essays on life...by me

Tag: Passover

Passover 2015

The matzah is all done with and this year’s Passover Seder with my Jewish-American-Swedish family is now just a pleasant memory. I thought I would post in this blog my little speech that I started off this year’s Seder with. In light of what has been happening in Europe these past few years I thought some things were important to say. Here’s what I said.

Hi Everyone. I’m very glad to see you all again this year.

I’m going to start off by saying that the past 12 months since last we met to celebrate Passover together, have been very stressful ones for me. Finding out last year, that I was not going to have a job by the end of this year would have sufficed to make my year difficult, all by itself. Then in May, I got sued for nonpayment of taxes on my little piece of property in the US and that alone once again, sufficed to make me very stressed. And finally in October, Håkan had a stroke and spent 2 months in the hospital, sufficing to send my stress levels sky high. So all in all, 2014 was not a good year.

But here I stand, with all of you sitting here with me, once again getting ready to celebrate the seminal event of the Jewish people. Passover, the story of the Exodus of our People out of their slavery in Egypt into freedom so that they could live freely as Jews.

At first I almost decided to not bother saying anything to start us off but then I realized that there was something that needed to be said.

Recently the prime minister of Israel announced to all the Jews in the Diaspora, especially in Europe, that they should return home to Israel. That Israel was the only safe place for us to live as Jews. We read in the news of the fear French Jews have about remaining in France. Synagogues are being attacked. Jews are being killed for being Jews. Anti-Semitism is raising its ugly head once again here in Europe. Even as close as Copenhagen, a synagogue has been attacked and a Jew killed in defending it. So what do we do? Do we flee in fear of what might happen? Do we pack up and move? Do we try to hide, not telling anyone we are Jewish? Do we close our curtains when we celebrate Passover or when we light the Chanukah lights so no one can tell we are different? Is danger just around the corner or is it still a long way in the future but coming nevertheless? Did the Jews in 15th century Spain, years before the expulsion, wonder if it was possible to continue to live there and maybe they should move? The majority of the Jews in 1930s Germany certainly didn’t think so. Are we being just as blind?

2000 years ago, the Romans expelled the Jews from their homeland, rather than murdering them all, thus casting them out onto the shores of many other lands. These Diaspora Jews found new homes and new ways to be able to continue to live as Jews in spite of the fact that the center of Jewish life, their Temple in Jerusalem, had been destroyed. If the Jews of that time, had simply been annihilated right where they lived as well as the temple being destroyed, then the Jewish people probably would not have survived to today. But we are still here. We learned how to continue to live as Jews in many different lands. We survived precisely because we no longer lived in only one place anymore. I am a Diaspora Jew. I am not an Israeli and I don’t intend to move there. While I come from the United States, my home is here in Sweden, in Europe, and I doubt I will ever move back there again. The Bible says that the Jews will be a light unto the Nations. Well, I say, how can we even begin to be that unless we live among the Nations.

Four hundred years ago, when Kings had real power, the king of Spain wanted us out. Ninety years ago the chancellor of Germany wanted us dead. But governments today, for the most part, don’t feel that way – we are seen as equal citizens with guaranteed equal rights – at least in Europe and the west. And I accept that as reality.

So today I stand here in Stockholm, with my Jewish family, about to celebrate the Passover. When people who I meet or know slightly have asked my for my plans for Easter I feel no hesitation in telling them I don’t celebrate Easter. I am a Jew. I celebrate Passover. And if we have time I tell them what it is that I am celebrating. They always appear very interested in hearing what I have to say about it. I feel that that is my small contribution to the light. And perhaps this coming year will be a better one.

Gathering

It’s now been 26 years since I left New York City and moved to Stockholm, leaving behind friends and family. For the past 15 years, I have been celebrating Jewish holidays here with a group of Jewish/American/Swedish families which, except for some occasional changes, have stayed pretty much the same. When we first started gathering, most of our kids were about the same young age. Now, a number of those kids are no longer kids but young adults starting their journey of independent life.  Throughout the years, we have tried to gather together each year to celebrate the Jewish holiday of Passover. This year we managed it once again. Everyone contributes something to the evening and I’m the one who assigns out the jobs – what to bring, who helps with what, etc. I am also the one who leads the service. I usually try to say a few words before starting the age-old ritual of telling the story of the Exodus to our children. The following is what I said this year.

Hi Everyone,

I am very glad to see you all here. Just in case no one remembers, I’ll remind you all that I usually like to tell a little story as an introduction to our Seder celebration. Last year, we didn’t have a Seder because it was fairly recently after my mother died and I didn’t feel up to organizing one.

I wasn’t sure if I was up to it this year either but here we are. I seem to have learned something this year and I think it relates to the reason we are here now, today and I want to tell you about it. One of the main characters, in the story we are about to tell, is this guy named Moses. Now while Moses ended up becoming a great leader of his people, he was far from perfect. He had a temper, got mad at things which he thought weren’t right, and wanted things to be done the way he thought they should be done (or depending on what you believe, the way God told him they should be done). Well, the past few weeks I’ve been feeling a bit like Moses. And I want to explain why.

This year the process of getting all of us to this place, here, this evening, had quite a few twists and turns. When I first floated the idea of doing our Seder again this year, I was very hesitant, but I was told “Don’t worry Hilarie, you don’t have to do it alone. We will help you.”  So I gathered my strength and decided to go ahead with it.

In an effort to be democratic and not dictatorial I asked which day would the group prefer to meet – Thursday or Friday. Pretty much everyone, except Janet (who told me she had to work a half day that Thursday) said both days would work fine. So in trying to be considerate towards Carly’s plans for vacation, the Shevin’s plans for the countryside, Risa’s undecided vacation plans, Marina’s busy schedule and Barbara’s, too, I choose Thursday. But then 2 weeks later, after I’ve sent out the plans for the day, suddenly everyone is coming back with telling me that they are working on Thursday. And will be late, and don’t have time, and can’t do the complicated things. As I sat there reading these emails, I wondered how come no one told me this earlier? Where was all the help that I was promised?

And like Moses I got angry, and annoyed and very disappointed. I didn’t know what to do with those feelings. So last week I spent my whole session at my shrink’s talking about it. First she asks me, “But why do you have to be the one to do all the planning and organizing?” I sat there and looked at her for a while. It’s not the first time I’ve discussed this group with her. Finally I said, “Because it’s my tribe, I’m their Rebbe.” Now like Moses, I too, am far from being a perfect person. One of my less likable traits is that I often have a hard time accepting people as they are. So my shrink listens to what I said, and she sits back and says, “hmmm… But you know these people Hilarie, you know what they are like, who they are, what to expect from them. Why can’t you accept them for what you know they are?” I sat there and suddenly this calm came over me and I realized she was right. And all the anger, the annoyance and the disappointment disappeared. So I set to work to solve whatever problems there were to organize this evening. And here we all are. I am among my family, surrounded by them. 

So let us now start to tell the story of how a much more important, imperfect leader led a very unruly folk out of slavery in Egypt to freedom.

And we did. We told the story of freedom, we asked the 4 questions, we talked about the 4 types of people and we blessed 4 glasses of wine. And then when the ritual was all over we served up the dinner and ate, food from our memories – hard boiled eggs, gefilte fish, chicken soup with matzah balls, lamb with roasted potatoes and parsnips and lots of desserts. Our children ate and talked and joked with each other like cousins. And these friends, these parents, these new “siblings” that I have gathered and brought together to eat with me and share with me. My minyan, my Jewish family here in Stockholm. And it was a very good Seder.

Chanukah in Swedish

In just a few days, Chanukah, the Jewish festival of lights, will start. I wrote this piece sometime in 2004 but since its that time again I thought I would put it up now. A few things have changed since I wrote it. My son is no longer in 1st grade but in his last year of school before going on to college next fall. We eventually did do a presentation of Passover when he was in 4th or 5th grade, which was a big success. The Swedish Church has now been separated from the state and is trying to figure out how to survive in this very secular country. In the spring, Bevin will have a course called “Religion”. We’ll see just how multi-cultural the class will be. Maybe Bevin will have to give a talk about his religion once again.

Moving from the United States to a land like Sweden is often fraught with surprises. Of course one expects to find differences – the language for instance, or foods like Falukorv and Tunbrödsrullar, and Lutfisk. Clothing and shoe sizes are different and so are the measuring cups. Remember the metric system that the states spent 30 years trying to introduce and failed? Well it’s here, in use every day. And don’t forget the price of gasoline – 4 dollars a gallon! And how about liqueur stores open on Saturday night so you can buy a last minute bottle of wine for the dinner party you just got invited too? Well, forget it! But overall, there are a lot of similarities too. Cars drive on the right side of the road. Traffic lights are red, yellow, and green. The Big Macs taste the same. So do the Kellogg’s Corn Flakes. TV shows from the States are all in English as long as they are for people over the age of 7 or 8. You can watch British Masterpiece Theater programs (often before they arrive in the States) though they are not called Masterpiece Theater here. The clothes people wear are often produced in the Far East and lots of the toys are made in China. Barbie is easily available and so are potato chips and microwave popcorn. Its when you find differences in areas you didn’t expect that you get surprised.

Being Jewish in Swedish

Once again this is something I wrote awhile ago, around 2004. In the years that have passed, my son has had his Bar Mitzvah and I now sit on the board of an organization called Progressive Judendom i Stockholm. We are working to bring Reform Judiasm to Stockholm. And the group of J.A.P.S. that formed all those years ago still (with some comings and goings) meet for holidays and other times. Our children are like cousins to each other and the adults in the group are more than just friends. They have become family.

An American Jew in Stockholm

It’s funny how things change the older one gets – one’s sense of immortality, one’s idea of how to live a good life, the color of one’s hair, the list of things that are important.

I’ve spent a long time living here in Stockholm. I’ve spent an even longer time being Jewish – pretty much from birth, actually. My parents were Jewish. Both sets of grandparents were also Jewish. All my family and the relatives around me were Jewish. But I didn’t grow up in a Jewish neighborhood. From the time I was 4 years old till I was 18, I lived in a small town in the middle of northern New Jersey. All through grammar school I was the only Jewish kid in my class. And if there were any Jewish kids in the large regional high school I attended, I didn’t know them. I always had to get special permission to be absent from school on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. I then had to explain to my friends why I wasn’t in class. Getting permission wasn’t a problem and the explanations finally became routine but having to go through that process did contribute to making me feel different from all the rest.

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