ellenkushner: (TEA)
ellenkushner ([personal profile] ellenkushner) wrote2009-04-11 02:27 pm
Entry tags:

Seder in the White House

Here's a photo!

Also, did you see the NTimes profile on Michelle O's cousin the Rabbi? Capers Funnye is in the "Hebrew Israelite" movement - a fascinating chapter of African-American history & culture all by itself - and also studied at a mainstream Jewish Spertus Institute. He leads a Hebrew Israelite congregation in Chicago. My favorite bit from the terrific article by Zev Chafets:
On one of the days I was there, in early February, I was the only white Jew in the shul, and an old guy in front of me kept turning around and showing me the right page. There’s a nudnik like him in every shul I’ve ever been to.

I forgave him, though, during the Torah service, when a young man faltered over the blessings and looked mortified. “Not your fault, young man,” the nudnik said. “The fire of the Torah burns so hot to where sometimes it just confuses your mind.”


Oh, yeah!

Delia & I are home now, and realizing we were so focused on getting my Mom's house Pesadikhe, we totally forgot to make sure we had any food when we got home! Shopping lists have now been made, and recipes dug out. We are doing half-measures (don't ask, Mom!) but trying to be strict about what we're eating for the remaining 6 days. It's an annual Spiritual and Physical Discipline I like to practice. Almost everything has to be prepared from scratch, from a limited set of ingredients. If I lived like this year-round, I'd surely weigh less and be healthier, too. I always watch what I eat (and don't have much of a sweet tooth), but I'm a big Grazer, and my Passover snacking options are limited to Fruit & Nuts.... Every year I think I should at least make a stab at it. But it's Work, and I never can. At least this is an 8-day period when I am supremely Conscious of what I eat, and that carries a little.

It also means I get to tell my favorite Matzah joke again! (Just consider me the annoying uncle who asks each year if you've heard this one, and ignores you if you say, YES!):

So (famous blind musician) Ray Charles goes to a Passover Seder, and they hand him a big square piece of matzah. He holds onto it for a moment . . . .
. . . and then exclaims,
"Who wrote this shit?"

[identity profile] orbitalmechanic.livejournal.com 2009-04-12 01:47 am (UTC)(link)
What a wonderful picture! And if it's posed, they did get everyone leaning all over the place and talking at the same time, which is just how it ought to be.

Those perfect individual seder plates crack me up, too.

[identity profile] ellen-kushner.livejournal.com 2009-04-12 02:21 pm (UTC)(link)
Me, too. I wonder if someone was Not Quite Clear on the Concept? Actually, reminds me a lot of that article I linked to, "The Mystery of the Four Cups"
http://www.uscj.org/The_Mystery_of_the_F7973.html:
- argh, wait, where's the illo? Not there! Well, in the magazine it was illustrated by a Medieval Woodcut of a seder, where each person literally has 4 cups in front of each place. Theories abound - including the notion that it was carved by someone who had never been to a seder, heard about the 4 cups of wine each person drank, and thought, "Well, OK, if they say so...."!

[identity profile] llennhoff.livejournal.com 2009-04-13 06:37 pm (UTC)(link)
The leaders guide to A Different Night, The Family Participation Haggadah (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0966474007?ie=UTF8&tag=lennhoff-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0966474007) recommends one seder plate per 3 or 4 people at the seder. At our own seder each person has a plate with two kinds of charoset (Ashkenazi and Turkish) romaine lettuce, and horseradish. It saves on distribution during that part of the seder. (We don't bother giving everyone a shank bone and a roasted hard boiled egg that they aren't going to eat).