments.
1:07:28
Jaz: Yeah! I'll link in the show notes also, Rabbi Ruti Regan, who used to run a blog called Real Social Skills, that had some —
Lulav: Oh!
Jaz: stuff, specifically about making your seders more accessible. Her focus, I believe, was always more on autism specifically, but also other types of disability and neurodiversity as well, I believe was on there, but it was about, seders go better if you have real food and you don't have to have people wait to eat until (Lulav laughs) the very end, or if you have trouble concentrating for that long, here is a thing. So we'll link to some of those posts. They're a few years old I think, but still good.
Lulav: I didn't know that's where Ruti Regan came from.
Jaz: Yeah.
Lulav: I think I used to follow Real Social Skills for a bit, when I was on Tumblr.
Jaz: I definitely did, when I was on Tumblr.
Lulav: Cool. So speaking of listener submissions, can we just read through everybody's?
Jaz: Everybody's?
1:08:16
Lulav: I mean —
Jaz: I thought we could do excerpts, just because there's lots of things.
Lulav: Yeah.
Jaz: That we could go through and do a few for each question that we liked.
Lulav: Okay.
Jaz: And try to hit everybody at least once or twice.
Lulav: Yeah, so we got some really wonderful listener responses to our survey and Jaz and I just want to trade off reading some of these responses.
Jaz: Yeah.
Lulav: So something I that really appreciate comes in from Izzy, @milesphoebes: "At my family seder," they write, "we've gotten into the tradition of putting a paper cut out of a cartoon-y bone on the seder plate instead of the real thing (stemming from a very squeamish childhood where looking at an animal bone would make me really anxious)." And that's just great?
Jaz: That's so delightful.
Lulav: Like, making sure everybody can participate... it's very good. And the weirdest song that they sing at Pesach is ""This Year" by the Mountain Goats. Also, they say, "Chad Gadya isn't necessarily out-of-place-for-Pesach weird but is potentially in-general-kind-of-a-wild-escalation-of-events weird."
Jaz: (laughs) That's so true! We didn't talk about Chad Gadya at all, but I — it's very fun.
Lulav: Can you read DiCo's bit from the —
Jaz: Yes. DiCo also does Chad Gadya every year. He says, "We end every seder with a version of chad gadye that's a competition. We go around the table one at a time has to say as much of the song in English as they can in one breath." Lulav laughs) "(Spoiler alert: Debate coaches are very good at this and some of us who are also extremely competitive by nature start practicing for this a month before Pesach.)" I want to say, as a person, that when he says "some of us, who are also extremely competitive," probably only DiCo does this. (both laugh)
Lulav: Also, I want to point out, from what I know of debate, which, granted, was policy debate, they are very good at saying things in one breath but not necessarily good at enunciating any of it (Jaz laughs) such that you can actually parse what they're saying.
Jaz: Uh huh. I feel like DiCo's better at that because he also teaches.
Lulav: Mm hmm.
Jaz: So, speaks fast and such that students can understand.
Lulav: (laughs) Good.
1:10:26
Jaz: Do you actually want to read the other thing from DiCo?
Lulav: He says, "When I was in fifth grade (and still very Catholic), [he] asked his religion teacher why Catholics didn't celebrate Passover if Jesus did. She shushed [him] and told me we're not supposed to ask questions like that." DiCo says, "Sorry, Sister Virginia. I guess I didn't listen to you." (Both laugh)
Jaz: I love this story. So, and then another part, we asked, "What's a part of the haggadah that you'd like to offer a piece of commentary on?" and Rachel, @adobeteardrops on Twitters, said, "I've always loved the part where God scolds the angels for celebrating when the Egyptians died. I've felt alienated from Judaism for a long time but that one piece is what always brought me back." And I love that.
Lulav: Yeah. That's a pretty common response. From my friend Jessica, @jcatgrl, one of the things that really resonates with [them] is the midrash "that G!d stopped the angels from singing when the Egyptian army was drowning, because the Egyptians are G!d's children, too." A big thing for Jessica is coming to Judaism is the importance of compassion and mercy.
Jaz: Mm. That's so nice. So the other thing that I wanted to highlight, just because I thought it was super funny, was, she notes, "I was never super close with any of our cousins growing up, so Passover was a nice time to hang out with them. There's also an excellent moment of family lore. One year my dad decided to work late or whatever (he does not enjoy spending time with my mom's family) so we started the seder without him. He walked in literally just as we opened the door for Elijah."
Lulav: That is excellent.
Jaz: It's beautiful. (laughs)
Lulav: She also says that they've had an orange on the seder plate for quite some time in their family seders, and while she says that she doesn't "there's anything particularly unique" about her Passover traditions, they do still have her grandparents' haggadot, which were the radical reform one that weren't for hippies in the 60s.
Jaz: That's lovely.
Lulav: Unfortunately, she lost the one with the grandfather's notes.
Jaz: Mm.
Lulav: The only answer we received from Bec, @vsoJuniper was to the question, "What’s the gayest thing you’ve ever done during a Jewish holiday?" And they say:
Jaz: "Got —" (overlapping)
Lulav: "Got engaged —" oh, you go.
Jaz: No, you go! (laughs)
Lulav: "Got to my long distance lesbian partner when they were visiting for Hannukah."
Jaz: I really appreciate that Bec hopped on this just to answer that question.
Lulav: (laughs) Do you know Bec?
Jaz: No!
Lulav: Oh, okay. (laughs)
Jaz: Also, that's not true. Bec answered our afikomen question also.
Lulav: Okay.
Jaz: But still real good.
Lulav: I'm so glad. Baruch HaShem.
Jaz: We did ask people "What’s the gayest thing you’ve ever done during a Jewish holiday?" and I love all of the answers to that (Lulav laughs) and I want to just read a few of them. Some of them are about, explaining to families about the orange on the seder plate thing —
Lulav: Uh huh. (laughs)
Jaz: And shout out to Nora, who came on an episode earlier and also answered this question by saying, "I came out to my hillel eboard as trans during passover seder planning." Which is like —
Lulav: Kasher koach, girl.
Jaz: Yes, such a power mood.
Lulav: Also, the aforementioned Jessica has two shirts. The one that they mention in this answer is, "The Shabbat Bride Is My Girlfriend" which they were going to wear to one or more parts of my community's Purim celebrations before those got cancelled. Whoops.
Jaz: Uh huh.
Lulav: They also have a wonderful shirt that says, "Chava did nothing wrong."
Jaz: That's so good. I saw that on Twitter the other day. Yeah.
Lulav: Good. It's an excellent shirt.
Jaz: It's very good. I'm just going to give a quick shout out here to Tova, whose only answer to this was "ask lulav ;)" with a wink, so...
Lulav: I can't remember what they mean by that? (Jaz laughs) I mean, one gay thing that we did on a Jewish holiday was like, light the menorah together —
Jaz: Aw, cute.
Lulav: At a festival that they've been going to since they were a very small child, possibly an infant. That was gay in the, like, Ruth sense.
Jaz: Sure.
Lulav: Like, multiple times over those few days, I was just thinking, like, your people are my people.
Jaz: Aw!
Lulav: Your people are mine.
Jaz: That's so cute!
Lulav: And I think I did make them cry by mentioning that on the ride home, so.
Jaz: Awww! Okay, we asked for some unique Passover traditions, and one of them — okay, it's a Jewish survey, so I don't know, there wasn't a pronunciation guide. This person's name is either Sharon or Sharon or Sharon (like shu-Ron).
Lulav: Probably Sharon? (saying it the first, most American way)
Jaz: Probably. Look, my family is friends with someone named Sharon (pronouncing it the third way, like shu-Ron); I don't — you know — anyway, I'm sorry we don't know how to pronounce your name. (Lulav laughs) She says that something they do is "Putting matzah balls in hot and sour soup," the Chinese food. Which sounds actually delicious.
Lulav: What a good idea. Cuz like, the most important part of matzah ball soup is the matzah balls, not necessarily the chicken broth, so —
Jaz: Yeah, yeah, definitely. Also somebody who did not give their name said, "We use masks for each plague and flick frogs at each other!" Which is delightful.
Lulav: I'm guessing this is like origami frogs?
Jaz: Maybe they're just like, toy frogs?
Lulav: But just like, the terror of "We flick frogs at each other!" (Both laugh) Ariel @arielnkates writes, "I write haggadot on a theme every year."
Jaz: That's so cool.
Lulav: It's so cool.
Jaz: And seems like a lot of work, but also really cool. I enjoy Nora's answer, because I think it's very emblematic of "two Jews, three opinions" which is "We do many parts of the seder twice, as my family cant agree on which tune they like best so we just do them all. Also we do the plagues twice, first with toys and plastic frogs flying around and then again with the seriousness it deserves." (laughs)
Lulav: Okay, plastic. Cool. (laughs)
Jaz: Good.
Lulav: Good. Speaking of writing haggadot on theme, Ariel also says to "What's a part of the haggadah that you'd like to offer a piece of commentary on?" "Um, is this a taunt? I’m obsessed with commenting on every part of the haggadah. Though last year we had a great talk about why the rabbis might have conceived of the four children as they did, and it had genuinely never occurred to folks that the children were someone’s idea vs canon. That was a fun conversation."
Jaz: That sounds really rad. Nice job.
Lulav: Yeah. I love over-analyzing things.
Jaz: No, really? (laughs)
Lulav: Whoa! (Laughs)
Jaz: I'm just saying, the thing we do, every week, is we're like, (Lulav laughs) hmm, let's do a close reading, for fun. (Lulav laughs)
Lulav: Okay, did you see the tweet that I made that was like, my love language? People absolutely owning me (laughs) by mentioning my many faults. (Jaz laughs) Good.
Jaz: I also really enjoyed this one, also from Ariel, "I dream of a poetry Seder with my queer instead of bio family."
Lulav: Yeah.
Jaz: That's so lovely. I also want poetry at my seders with lots of queer people.
Lulav: Yeah. And a fairly common response that we got, Ariel phrases as "We don’t sing because no one but me knows the songs :("
Jaz: Yeah.
Lulav: And Rachel says, "We don't sing, really. Can barely get through Dayeinu."
Jaz: I'm so grateful that my seder has songs.
Lulav: And speaking of songs, Tova says in answer to "What is the weirdest song you sing at Pesach?" "whatever cringey parodies shir tikvah comes up with."
Jaz: Fair enough.
Lulav: I love Reform shuls for many reasons and this is not one of them. (both laughs)
Jaz: I have to plead the fifth on whether I love Reform shuls as a concept (Lulav laughs) but I do like cringey song parodies, so, on the other hand... (laughs)
Lulav: Speaking of commentary, can you read Tova's part of the haggadah that they'd like to offer a piece of commentary on?
Jaz: I love this so much. Tova's just like, "haggadon't." (Lulav laughs)
Lulav: I love them a lot.
Jaz: Yeah. Is there anything else that we wanted to particularly highlight that people said?
Lulav: I mean, this is a relatable thing, as you might be able to tell from me telling six different versions of janky seders from the last six years, Tova says, "my family doesn't really do pesach together anymore, so my main pesach tradition is seeing which one of my queer jewish friends is hosting a seder i can tag along to. usually i make this even more exciting by waiting until the day before pesach and frantically asking around."
Jaz: Yeah.
Lulav: Which, mood.
Jaz: On the absolute flip side of that, Nora says, "This is the first time in 6 years im not leading a seder." (Lulav chuckles) "I'm both deeply missing it and so intensely relieved" (Lulav laughs)
Lulav: We asked "What does your perfect seder look like?" We got a lot of stuff about community.
Jaz: And accessibility.
Lulav: Yeah. So we have a variety of answers as to length there. Tova says, "reasonably short, lots of singing" and as I mentioned before, Sharon says, "OH I'd want it to incorporate learning, at each part of the seder, about what the thing is, what it means spiritually, how/when it became part of the seder and what those people intended it to mean, space to find our own meaning and intention, and then space to translate that intention into actions that create a more compassionate and supportive world." So like, over-analysis fist bump. That sounds great.
Jaz: Yeah. I don't really relate to seders that aren't very long experiences (Lulav laughs) but I do think that you can build in bits that are more chill if you're doing an all-day type of thing, and ours are an all-day type of thing because we're cooking in the morning, and then we don't actually have the seder till like, afternoon/evening.
Lulav: Yeah. And just one part that I really liked from that answer is "There is so much space in this story to learn from history and find more ways to pull action based on compassion into our lives, instead of just relearning the story at face value."
Jaz: Mm.
Lulav: And I like that, because the commandment is to tell your kids about leaving Egypt. It's not just to tell your kid about leaving Egypt and leave it at that.
Jaz: Yeah. No, and there is supposed to be part of a, like, as if it was us. You gotta imagine it as if it were us.
Lulav: Mm hmm.
Jaz: And I think there's really things beautiful there. Like, DiCo pointed out something in his thing. He cited a bit by Rabbi David Forhman that the turning the Nile to blood "was not a random magic trick but a deep symbolism that would have shown the people that God had indeed had heard their cries and seen their suffering because this was the same Nile that their baby boys had been murdered in."
Lulav: Yeah.
Jaz: "When they looked at it, surely all they could think about was how it carried the blood of their children, even when it looked just like a regular river. The sign of turning the river into blood was not just demonstrating a random magic trick but instead was Moses making manifest what the people were already feeling, and in so doing, demonstrating to the people that God had indeed heard their cries."
Lulav: Yeah.
Jaz: And then DiCo added, "I challenged people last year at my seder to think about what would such a sign... look like" of, G-d hearing our cries today?
Lulav: Yeah.
Jaz: And was like, maybe it wouldn't look like something turning to blood. Maybe we'd think about what are the horrible things that are happening now. So I thought that was an interesting food for thought. Also, Lulav, you said one that you particularly resonated with. I wanted to shout out Izzy's, as something that I vibe with as the perfect seder, that said, "Deeply communal, all the people I love and all the people they love around one lovely table singing and eating and laughing and sharing radical torah! Also lots of candles."
Lulav: Gotta have lots of candles.
Jaz: Yeah, I dunno! It was lovely.
Lulav: Mm. That's really cool. Thank you so much everyone for sending your answers in.
Jaz: Yeah!
Lulav: They're really wonderful.
Jaz: Really appreciated it and we're glad that this little bit of our very long Pesach episode got to include people that weren't just us.
Lulav: Yeah.
Jaz: Like you all said, should be communal.
Lulav: We got more answers than this, I want to be clear, and they were good answers; We're just also at two hours and 10 minutes of recording time. (laughs)
Jaz: Yeah. Yeah.
Lulav: So (laughs) I think we're going to call it here.
Jaz: Oh yeah.
Lulav: Jaz, can you take us to the close?
Jaz: I sure can. Thanks for listening to Kosher Queers! If you like what you’ve heard, you can support us on Patreon at patreon.com/kosherqueers, which will give you bonus content and help us keep making this for you. You can also follow us on Twitter @kosherqueers or like us on Facebook at Kosher Queers, or email us your questions, comments, and concerns at kosherqueers@gmail.com, and please spread the word about our podcast! Our artwork is by the talented Lior Gross. Our music is courtesy of the fabulous band Brivele, whose work you can find on Bandcamp. Go buy their album, they’re great. Our sound production this week is done by my lovely and long-suffering co-host, Lulav Arnow.
Lulav: Jaz, thank you so much for that compliment, but I think we should, at this point, let our people go. (Jaz laughs) Our full transcripts, as with every episode, are done by DiCo and Jaz and definitely accessible through our episode descriptions on Buzzsprout!
Jaz: I’m Jaz Twersky and you can find me @WordNerdKnitter on Twitter. I recorded this audio on the traditional lands of the Lenape people.
Lulav: I’m Lulav Arnow and you can find me @spacetrucksix on Twitter, or yell at me @palmliker! I recorded this audio on the traditional lands of the Wahpékute and Anishinaabeg. Have a lovely queer Jewish day!
[Brivele outro music]
Jaz: This week's gender is: the 11th plague.
Lulav: This week's pronouns are: rad and cool.