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last few days
They used a haggadah edited by Ellie Wiesel. It looked like a book that would be interesting to peruse with more time; maybe at some point I'll borrow a copy. A couple people got tripped up on the fact that it's not gender-neutral (or, as they like to say, "gender-sensitive"); that doesn't bother me. I can use a masculine pronoun for God or talk about our forefathers without blinking.
We were doing the "go around the table" style of reading the haggadah, and when it got to me on one pass we were at a Habrew section that Aya wanted us to read (rather than just doing the translation). The print was a little small, with the irritating problem that I sometimes mistook dalets for reishes, gimels for nuns, and that sort of thing. People were understanding. Other than that I read well if slowly, and Aya's father, who was sitting next to me, helped me out when I stumbled. If I had glanced at the translation before starting I would have avoided some of the stumbling just by knowing what words to expect; I'll try to remember that next time.
Aya made her own gefilte fish. It was very good. It had an interesting twist: each piece was wrapped in a cabbage leaf, like for cabbage rolls. I'll have to ask her if that was a post-processing step or if she boiled the fish that way, wrapped in cabbage. (For Karen: it was the sweet fish.)
Because of the congregational critical mass, during dinner a discussion broke out about some recent angst among part of the congregation. I felt we were being rude and tried to redirect the conversation with only limited success. Oh well; I hope the family and non-congregational friends were able to ignore that side trip. It's no fun to hear about other people's gossip when you don't know anyone involved. :-)
An older couple left fairly soon after dinner (around
10:00), which set in motion a chain of departures.
(There was one younger person there who had to go
to school the next day, so he and his father left
then too.) When people were done following suit,
it was just the family and me. Aya had been saying
all evening that she really wanted to sing after dinner,
and I also enjoy this, so I told them, basically,
I'll stay as late as you like and finish the haggadah
and sing, but you should feel free to say "Monica,
go home already!" if I miss subtle hints. That
worked out very well, and it didn't actually run
all that much later. (I left around 11:30, I think.)
Then Thursday it was off to Toronto. Fortunately, Dani was feeling much better. Crossing the border was innocuous in both directions, though the US guard looked at us funny when we said we were married. You would think that no one would be surprised by last names that don't match these days. (This was also the first time I had to show photo ID. Dani always has to show his green card, but they've never challenged me before.)
We got to Debby and Tucker's around 3:00. They were hosting that night's seder, so we helped them make food. They have a very good kitchen for groups of people, with both shmooze space and work space. (They redid the kitchen when they bought the house, so you would expect it to meet their needs.) The seder (as opposed to the dinner) was brief, especially in comparison to Wednesday's; this family tends to rush through the haggadah and skip a lot of parts. There were a couple of small children there, one of whom was being very bad (and yes, he's old enough to know better), and that probably didn't tempt people to linger over the text. The meal was tasty, and unlike past years we did at least make an attempt at the after-meal part of the haggadah. Not a very successful attempt, but I hope they keep trying.
They use a home-brew haggadah (that leaves a bunch of stuff out already). I found myself inserting the appropriate brachot (blessings) quietly, but I wasn't going to push the matter. I was amused that on some other points Debby turned to me, and not her father, for guidance. (Things like "do we say shehechiyanu tonight?" (no).)
Dani's parents are divorced, which means that his
parents will never be at the same seder. This seder
included Dani's father and the swarm of relatives
of Dani's father's second wife. These children were
adults when they got married, and they got married
when Dani was also an adult, so while they are technically
step-siblings to him, they're really not related in
any meaningful way. And if it's not meaningful for
him it's certainly not going to be meaningful
for me. So at seders or other gatherings
with that side of the family, I end up trying to
stay in the background and be quiet. I'm really
glad that wasn't my only seder this year!
Talk of SARS is everywhere in Toronto, but it doesn't seem to be keeping people from going out. Friday we accompanied Debby and Tucker to a crafts show; it was smaller than last year's but well-attended. And Saturday night after Shabbat we went to see Second City (fun show), which was also well-attended. I thought our brief brush with the outskirts of Chinatown on Friday was a bad idea, but it wasn't prolonged and I think it was ok.
Saturday morning I went to Beth Tzedec (Conservative) for services. I was met at the door by a security guard who directed me to the SARS instruction sheet, which said, basically, "no kissing (not even the Torah), no handshakes, kiddush is cancelled, and don't enter this building if [list of conditions here]". We heard some horror stories from Debby (who works in a hospital) about entire congregations, workplaces, etc having to go into quarantine because of contact with one person, so I guess that makes sense, but it still surprised me a little. I mean, if I'm in the same room as someone and breathing the same air, does it really matter if I shake his hand?
Beth Tzedec is a huge congregation, probably about the size of Holy Blossom (where I went last year). If I had to hazard a guess based on Shabbat attendance and the size of the sanctuary, I'd say 2000 families. Rabbi Berkun had told me last week, when I asked about it, that they are "not at all" egalitarian and that I wouldn't find that in Toronto, so I was pleasantly surprised to see women in the choir and two women called to the Torah. One was a bat mitzvah and the other was celebrating a special birthday (60?), so maybe it takes something like that for a woman to get onto the bimah and I just had a lucky observation. And the bat mitzvah didn't do anything in the service except get an aliya (not even maftir, so she didn't read haftarah).
That congregation has a very good cantor. His voice was very good, he could be heard, he articulated very well, and his Hebrew was excellent. And as a bonus, it was Sephardi pronunciation, like I'm used to, and not Ashkenazi.
We spent most of the time there being "on" with various family members. While visiting is preferable to being bored because everyone is off doing stuff and we can't really go anywhere, it's also wearing. I really wish there were a practical way to visit with Dani's family in smaller doses. We visit with my family several times a year, in 6-8 hour doses, which works well -- but they're local, so we can.
I also wish some of his family would come to Pittsburgh occasionally; the burden shouldn't always be on us to go there. Looking ahead, next year's seders are on Monday and Tuesday, which means there'll probably be pressure for us to come up the previous weekend. I think I'm going to lobby for driving up Monday, hitting the two seders, and leaving Wednesday. I probably won't get away with it, but I can try. (I won't give the effort four vacation days, so if we extend the trip it will be by going up Sunday.)
The rest stop at Angola in New York has toilets with sensors that automatically flush when you stand up. Next time I find myself having to travel on Shabbat or Yom Tov, when I'm a little funny about random electrical devices that can be avoided, I'll know to stop elsewhere.
The Denny's at Angola has exactly one meal-sized thing that I could eat today on the way back (tuna salad with greens). I thought they used to have a fruit salad and maybe one other member of the tossed-salad family that didn't include meat or pasta. Also, a glance at their dinner menu produced nothing that was either vegetarian or fish (kosher species). They have lots of meat and shrimp. So even during non-Pesach trips, it's not as good an option as it used to be.
Toronto has a restaurant chain called Pickle Barrel (probably lots of other cities do too, but Pittsburgh isn't among them). We went to the same instance on Friday that we went to last year, specifically because of their fruit salad. It's enormous, and it's basically just chunks of fresh fruit (no dressings or other pesky things to worry about). Both times, I took away as much as I ate. This is a good option for those situations where people really want to go out for food. Left to my own devices I would not enter any (non-kosher) restaurant during Pesach; if I have to, I look for dishes that have no problem ingredients and that are not cooked, because I'm not going to rely on their cookware being chametz-free. I suppose, technically, I am applying higher standards during Pesach than during the year, when I'll eat cooked vegetarian/fish dishes in restaurants, but I'm ok with that. Chametz gets stressed a lot in the Torah; things like separate dishes for meat and dairy are rabbinic fences.
I learned two new euphemisms during this trip:
- "highway maintenance ahead"; yes, the sign was orange. That's putting a positive spin on construction, I'd say.
- "unprotected contact", which seems to mean being within 15 feet of someone without wearing a full-body condom. (Well, mask, gown, and gloves; they don't seem to be doing the hats and booties.)
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Dang! Of course you're right. Thanks for correcting me!