When I told my Jewish-Iranian mother that I wasn’t going home for Passover last Sunday, she responded as though I’d told her I was going to unabomb a shelter for one-legged orphans, or, even worse, that I was going to marry a gentile — that is to say, with complete shock and horror. “Vhat? Vhat vill deh fameelee theenk?! You are coming home!” I tried explaining to her that my senior honors thesis was due today and that I didn’t have time for the 947 hour bus commute back to Long Island alongside mothers with their screaming monsters and other assorted overweight/toothless/Elephant Man-looking passengers, but it was no use: deadly Jewish Mother Guilt was upon me in full force.
Assuring her I would attend the seders on campus, which I did the next evening accompanied by my good friend Cheryl — who I had to bribe with the promise of macaroons and cute future lawyers — I was able to get out of my mother’s clutches with only one half hour lecture on how I was disappointing everyone we knew and forsaking family tradition.
Aside from the $35 (!) entrance fee, the Passover “Super Seder” in Barton was pretty much what I expected: tons of kids with their own Jewish mothers to answer to, tables full of fratholes and sorostitutes pilfering all the wine and the requisite “singles table” ... just in case. Taking our seats at the table with the shortest description we could find (yes, the tables actually had themes) in order to avoid an overly religious — a.k.a long — ceremony, Cheryl and I were ready for Passover in I-town.
To our delight, the Super Seder actually turned out to be a lot of fun. Our seder leader was an enthusiastic and well-prepared hottie of a freshman named Joe who kept the ceremony light but traditional, making sure that everyone participated. We also lucked out on our table choice, which was full of other seniors who were all really cool. What was most interesting was that the kid seated to my right wasn’t even Jewish — he was just “there for the experience,” which I suspect was code for “my roommates forced me to come.” Nevertheless, it was still pretty awesome to see some heterogeneity within what I had assumed would be a predominantly Jewish event.
The food consisted of standard Cornell Shabbat fare — broiled chicken, pulled beef, steamed carrots and some matzah ball soup for a dose of holiday spirit. While dinner was edible and even palatable, I’m still not exactly sure where the rest of my $35 went; however, as an overworked college kid subsisting exclusively off of Cocoa Puffs and Easy Mac for breakfast, lunch and dinner, it was still the most nutritious meal I’ve had in weeks. I won’t go into the dessert — orange frosted cake sans any leavening — but I will say that it may have been an actual relic from biblical times.
The truth is that Passover has never been my favorite holiday. I’ve never been able to escape rituals like house cleaning, which for my mother is akin to World War — I don’t think General Patton put as much strategic planning into beating the Germans as my mother does against bread crumbs each year — and the amount of time and effort annually expended in assembling 40 or so clashing family members together for seders could have been used to solve nuclear fusion by now. Not to mention that for as long as I can remember, my birthday has always fallen somewhere on the ass-end of this holiday, leading to years of inedible, centimeter-thick matzah cakes in my youth and a very sober and very sad 21st birthday in my adulthood. That, combined with the final insult of watching all my Christian friends receive Easter eggs and chocolate bunnies this time of year while I was left munching on a box of cardboard ... ah, I mean matzah ... that most gerbils wouldn’t eat, and suffice it to say that I’ve always been more of a Hannukah kind of gal.
Given all my gripes, I’m happy that this Passover — the final one of my college career — was such a fun one. Monday night reminded me how lucky we Jewish students at Cornell are to have a community that is so involved and does so much for us. From Shabbat dinners to Passover seders, Jewish tradition is not only alive at Cornell, but available for anyone who wants to find it. Not at one point throughout Monday’s seder did I feel pangs of homesickness for my family — I already felt like I was a part of another one. So to all my Jews out there, I would just like to say Chag Same’ach Pesach! Happy Passover, kids.
Jackie Levin is a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences. She can be reached at jl482@cornell.edu. Everything In Its Right Place appears alternate Fridays.